Get Your Ducks in a Row

A phrase with no shortage of confident theories and no actual proof behind any of them. Candidates include a mother duck leading her ducklings in a neat line, the fairground game of shooting at a row of mechanical ducks, and duckpin bowling, where pins are nicknamed "ducks," though that game wasn't popular until decades after the phrase was already in use. A billiards theory, where an easy shot near the pocket is called a "duck," has been suggested too, with no supporting evidence. The figurative phrase is documented in print from 1932, in the Washington Post, but its likely 19th-century North American roots remain genuinely unclear.