duck and cover


duck and cover

1. To crouch and hide; to take cover. If they start throwing water balloons at us, duck and cover!2. To evade something, often a question that one does not want to answer. If you continue to duck and cover at town hall meetings, your constituents' anger will only grow.See also: and, cover, duck

duck and cover

 1. . Lit. to bend down and seek protection against an attack. When the gunfire started, we had to duck and cover or get killed. 2. Fig. to dodge something, such as an issue or a difficult question, and attempt to shield oneself against similar issues or questions. The candidate's first reaction to the question was to duck and cover. The debaters were ducking and covering throughout the evening.See also: and, cover, duck

duck and cover

Seek shelter. If you attended elementary or secondary school during the 1950s and '60s, you will remember air raid drills practiced in the anticipation of nuclear attack. At the teacher's command “duck and cover,” you would stop whatever you were doing, drop down under your desk or against a wall, and assuming a fetal position, interlace the fingers of both hands behind your neck in a “covering” pose. How effective the technique would have been would have depended how far away from the atomic or hydrogen bomb blast's heat, shock waves, and radiation the school was. In any event, defense authorities thought everyone should do something in case of a nuclear attack. In those days, schoolkids did what they were told, so they ducked and covered.See also: and, cover, duck