Underdog or Underduck?
Loveda in Traverse City
called because she and her daughter-in-law call the same action by different
names, and she wanted to know which one was correct. The action takes place on
a swing set. The pusher runs under the swing and then lets go. Loveda calls it
underdog. The relative from Ohio calls it underduck.
We’re definitely in the
realm of regionalisms here. Which one is correct? It depends where you live.
When I used a search engine to see what I could find on the internet, I was
startled to find about 1,150 results. People get very opinionated about this
and hurl insults at each other. Even people living in the same state or
Canadian province disagree on which is “correct.”
The underduck contingent
maintains that you duck under the swing. The underdog folks say that you don’t
duck, you stand straight up and perform a feat worthy of the cartoon character
Underdog. They also point to the strong possibility that underduck is a
childish mishearing of underdog, especially in certain regional pockets.
I’m not going to commit
to either without definitive evidence. On the southside of Chicago many decades
ago, we called it “trying to strand your buddy on the swing crossbar, pinned by
chains.” It was a tough neighborhood.
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