If It Walks like A Duck and Talks like A Duck…

why shouldn’t I call it a duck?

You’ve heard it before, I’m sure. Maybe it was offered smugly as a way to jam an argument past your defenses. Maybe it was offered as the voice of reason, a voice for sanity in an important debate quickly spiraling into esoteric gymnastics. “If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck…” Each . dripping with implication. But there are actually a lot of reasonable ways to finish that thought. And tonight I’d like to explore one that doesn’t rely primarily on emotional manipulation.

First off, let’s try to establish some common ground. I won’t ask you to agree that there’s some small, possibly ridiculous-to-you to consider chance that it actually isn’t a duck. Not after we both agreed that it both walks and talks like one (and I do agree that it does). But can we at least agree that someone thinks it might not be a duck? Otherwise, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation (tongue-in-cheek self-reference: If it sounds like your having this conversation…) At that point, it may not even matter if the person is unreasonably and against all decency hedging about or straight up denying duckhood.