# Is "fuddle your duddle" dirty? Did my dad simply make it up? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 23, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163 "2013-05-23T20:41:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/1 "2013-05-23T20:41:40Z")
See subjects. When I was a kid, and whined “I’m bored” to my dad, he would say “fuddle your duddle.” I always understood that as “twiddle your thumbs” (ie hold your hands in loose interlocked fingers and rotate one thumb over the other). A couple of years ago I think someone laughed when I said it, I think because it sounded inappropriate. It’s also possible my father, an immigrant, heard something that sounded like that, and made it up. I’ve never read or heard anyone use the expression. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/2 "2013-05-23T20:56:24Z")
Maybe the person who laughed was [Canadian?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuddle_duddle) > [@](#): > > In February 1971, opposition MPs accused [Prime Minister] Trudeau of having mouthed the words “fuck off” at them in the House of Commons. When pressed by television reporters on the matter, Trudeau would only freely admit having moved his lips, answering the question, “What were you thinking, when you moved your lips?” by rhetorically asking in return “What is the nature of your thoughts, gentlemen, when you say **‘fuddle duddle’** or something like that?” Thus, it remained unclear what Trudeau actually mouthed. ---
**Author:** ![donkeyoatey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/3 "2013-05-23T20:58:32Z")
Are you Canadian? It’s [Trudeau.](http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/politics/prime-ministers/fuddle-duddle-incident.html) ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/4 "2013-05-23T21:37:05Z")
I’ve never heard “fuddle your duddle”, so I’d hear it as dirty probably is there wasn’t context suggesting otherwise. After all, pretty much anything of the form “He was verbing his noun” can mean what you think it means, with the right inflection or with the right (absence of) context. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/5 "2013-05-23T22:03:06Z")
I’m not Canadian, but I was 12 in 1971, and my father followed international news closely, and was an immigrant who had mastered English _except_ for new slang, which I suspect he had an ear out for and greedily absorbed. Perhaps he thought it did stand for something dirty–a la Trudeau’s disingenuous expression–and liked it, and said it to me as a kid because he thought it was funny that I didn’t get it. So Trudeau choose those words just because they sounded funny and the first one begins with an “f?” And has it become a in-joke usage only for people who follow politics of a certain age (hence **MikeS** and **donkeoatey** ’s response, or has it sort of entered Canadian usage? For the first, in-joke reference type, I’m thinking similar to nowadays, at least, the words “have a wide stance” cannot be thought of/used in US political writing without thinking of some Senator who was caught trying to find some random homosexual nookie, initially by nudging someone’s foot in the next stall, and who claimed he merely had a wide stance. Perhaps it will ever remain just one more addition to the list of Canadian inscrutables for this American. ETA: **Pasta** on “verbing his noun” is trenchant. And cogent. Unless “trenchant” already implies “cogent.” ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2013, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/6 "2013-05-23T22:31:31Z")
So, **Leo Bloom** , when you were a bored kid, and whined to your father thereof, and he invited you to fuddle your duddle — _Did you?_ Or did you just sit there and twiddle your thumbs? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/7 "2013-05-24T00:07:18Z")
Interesting. I was born in 1966, had Jewish parents from Brooklyn, and my mom said “go fuddle your duddle” too in that exact context, probably early- to mid-1970s as well. Mom had pretty elegant manners and would _never_ have used the phrase if it was knowingly dirty. (She’d also say “go bang your head against a wall” under the same circumstances. And this was a very loving, gentle woman! I cracked up when Betty Draper used the same phrase in _Mad Men_. Two more different mothers couldn’t possibly be imagined.) ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/8 "2013-05-24T00:24:29Z")
Some phrases, though unique and original, can be made to sound dirty just by similarity to other phrases and context. Follow almost anything with “, if you know what I mean” and you’ll see what I mean. A few decades ago, there were some disk jockeys who made a career out of this…“This is Big Bob, the biggest and baddest in the neighborhood, slipping some warm butter into your mornin’ muffin!”, sort of a Howard Stern Lite, until the FCC told them to knock it off. I had an uncle once who liked the phrase, “Well, I’ll be a dirty bird,” pretty meaningless by itself, but my parents thought that somehow that was inappropriate speech to use to a 8 year old kid. They couldn’t put their finger on it (if you know what I mean), but they felt sure it was scatological and that phrase was prohibited from our family. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/9 "2013-05-24T01:34:23Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > I had an uncle once who liked the phrase, “Well, I’ll be a dirty bird,” pretty meaningless by itself, but my parents thought that somehow that was inappropriate speech to use to a 8 year old kid. They couldn’t put their finger on it (if you know what I mean), but they felt sure it was scatological and that phrase was prohibited from our family. That was a catchphrase of [George Gobel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gobel). ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/10 "2013-05-24T02:54:07Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > And has it become a in-joke usage only for people who follow politics of a certain age (hence **MikeS** and **donkeoatey** ’s response, or has it sort of entered Canadian usage? It’s not in usage in the sense that it’s ever used as a replacement for “fuck you” in any generic way, but it’s probably the second most common Trudeau-ism after “Just watch me.” It also doesn’t so much mean “fuck you” as it does “I’m blatantly lying right now by denying that I’ve done the very rude thing which I’ve just obviously done.” ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2013, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/11 "2013-05-24T05:11:36Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > It’s not in usage in the sense that it’s ever used as a replacement for “fuck you” in any generic way, but it’s probably the second most common Trudeau-ism after “Just watch me.” It also doesn’t so much mean “fuck you” as it does “I’m blatantly lying right now by denying that I’ve done the very rude thing which I’ve just obviously done.” But the beauty of what Trudeau said … and Trudeau, love him or hate him was a very brilliant scholar, lawyer and writer, is he neither confirmed nor denied saying “fuck off”. He was asked what he was thinking when he mouthed something at opposition members. He asked the reporter what is the nature of one’s thoughts when one says “fuddle duddle” or something like that? No fuck was given in the crafting of that sentence, but he made it abundantly clear what he was THINKING. ---
**Author:** ![Icer\_Mize](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecb155/32.png) [@Icer\_Mize](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icer_Mize)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/12 "2019-04-10T16:49:44Z")
Nothing like a response six years late. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY during the early 1940’s. Always being a pain in the neck, my mom would frequently remark “Go fuddle your duddle”. I agree with your assessment as to the meaning “twiddle your thumbs” or “bang your head against the wall”. My mom was raised by Jewish/Russian immigrants but I have no idea what the origin of the phrase is. In fact, I was searching for the meaning myself and came upon your post. I’ve never thought of the expression as being “dirty” or “inappropriate”. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/13 "2019-04-10T17:56:54Z")
the only time I heard the phrase, growing up in Toronto, was the fuss about Trudeau. The papers at the time had trouble with how to describe it - apparently some opposition member had made some comment about Trudeau’s wife (Justin’s mother) and that was his response. he was never terribly patient and easily annoyed by fools. The papers of the time had difficulty reporting it (IIRC, a little before Nixon’s “[Expletive deleted]” infamy.) One newspaper suggested he said something along the lines of “go forth and multiply”. Which suggests a completely different interpretation of God’s instructions to Adam and Eve. As for old expressions, one I recall is from the Marx Brothers movies: Old lady: “Well, I never…!!” Groucho: “There’s you problem, maybe you should once in a while.” I told that joke to my niece and nephews back in the 1970’s and my stepsister said “Don’t teach them that! They have great aunts who still say that.” ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/14 "2019-04-10T20:04:35Z")
Miss Fuddle de Duddle was a character in Dr. Seuss’s _On Beyond Zebra_ which came out in 1955. I’d think Geisel would have avoided anything that sounded remotely like such a euphemism in a 1950s children’s book so I’m pretty sure he’d have never heard such. I assume it was something he thought had a playful sound – much like fiddle dee dee. ---
**Author:** ![Icer\_Mize](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecb155/32.png) [@Icer\_Mize](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icer_Mize)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/15 "2019-04-10T20:10:37Z")
> [@Icer\_Mize](#): > > Nothing like a response six years late. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY during the early 1940’s. Always being a pain in the neck, my mom would frequently remark “Go fuddle your duddle”. I agree with your assessment as to the meaning “twiddle your thumbs” or “bang your head against the wall”. My mom was raised by Jewish/Russian immigrants but I have no idea what the origin of the phrase is. In fact, I was searching for the meaning myself and came upon your post. I’ve never thought of the expression as being “dirty” or “inappropriate”. 🙂 To clarify my point, “go fuddle your duddle” was an expression my mom used when I was a child during the 1940’s. I’m not familiar with what Mr. Trudeau had said but that would have been decades after my childhood. Both of my older sisters also recall the exact phrase. I missed Choie’s post of 05-23-2013, we may be related 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/16 "2019-04-11T02:37:42Z")
OP here. Invite me to to the reunion. My Dad (OP cite) was a Hungarian Jew who came to America in 1945, if this datum helps future lexicographers. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/17 "2019-04-11T02:51:10Z")
Sounds vaguely masturbatory. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-fuddle-your-duddle-dirty-did-my-dad-simply-make-it-up/659163/18 "2019-04-11T03:22:16Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > OP here. Invite me to to the reunion. My Dad (OP cite) was a Hungarian Jew who came to America in 1945, if this datum helps future lexicographers. Hi, Leo! I’ve been kinda wondering if your duddle got permanently fuddled, you hadn’t been around in so long.