The emails and rumors of the scientific "fact" that a duck's quack doesn't echo have circulated around the internet in those stupid chain mails and chat forums, silly news pieces during morning radio talk shows, and the like. And everyone felt just a little bit smarter for having learned this bit of trivia.

(Echo is also a nymph in Greek mythology whose unrequited love for Narcissus caused her to fade away until nothing but her voice remained. But in this instance, it's all about the duck's quack.)

Except it's completely false. (The echoing quack, that is, not Echo -- the Greek stuff is true.) A quack isn't unlike any other sound the human ear is capable of hearing, and with all sounds, an echo will occur if there's a surface for the sound waves to bounce back off of. (Not a good sentence, but you get the idea.)

A bunch of people have carried ducks into the sound labs to prove they echo, and jim howdy, a duck's quack isn't any different than any other sound, so it stands to reason that if you can hear it, it can echo.

Why the hubbub? While it does have an echo, the sound is often too quiet to hear without the assistance of some sort of sound amplification equipment. Also, ducks tend to echo in wide areas, like ponds or fields, and without a building or a hill to bounce the sound back from, it will just shoot off into the distance, like a bullet without having something to ricochet against.

Don't believe us? Just check with Snopes.