My sister Sarah uses this phrase quite often... and she's gotten me into saying it now too. What does it mean? It's basically like saying "Oh my God"... or "Holy Cow". You can also use it sarcastically when something odd happens... "Well Lord love a duck." But where does it come from? I started to wonder today about it, and so I Googled "'lord love a duck' Etymology".

After going through some of the hits on the first page, the general conclusion is that it has to do with this movie with the same name, but I'm not sure why. What was scary about my googling experience were some of the other hits that came up in the search. Let's just say that there are some members of the animal kingdom that don't deserve to be loved that way by man. For that matter... I can't think of any members of the animal kingdom that deserve to be loved that way by man, but certainly not a duck. Ugh.