APAD: Use your noodle

The phrase "use your noodle" simply means "think about it.".

To noodle (around) on something, while it does make use of the noodle (= head), may derive from the regional German nudeln, to improvise a song, or from the late-19th-century Scottish sense of noodling as humming a song to oneself. By 1937, to noodle was to fool around with notes to create music. By 1942, perhaps by association with the doodle (a loose, free-associating drawing), it acquired the broader sense of messing about with words or ideas without a clear goal.

What is it about food and the human head that makes them constant companions? The head has been called the noodle, the loaf, the bean and other food-related terms, although they didn't all begin as food references.

When the 16th-century painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo created heads from artfully assembled fruits and vegetables, he divined the truth that we are what we eat. Shakespeare's head-related insults included tripe-visaged (having a face like a cow's stomach) and beef-witted. In his book Carnal Knowledge, Charles Hodgson says even the Old English word for head, heafud, "is thought to have been pronounced something like 'hey-ya-food.'"

From 1720, a noodle was a stupid person, but nobody is sure how that idea emerged.  By 1762, the noodle referred to the head itself, stupid or otherwise. Laurence Sterne used it in Tristram Shandy: "What can have got into that precious noodle of thine?"

- source: edited from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/language-use-your-noodle-old-bean/article4381047/#
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Came across the phrase by accident. One WXC blogger-friend I knew posted a post recently with humorous sentences to represent the alphabet, but only the first 11 (from A to K) of them.  I found it funny, so tried to add on under his post for letters "LMON", and then found "noodle" 

See: https://blog.wenxuecity.com/myblog/76782/202409/23106.html

Wish you all a happy Tuesday with a noodle dance! ;-)

Note “The Noodle Dance” is a song and dance routine performed by (and possibly created by) Peanut, Jelly, and Baby Butter in "PB&J Otter" to help them think of ideas when they are stuck on a problem.

 

 

Is it a more civilized form of this? my guess

4thisOne, I don't need2noodle on it, but rather use myHeart:

Most homeless people have mental problems, and they didn't chose, but were forced to be homeless.

I did a post last year in local reddit titled "Be kind" as below:

One warm day this summer. We went cycling on our regular 25km downtown route.  We stopped half way and sat on the bench near Vancouver@Rockland for a chocolate break. An ordinary looking and quiet man was sitting on the next bench and we offered him a piece. He hesitated first, then thanked us politely and started telling us that he was there visiting his son, and his story of becoming homeless recently and how he was trying to maintain his dignity through the ordel.

We listened to him but couldn't find many right words to say, other than a nod of sympathy. This gentleman's story told us that life is very complicated and anyone, ourselves included, could run into tough times. A few kind words and even a small piece of chocolate would warm one's heart during those trying periods.

 

Not even my dict'ries cover 'noodle on.' Great to learn!

I passed many English exams w/o knowing the simple 'noodle'

me2, thought it's a typo 1st, and ended up having a typo

myself ;-)) but funny both noddle&noodle r inMerriam-Webster

AHD also lists "to catch or try to catch a fish, usually a

catfish by hand, ..." as the meaning of an intr. verb.

Thx!, yes, see noodling: fishing for catfish in wiki. Wait

there is NoodleTown inTexas; Is a guide4theCable onBikeBrake

and so on ... how fascinating ;-))

Good to know. Head is so much to do with food

Yes we r what we eat! U should b proud 2 b a wonderful cook

Interesting! Thanks for sharing!

TY 暖冬! in YosemiteNP, noCellServiceMostTime,&wifi is spotty.

But the natural beauty is priceless :-) See