Given the ease of slipping off a diet, it's not surprising that many phrases for easy tasks involve food: "duck soup," "can of corn," "piece of cake," "cakewalk." But determining the authentic origins of these terms ISN'T as easy as pie.

—duck soup — This term for something effortlessly accomplished first appeared in a cartoon by T. A. Dorgan in 1902. It quacked again six years later in a comic strip by H. C. "Bud" Fisher, creator of the characters Mutt and Jeff: "Attorney Shortribs announced that it would be duck soup to clear their client."

But no one — not even Attorney Shortribs — knows how the expression originated. Some speculate that it refers to the ease of shooting "sitting ducks" or to the fact that greasy duck meat is easily made into soup. The 1933 Marx Brothers' film "Duck Soup," which opens with a shot of ducks floating in a vat of soup, surely boosted the term's popularity.

—can of corn — According to Paul Dickson's "The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary," this term for an easily caught fly ball or pop-up, first used in 1896, can be traced to old-fashioned grocery stores. Clerks would use long poles to topple cans of corn from high shelves, and the falling cans were easily caught in their outstretched aprons.

But others suggest it refers to the simplicity of taking corn out of a can, or to the hollow sound made by a bat when it hits a pop-up (like thunking a tin can), or to the ease of making a treat with popcorn and molasses.

—cakewalk — Some trace this term to 19th-century African-American cakewalks in which the couple who strolled the most stylishly won a cake, hence "take the cake."

Because winning a cakewalk wasn't especially arduous, when the term jumped into boxing slang, it came to mean an easily won bout. So eventually "cakewalk" was being used to describe any effortless task.

—easy as pie — As a kid, I watched my mom bake pies, and, believe me, this was not an easy process. The kitchen was a whirl of bubbling pots, rolling pins, spilled sugar and flour and clanging pie plates. My assigned task was to make indentations on the edges of pie crusts with a fork.

But the process of eating my mom's delicious pies — blueberry and rhubarb were my favorites — was decidedly less laborious. So linguists believe that "easy as pie" (as well as "piece of cake") refers, not to concocting these confections, but to the ease of consuming them.

Oh, to be in my mother's kitchen again!

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to [email protected] or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254