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Jackie M. sent a link to an instance of a new eggcorn — "laying duck" for "lame duck":

Schumer had just written his political epitaph. Now, he is a laying duck in the Senate. New York, you must force him to resign and start shopping for a new senator.

— writerarmando.bsky.social (@writerarmando.bsky.social) March 18, 2025 at 2:28 PM

A Google search for "laying duck president" turns up a few earlier examples, although some of them may be speech-to-text transcription errors, and there are a few more on X and elsewhere. There's a plausible reason for an /m/-to-/n/ misperception, whether human or computational, namely co-articulation of the lame-final labial /m/ with the initial /d/ of duck, yielding "layin' duck" in place of "lame duck". And a laying duck is sitting in the nest rather than swimming or flying around, which maybe makes marginally more metaphorical sense than lame duck does.

In fact the etymological history of lame duck — which I did not know — is a little weird. Wiktionary has some of it:

First use appears c. 1761, in the London Evening Post. Derived from the situation in which a person who had defaulted in the London Stock Exchange was said to waddle out of Exchange Alley like a lame duck.

This gave rise to the  financial sense "A person who cannot fulfill their contracts",  generalized to the sense "A person or thing that is helpless, inefficient, or disabled" — Wiktionary gives these early British quotations:

• 1763 January, anonymous author, The Gentleman's and London Magazine, page 288:
  Thus is happens, that, when a considerable loss arises from such contract, the principal on whole behalf it was made, refuses to fulfil it; in this case, the loss falls upon the broker, without remedy; and if he does not fulfil the contract in default of his prinicipal, he foreits his credit and business, and becomes, in the cant of the Alley, a lame duck.
• 1825, Ned Clinton; or The Commissary, page 186:
  A few days after our dinner at the Albion, Glover's city speculations, in spite of his unceasing attention in watching the marker, went altogether wrong, and the poor fellow waddled away from Chapel Court a defaulter, or as the stock-brokers emphatically called it, a lame duck.

The OED frames the financial sense as "Stock Market slang. An unsuccessful speculator who is unable to meet financial commitments; a defaulter", and gives the first citation as

1761    Yesterday being the Day for the sixth Payment.., there happened to be two Lame Ducks in Exchange Alley.    London Evening-post 30 July–1 August

…which suggests that the term was then already in standard use.

The OED also cites 19th-century extensions of the term to "A business, company, etc., that is not successful, competitive, or financially profitable", "A ship that is damaged, defective, or unable to sail properly; esp. one left without a means of propulsion", and "In general use: any person or thing characterized as ineffectual, unsatisfactory, or unlikely to succeed or endure without additional help".

An interesting survey of 18th-century British animal metaphors, including lame duck, can be found in David Garrick's prologue to Samuel Foote's 1771 play The Maid of Bath:

All talk and write in allegoric diction,
Court, city, town, and country run to fiction!
Each daily paper allegory teaches —
Placemen are locusts, and contractors leeches:
Nay, even Change-Alley, where no bard repairs,
Deals much in fiction to pass off their wares;
For whence the roaring there? — from bulls and bears!
The gaming fools are doves, the knaves are rooks,
Change-Alley bankrupts waddle out lame ducks!
But, ladies, blame not you your gaming spouses,
For you, as well as they, have pigeon-houses.

The sense with the Wiktionary gloss "An elected official who has lost the recent election or is not eligible for reelection and is marking time until leaving office" is originally American. According to the OED, "in early use" it was "a politician regarded as unsuccessful or having few prospects, esp. one who has failed to be elected", and "Later: an elected official, administration, etc., that is coming to the end of a term of office (and is therefore typically regarded as having limited political power or influence), esp. during the period between the election and inauguration of a successor". The earliest OED citations for the earlier version of this sense:

1851    A golden mean of moderation, that has..brought him out of the late political crisis, from which most of our politicians issued as lame ducks, safe, sound and popular as ever.    New-York Daily Times 27 October
1863    If their object was to provide for retired and broken down politicians—‘lame ducks’, as the Senator from New Hampshire very elegantly..calls them—they did not succeed in what they set out to do.    Congressional Globe 14 January 306

The earliest OED citation for the later (and current) usage is 1950, though I suspect that the sense was in use earlier than that:

1950    More than one-eighth of the Congress will be lame ducks when the lawmakers meet later this month.    Rocky Mount (North Carolina) Sunday Telegram 12 November 2a/6

March 19, 2025 @ 7:47 am · Filed by Mark Liberman under Eggcorns

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