dianeh@ISM780.UUCP (01/07/86)
[Oh, yes, he's pixilated, allright. Oh, my, yes,...pixilated!] I recently resaw the Frank Capra classic ``Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' and noticed something interesting -- in it, Mr. Deeds *appears* to introduce the term `doodling' (i.e., he uses the term, no one there seems to know what it means, and he proceeds to explain it as meaning idle scribbling). I've looked it up in my unabridged dictionary and found a derivation from Middle German `dudeln', which means to idly play notes on pipes. I had a friend look it up in his O.E.D., and he managed to find a reference to `toodle', which was used in a magazine article in the late 1800s and meant idle scribbling. My American Heritage shows it as dialectal English. So, the question is: Does anyone out there know if the word was in common use before it was used in ``Mr. Deeds...'', or is it possible that this film introduced it? As with all things trivial...just wondering, Diane Holt Interactive Systems Corp. ima!ism780!dianeh "Now, everyone's been making a big deal out of my feeding donuts to horses..."