but here's where we are with cornobbled (up to the minute): the only hard copy source for all of these folks (I believe) is Mrs. Byrne, who was misquoted by her own(?) site with "hit by a fish". now I have found that 'nobble' (itself of obscure origin) has one sense meaning "to strike", and there is an old word 'cor' which is a salt fish/cod.

plus here is an e-mail that I received from C. H. Elster (author of "There's a Word for It")
My apologies for the long delay in responding about "cornobbled." Stuff
and the holidays and then more stuff got in the way and got me
backlogged.

I've exhausted my library and can't find hide nor hair of "cornobbled"
outside of Mrs. Byrne, which in both my 1984 paperback and 1994 hardcover
gives "fist." But "fish" could be right after all, because Webster 2
lists the obsolete noun "cor," defined as "salt fish, esp. cod." So
maybe Mrs. Byrne slipped up.

I'll bet Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary has the word, but I
don't own that. I borrowed it from the UCSD library when I was writing
There's a Word for It.

which all leaves me gobsmacked, I must say.

EDIT: well, that was fun.. I just spoke with the INFO desk at the MPL and Mr. Wright wrote that cornobble means "to beat on" -- *his source was a glossary of Cotswald dialect and the word is dated 1896.


http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/