I joined the "Osaka Duck Tour", which was naturally expressed with Japanese letters, "Katakana", and I figured the English spelling as above from the URL of the company's website and the style of the tour.
Hearing "Duck Tour", what would you imagine? "Duck" exactly means the duck that can waddle on the land and swim in the water. This tour started a few years ago in Osaka City, where a few big rivers flow. I'd been eager to go on the tour since I heard the news for the first time. This tour was conducted by amphibious bus. The vehicle runs both on the road and in the water. The naming of the tour using "duck" was very smart, I thought. I'll show you some pictures of the amphibious sightseeing bus later.
I thought that I'd write about this bus on this blog, and I researched the origin and the history of amphibious vehicles. The origin was a military purpose as I imagined. I wasn't surprised about the fact, but the meaning of "duck" wasn't what I had been thinking. The code name of the development of amphibious vehicles in the U.S. Army was DUKW, and the pronunciation of it was the same as "duck". So, "duck" came to express the amphibious vehicles.
Of course, it would have a little of the meaning that I wrote above, but originally it was something that makes people think of war.
Anyway, the tour was really fun.
- (Vocabulary)
- swaying walk よちよち歩き
- waddle 〈太った人などが〉 (アヒルのように) よたよた歩く
- amphibious vehicle 水陸両用車両
- DUKW 〔【語源】アメリカ軍の開発コードネームで、D（開発した1942年）、U（水陸両用）、K（全輪駆動）、W（二つの後輪駆動）を組み合わせたもの。〕 ダック水陸両用車
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DUKW
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