Bulls, Bears . . . and Lame Ducks

From Week in Review in The New York Times:

[T]he political phrase of the moment is actually derived not from the hunt for waterfowl, but for riches. The Oxford English Dictionary — which defines the term as “a disabled person or thing: spec. (Stock Exchange slang): one who cannot meet his financial engagements; a defaulter” — traces its origins to the London stock market in the 18th century, where broke investors were said to waddle out the doors onto Exchange Alley. Horace Walpole, the Gothic author and the fourth Earl of Orford, was so tickled by the expression that in 1761 he made the first known written reference to it, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann that asked, “Do you know what a Bull, and a Bear and Lame Duck are?”