Before you put it in the dryer?
I do, especially heavy items like jeans, but I tend to shake t-shirts, too. I do it because that’s how I was told to do it by my Mom, way back when. Sometimes I suspect this is just a holdover from the drying on a line days. I can’t be removing significant residual water through mechanical action, and I can’t see how it could really help wrinkle reduction. But I do it, because I always have.
Anyone else have this Laundry Ideosyncracy?
I shake it before putting it on the line. I rarely use the dryer.
I do shake if it’s going on the line, but not if it’s going in the dryer.
I only shake things that seem all bunched up when I pull them from the washer, like big towels or jeans. If I don’t shake them out, then they stay balled-up in the dryer and only the outside of the ball dries, which means I need to toss them back in to dry longer. But I don’t shake all the clothes, just the scrunched big stuff.
What Antigen said.
Yes I do. Mom taught me to, and so I do it. As far as I can tell, it opens up clumped together wet clothing of any weight and density and in doing so, allows the layers and folds to “tumble” and get dry mor efficiently.
This ought to go to Unca Cecil as a letter. Have you searched to see if he’s held forth on this? Hmm. How Do you search the Column Archives for this?
Cartooniverse
I don’t shake clothes before putting them in the dryer but I have a friend who not only shakes her laundry but folds it before putting it in the dryer. She knows she will have to refold it but she insists on doing it anyway.
Shake your wet laundry? Never heard of that (I’m young, though). I shake it after it comes out of the dryer, mostly to find the dryer sheets.
I did do a search, a while back when I was thinking of posting this, and came up with nothing. As far as benefit to the practice, I think you and Antigen have it with the idea that it loosens up the stuff that’s bunched up from the washer and improves the air flow to surface area ratio for the shaken garment.
Thanks for the input, Dopers!
How bizarre. As to the OP, no. The dryer will “shake” it for you in the first few turns.
I shake the washing when I take it out of the machine, then fold it all up before hanging it out or putting it in the dryer, I then shake and fold again and haven’t had to iron an item of clothing for 3 years…
Oh, I only have it when I’m in those strange places where I get a drier instead of a clothesline. Apart of the possible holdover, it also ensures that I put in each item in the dryer individually, rather than as a whole twisted mess of socks and sheets.
When I have a clothesline I shake them to make sure I won’t have to walk all the way down to the street to get back that sock…
Spoken like a true Doper ! Cecil would be proud. 
Rats; I thought the thread title might have been a euphemism.
Aww, Blush.
How nice of you to say so. I remember when I first started posting, we had a minor tiff in a gun related thread, something about how much more loose concealed carry laws are here in Arizona.
I don’t shake the washing; I sort of snap it. It dries less wrinkly that way.
Of course you should shake your laundry before going into the dryer or on the line. Scientific double-blind studies in the House O’ Ruby have determined that items that go into the dryer wrinkled will come out more wrinkled than those items that have been shaken or “snapped”. There you have it. Undeniable evidence.
I shake jeans and towels. Everthing else gets dangled momentarily above the washer to see if anything falls out.
Good enough for me. 
And I didn’t even get a gub’mint grant to do my research! :smack: