Where did the phrase "ducks in a row" originate?
by 
loveschimps
ANSWERS: 4
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From "Why You Say It" by Webb Garrison: "Ducks in a Row, Get/Put Your - Primitive versions of modern bowling were known many centuries ago. Pins of varied sizes and shapes were employed. Eventually they were standardized at fifteen inches in both height and circumstances. Originally called ten-pins, the equipment used in Europe was employed in the earliest American bowling saloons. The game was modified by introduction of a short, slender pin that was compared with a duck and, by extension, called them duckpins. So many people reset so many pins in rows that one who completes a task is commended as having put his 'ducks in a row.'"
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General Manager said that one of his employees "had his ducks all in a row," meaning she was doing a good job. To "have one's ducks in a row" (and variations on that phrase) means, as you say, that the person is doing a good job and has all of his or her duties taken care of in an efficient and timely manner. Phrases involving our web-footed friends, including "nice day for a duck" (meaning rainy weather) and "like water off a duck's back" (meaning having no effect), have been common in English for hundreds of years. "To have one's ducks in a row," however, seems to be a fairly recent coinage. The first appearance of the phrase noted in Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang is in 1979, in Stephen King's novel "The Stand." The related "line up one's ducks" appears only a year earlier, in 1978. http://www.word-detective.com/061202.html#ducksinarow
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It basically means having everything in order, like a mama duck. the first person to realize that the mama duck kept them in line and in order probably came up with the term.
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I thought that perhaps I originated the term in the southern USA around 1980. A supervisor asked me if I had completed an engineering project that needed to be finished up. I told him I was "getting my ducks in a row". (I was thinking about a shooting gallery at the time.) First he looked at me rather puzzled, and then he pondered on it a while. It caught on around the office kind of like a buzzword. I though I was the first -- but maybe not.
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