Have you ever wondered about words containing the sequence of letters –oodle-?

I mean, does it signify anything, or is it random?

No?

But don’t worry: I’ve done the wondering for you. Because I want to know if that sequence connotes something, in the way that, say, as Professor Anatoly Liberman suggests, many words beginning with fl– ‘ fly, flow, flatter, flutter, and flicker suggest unsteady movement.’ In other words, is there sound symbolism going on here?

If you search for that –oodle- string in the OED you get a surprising 130. But as so often happens with such trawls, you haul into your nets words that aren’t relevant to your search, such as bloodless or bloodletting.

Even so, throwing them back in the water still leaves me with a very large metaphorical catch.

We can jettison a couple right from the start on the basis of their origins, in German: noodle and poodle, from Nudel and Pudel(hund), though it’s interesting that Pudel derives from the German verb puddeln, ‘to splash about in water’, so the OED tells me.

Also to be jettisoned are the three poodle crosses we now foist on our furry chums as if they were a fashion accessory: goldendoodle, labradoodle and schnoodle, for golden retriever, labrador and schnauzer with poodle crosses.

But hold your horses! What about the verb to poodle, and what about the five verb homonyms of noodle?

To poodle, as classic as case of verbing as any you can think of, is defined as ‘to move or travel in a leisurely, indirect, or aimless manner; to potter. Usually with about, along’ and dates back not far short of a century to 1938.

The OED compares it to the mostly British to pootle (1973), ‘to move or travel in a leisurely manner’, which is a pronunciation variant of to poodle, devoicing the d. Which brings to mind also to tootle (1902), ‘to walk, to wander casually or aimlessly’. So perhaps the sequence –ootle– is relevant too (to footle: intransitive. To act or talk foolishly; to occupy oneself in an aimless or trivial way. Also with about, around.)

What links those four verbs, poodle, pootle, tootle and footle, it seems to me, is that the action they describe is performed with very little drive and with no clear purpose.

Are we on to something here?

So the next step is to list the –oodle– verbs. Well, not all of them. That would be tedious and tax your patience, gentle readers.

He flapdoodled round the subject in the usual Archiepiscopal way.

Westminster Gazette 11 July 2/1, 1893

Of the twenty-two verbs, the following five are relevant, as their definitions suggest – and we’ve already discussed to poodle. Most of them are colloquial and regional, whether that ‘region’ be the US, Britain and Ireland, or Australia. In short, don’t be surprised if they’re as new to you as they are to me. Dates are for the meaning, not the word, as several have more than one meaning; and some are examples of ‘conversion’, aka verbing.

to soodle – (1821; dialect) to walk in a slow or leisurely manner; to stroll, saunter.

to noodle – (1854; English regional) to fool around, to waste time.

to moodle – (1893) to dawdle aimlessly; to idle time away. Also with about, on. (possibly invented by George Bernard Shaw).

to flap-doodle – (1893) to talk nonsense; to maunder.

to doodle – (1937) to draw or scrawl aimlessly; to idle.

Napoleon often moodled about for a week at a time doing nothing but play with his children.

G. B. Shaw, Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism lxix. 328, 1928

So far, so good. But what about the other sixteen?

Well, these next five all have to do with sounds, and what they have in common is to denote sounds which are either subdued and low or inconsequential:

to croodle – (before 1810; Scottish) to make a continued soft low murmuring sound; esp. to coo as a dove.

to doodle – (1815; Scottish) to play the bagpipes.

to toodle – (1865; ?dialect) to hum or sing in a low tone (as to a baby).

to noodle2 – (1897; Scottish (Shetland) to sing (a tune) in a low undertone; to hum.

to noodle5 – (1937; chiefly Jazz) to play or sing (a piece of music) in a tentative, playful, or improvisatory way.

The cushat croodles amourously.

R. Tannahill, ‘Bonnie Wood’ in Poems (1846) 132, composed before 1810.

(cushat = wood pigeon, Scots, from Old English)

The odd sound out here seems to be to kyoodle (1935; U.S. dialect and colloquial) to make a loud noise; to bark, to yap. I haven’t yet deal with the whole kit and caboodle of these sounds. In a classic cliffhanger, that will have to wait till next week