To play ducks and drakes with something means to behave recklessly. The writer is criticizing the use of native idioms such as "put up with" instead of "tolerate", and "put at a loss" in place of bewilder. He or she is apparently offended by phrasal verbs replacing more sophisticated words. When I google the entire sentence, it comes up as part of an essay by George Orwell who is himself criticizing the writing in this example.