Today’s phrase, playing at / making ducks and drakes, refers to skipping stones across a water surface, much like the image of a waterbird coming in for a watery landing. By 1614, the meaning had come to be associated with squandering or throwing one’s money away needlessly, much like stones were tossed away in stone-skipping.
The first written evidence of the phrase was in 1585, The nomenclator, or remembrancer of Adrianus Junius, translated by John Higgins:
“A kind of sport or play with an oister shell or stone throwne into the water, and making circles yer it sinke, etc. It is called a ducke and a drake, and a halfe-penie cake.”
These two terms also appear in nursery rhymes; the first, found in A History of Nursery Rhymes (1899) by Percy B. Green, where he mentions that this rhyme was repeated when skimming stones:
A duck, a drake, a barley cake,
A penny to pay the baker;
A hop, a scotch, another notch –
Slitherum, slitherum, take her.
The “barley cake” is “halfpenny cake” in this 1916 version of The Real Mother Goose:
A duck and a drake,
And a halfpenny cake,
With a penny to pay the old baker.
A hop and a scotch
Is another notch,
Slitherum, slatherum, take her.
In 1626, it is mentioned in the play Dick of Devon: “The poorest ship-boy Might on the Thames make duckes and drakes with pieces Of eight fetchd out of Spayne.”
Many cultures share the simple pastime of stone tossing, with their own terms for it: American English, skipping stones; British English, skimming stones or ducks and drakes; in Scottish, Skiting or Skliffing; in Irish, stone skiffing. In French, making ricochets (faire des ricochets); in German, stone flitting (Steinehüpfen); in various languages such as Bulgarian, Greek, Latvian and Lithuanian, their terms refer to frogs rather than ducks. In Japanese, cutting water. In Norwegian, fish bounce (fiskesprett). In Portuguese, either water shearing (capar a água) or making tiny hats (fazer chapeletas). The list goes on and on!
The oldest reference to the pastime goes back to the 2nd century AD by the Greek scholar Julius Pollux; in the 3rd century, Marcus Minucius Felix (a Latin writer) mentions children skipping shells on the beach.
Today, of course, it has become a serious competition for some. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the record for the number of skips is 88, held by Kurt Steiner; the furthest distance for men is 121.8m, made by Scotsman Dougie Isaacs, and 52.5m for women, thrown by Nina Luginbuhl from Switzerland.
The next time you’re out at a lake or shore, toss a stone and remember the long and colourful history of ducks, drakes, frogs, fish, hats and water!
Stephanie Huesler 