ATDTDA (1): "duck soup"

[Tim Strzechowski]

"Take our man up on a short trip or two's about all it'll amount to [...] Out to the Fair, maybe down to the Yards, duck soup."


The phrase "duck soup" is synonymous with "easily done" or "nothing to it," and this is the context in which Nate states it.  Of course, it also foreshadows the appearance of a young Groucho Marx later in the novel (at p. 467).

On the origins of the phrase:

It's getting more than a little old-fashioned, though it is still common enough to be included in American dictionaries. The first recorded use, according to Prof Jonathan Lighter in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, was in a Tad Dorgan cartoon in 1902, in reference to a man juggling a set of miscellaneous items. It means some action that was easy or presented no challenge, a cinch to complete, like rolling off a log. 
It's a weird phrase. Nobody has the slightest idea where it came from or what it refers to. The cartoon is no help, as it shows a man in a Police Court, juggling a bottle, pitcher, plate and salt shaker, with the caption "Duck Soup". Nobody has managed to make much sense of it. It's not even certain that TAD Dorgan actually meant by the phrase that it was something easy - it might just as well refer to something that looks easy, but is actually difficult.

Could the image be of a sitting duck, one that was on the water and easy for a hunter to shoot? Could it be that duck soup was especially easy to prepare? (I'm told that isn't so.) Might it even refer to a pond with ducks floating on it, which figuratively was already duck soup? All these have been tentatively put forward by various writers who were feverishly exercising their imaginations in the absence of solid fact.

If anybody ever finds out, do let me know.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-duc2.htm

According to The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, the phrase "duck soup" first appeared in a newspaper cartoon drawn by T.A. Dorgan in 1902, and showed up again in a work by someone named H.C. Fisher in 1908.

http://www.word-detective.com/back-c2.html

http://www.clichesite.com/content.asp?which=tip+2591


On the classic Marx Brothers film:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023969/


And as a series of recipes:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/duck-soup-czarnina/detail.aspx

http://library.thinkquest.org/20371/ducksoup.htm

http://www.silverhillfoods.com/cgi-bin/recipes_archives.cgi?ref=browse&f=view&id=101475302915913421057


When asked about the origins of the title, which McCrarey was responsible for, Groucho made the joke, "Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup for the rest of your life."

http://www.maximummovies.net/2006/08/25/duck-soup/
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