Dick Cheney & Ducks ดิ๊ค เชนนีย์ กับ เป็ด
The relationship between Dick Cheney and ducks is legendary. Type “Dick Cheney and ducks” on Google you’ll get more than half a million hits. Wikipedia even has an entry of what happened between the two. Some relationship they have.
Ducks เป็ด
So you are wondering why I’d be writing about Dick Cheney and ducks on a love and romance blog (I’m not even going to mention “sex” in the same sentence – the image is just too unbearable). I admit, one’d be hard pressed to find a less lovey-dovey creature than Dick Cheney. As for the ducks …
… I was chatting and answering questions about some phrases from my first Sex Talk book on Catherine’s Women Learning Thai blog and somehow got to talk about ducks. I know it’s rather odd … but that’s what really happened.
Someone commented on a duck-related expression in the book: ดำตับเป็ด “dark like a duck’s liver,” which refers to a sexy dark-skinned woman. He said his Thai wife told him that the expression would be taken as an insult by most Thai women. Why? What woman wouldn’t want to be thought of as sexy?
Let me elaborate. The expression is rather old and the traditional usage may have changed (a normal occurrence in linguist evolution). In the original usage, a woman being “dark like a duck’s liver” was considered sexually alluring. It was a compliment. But perhaps the passage of time coupled with increasing obsession of Thai people with light skin has driven the “sexy” part out of existence, leaving only the undesirable “dark” part in the expression.
So it seems, this old compliment has transformed into a negative comment – often a taunt, according to my younger girlfriends. And there’s another dimension to this duckling anatomy; at least among the older generation, some may also use it to refer to a particular female private part. Complimentary or no depends on your taste for ducks and livers, I guess.
Dick Cheney ดิ๊ค เชนนีย์
I know I still haven’t shed any light on how Dick Cheney (and the ducks) could possibly have anything to do with Thai erotic language and culture. You’d be surprised. Only a matter of one or two degree of vowel separation I assure you.
Really, some vowels shouldn’t be put next to one another. (Look down on your keyboard and you’ll see the row of the “Y – U – I – O – P” keys above the fingers of your right hand, if you touch type that is.) What happened was, when I was typing my duck-related comment, I missed the U-vowel by only one key. So, my sexy, dark-skinned Thai lady was described as “dark like a d*ck’s liver.” I discovered my typo about 2 hours later. Catherine kindly edited my comment. A fellow commentator who commented on my comment took a liberty to put the * in the middle of the aforementioned d*ck – who sadly became a eunuch poultry.
If it had been up to me, I would have left the spelling the way it was. I would have still blushed but then, a provocateur I may be, but I was also a guest, so I abided by the house rules.
I sat back and scratched my chin over the irony of the little episode. You see, all of us, children included, have no compunction to call many men, especially those named Richard, “Dick” (the very same vowel clearly and unashamedly spelled and the very same sound uttered).
When we pronounce the name DICK Cheney, no one (maybe save his wife) ever thinks of sex or anything remotely erotic. Many Americans may not be able to help thinking of DUCKs, but then these birds are rarely sexy in the presence of Mr. Cheney because they are always scrambling away at the sight of him, taking a sudden flight for dear life.
So, why? … Why was my innocent little vowel taken away by force! Why wasn’t it allowed to stay on? Was social decorum so threatened by that skinny little scratch with a dot of a vowel? So much so that it proceeded to butcher my innocent little ducky?
"Donald Dick" "โดนัลด์ ดิ๊ค"
Now I wonder … if Donald Duck ever took fancy of the poor little vowel and wanted to change his last name, would any one refuse to call him “Donald Dick”?
But that’s not all Folks! This is only my first ducky episode. Another one is in store for the next post in a few days.
