To step on a duck is to fart, but not just any old fart. The step on a duck fart is said to be one that is so loud that it sounds like the squawking of a duck in distress. The idiom is usually spoken by a bystander wishing to point out the fart to everyone nearby and not an attempt by the person to deflect his or her embarrassment at the indelicate passing of gas.
The expression seems to be so well-known that Jim Dawson published a book in 2010 titled, “Did Somebody Step On A Duck: A Natural History of the Fart.”
INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 1: Jim Dawson is a California-based writer who specializes in American pop culture. A decade before publishing “Did Somebody Step On A Duck” he published “Who Cut THe Cheese: A Cultural History of the Fart” which went on to become a top-seller.
Oddly enough, thirty-five years ago, Rodney Dangerfield’s character, Al Czervik, asked if somebody stepped on a duck when he broke wind loudly at dinner in the 1980 movie, “Caddyshack” starring Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Scott Colomby. The movie was written by Brian Doyle-Murray, Harold Ramis, and Douglas Kenney of National Lampoon magazine fame.
The history of this expression is difficult to trace. Idiomation’s research found a recipe for a duck fart shot consisting of Kahlua, Bailey’s Irish Cream and Crown Royal (and poured in that order) hailing from Anchorage, Alaska. It was created by bartender Dave Schmidt while working at the Peanut Farm Bar and Grill (on the corner of Old Seward Highway and International Street) in December 1987. The media covered the story of the shot in an article in the Anchorage Daily News newspaper.
Oddly enough, before White Sox announcer and former professional baseball player Hawk Harrelson (born September 4, 1941) made the term more family friendly in the 1980s, the duck snort was called a duck fart. And what is a duck snort or a duck fart in baseball terms? It’s a ball that softly hit ball that goes over the infielders and lands in the outfield for a hit.
And in the 1940s, according to “Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang” compiled and published by Jonathon Green, a duck fart referred to the plopping sound a stone made when it fell into the water.
But there doesn’t seem to be any indication how stepping on a duck came to mean farting loudly. To this end, the expressions seems to reach back only as far as 1980. However, there’s a lot of history behind the concept, not the least of which is a political connection.
As many of us know, there’s a certain juvenile humor when it comes to farting, not the least of which is a popular poem that was written as a result of an unfortunate incident on March 4, 1607 involving Henry Ludlow in the House of Commons. The poem (which was endlessly copied, recopied, and shared liberally) published in 1607 was titled, “The Censure of the Parliament Fart.” The incident happened as Sir John Crooke was giving a speech, and he took the fart as a personal insult. For readers’ amusement, this is the opening volley of the poem.
Never was bestowed such art
Upon the tuning of a Fart.
Downe came grave auntient Sir John Crooke
And redd his message in his booke.
Fearie well, Quoth Sir William Morris, Soe:
But Henry Ludlowes Tayle cry’d Noe.
Up starts one fuller of devotion
Then Eloquence; and said A very ill motion
Not soe neither quoth Sir Henry Jenkin
The Motion was good; but for the stincking
Well quoth Sir Henry Poole it was a bold tricke
To Fart in the nose of the bodie pollitique.
IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE 2: Sir John Crooke sat in Parliament in 1584, 1597, and 1601. Henry Ludlow sat in the 1601 and 1604 Parliament as a member of the Inner Temple. In other words, the two were in Parliament together in 1601.
IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE 3: The poem became so famous by 1610 that it was cited in Ben Jonson’s play, “The Alchemist.” The play (which opens with a fart) includes a reference to the poem by Sir Epicure Mammon.
All this being said, the connection between stepping on a duck and loud farts is one that escaped Idiomation’s research. Perhaps one of Idiomation’s readers has proof as to who first wrote or said this, or where it first appeared in print.
Historically Speaking 