When you explore something on the net, your searches come back to you in messages of all sorts. So when I looked around at rubber ducks / duckies — for a posting on the 9th — I set off duck alarms in several quarters, most impressively at amazon.com, which is now enticing me with a gigantic array of artificial quackers, in all sizes, colors, and types. I am especially taken with these little guys:
The Fun Express Assorted Rubber Ducks, 50 little pieces in a bag, from Rhode Island Novelty, elsewhere described as a “Vinyl Rubber Ducky Assortment”.
As I noted in earlier postings, rubber duck and rubber ducky have become fixed idiomatic expressions. In at least some of their occurrences, these expressions no longer contain rubber referring to a substance or material — thus allowing vinyl rubber ducks (above), which would otherwise be as oxymoronic as plastic glass bowl or aluminum steel rod.
I noted in the earlier postings that rubber duck is also resembloid rather than subsective, thus allowing both
cowboy rubber duck, dragon rubber duck dragon, penguin rubber duck, cow rubber duck,… : X rubber duck ‘rubber duck representing an X’
and also
rubber duck cowboy, rubber duck dragon, rubber duck penguin, rubber duck cow,… : rubber duck X ‘X-simulacrum in the form of a rubber duck’
They’re sold as party favors and decorations. They won’t float in water; in fact, they’re reported to sink like little stones. They’re mini-ducks, only about 1 3/4 in high, and they come loose in a bag, in a random assortment. All 50 for only US$20.06, on sale.
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