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#17357
01/28/2001 11:59 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
"The Economist" cites this word in its obituary of the philosopher Willard Quine:
He would have had a fondness for the quinombrom, an old word for conundrum, defined in James Howell's "Lexicon Tetraglotton" of 1660: "You will judge, perhaps, that the author hath some strange freaks, or quinombroms, in his noddle."
Worth a revival?
Bingley
Bingley
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#17358
01/28/2001 2:43 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
your quote is, in fact, the *only citation in OED. I can't see any advantage to using this rather than conundrum, unless you were in a quandary for quaint and quirky q-words.
joe (q-less) friday
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#17359
01/28/2001 3:33 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Main problem would be finding a chance to spring it. Good reprisal though to some show-offs, if you can work it in.
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#17360
01/28/2001 9:16 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Good reprisal though to some show-offs, if you can work it in.Then they would think you were quixotic. Right, J. Clueless? 
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#17361
01/29/2001 8:14 AM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>that the author hath some strange freaks, or quinombroms, in his noddle.
And where would one find one's noddle?
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#17362
01/29/2001 10:11 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
And where would one find one's noddle?
Presumably on one's shoulders. That's where this one's noddle is!
Webster says:
noddle \Nod"dle\, n. [OE. nodil, nodle; perh. fr. nod, because the head is the nodding part of the body, or perh. akin to E. knot; cf. Prov. E. nod the nape of the neck.] 1. The head; -- used jocosely or contemptuously.
The American Heritage Dictionary says:
nod·dle (ndl)
n.
The head. [Middle English noddel, back of the head, perhaps from Latin ndulus, lump, knob; see nodule.]
I've heard it malaproped to "noodle" as in "use your noodle".
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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