Many people, particularly politicians, like to use the popular “duck test” when making a point about a particular issue or object – “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”
Did you know that the phrase “if it looks like a duck…” was originally about a mechanical pooing duck?
In 1738 a French automaton maker fooled the world into thinking he’d replicated life, and accidentally created a flippant philosophical conundrum we are still using.
Although the first printed example is thought to be from an American poet in the 19th century, legend has it that people were saying this long before, in the 18th century, about a certain mechanical duck. And they were being very serious.
That mechanical duck was built to astound audiences, by quacking, moving it’s head to eat some grain which the mechanical marvel seemingly digested and then after a short time, the machine would round things off by plopping out a dollop of, what has been described as, foul smelling sh*t.
It just goes to show how more refined things in the 21st century are in comparison to the 18th century – as this automatic waterfowl was famous throughout Europe!
Not surprising then that the phrase entered common parlance.
While the general populace today is less likely to be taken in by a brass clockwork automaton, we still have a real life example in today’s political “leaders” of both sides of the aisle.
Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov used a version of the Duck Test in 2015 in response to allegations that Russian airstrikes in Syria were not targeting terrorist groups, primarily ISIS, but rather West-supported groups such as the Free Syrian Army. When asked to elaborate his definition of ‘terrorist groups’, he replied:
If it looks like a terrorist, if it acts like a terrorist, if it walks like a terrorist, if it fights like a terrorist, it’s a terrorist.
In their own way, today’s politicians walk, quack, flap, swim, consume wealth and gift us with copious amounts of organic effluviant.
So, if it walks like a duck…
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