In French, “canard” means both “duck” and “hoax,” from the Old French word “caner” (“to quack”). Birds and pranks don’t seem to have much in common, but there’s an old French saying, “vendre un canard à moitié” (which translates to “half sell a duck”). The loose implication here is that a sale of a partial duck is no sale, and the seller has been fooled. Furthering the connection, an independent satirical French weekly called “Le Canard Enchaîné,” or “The Chained Duck,” was founded in 1916 and continues to print today.