Use your noggin !!!! ????

[paulhopps22]

I know what it means , but why a ( or what is or was ) a NOGGIN ??

[treaclefight]

in the days when houses built on / of of oak frames, a noggin was a wedge that you hammered into a loose joint to make the joint solid. a loose joint was a pain to correct in any other way due to the absence of B n Qs and transit vans to get another piece of oak, not to mention the cost and the waste, so a noggin was a very sensible solution to what was otherwise a glaring structural fault. thats what i say, i'm sure quizmonster will be able to elaborate further :-D

[woofgang]

Anyone else think of nogbad when this question posted??

[Quizmonster]

Treacle's version of 'noggin' was originally called 'nogging' and - like most 'ing' words - I've no doubt the final 'g' was often omitted. I believe, however, that it originally referred to brickwork built up between wooden frames. (I understand 'noggin' is used in the Midlands area to mean a block of wood, though. Certainly a guy I used to know nicknamed 'Brummie' called blocks suitable for firewood 'noggins'!) It's worth noting that 'off your block' is a version of 'off your head'.)

In 17th century Britain, a noggin was a drinking-mug and, by the mid 19th century - especially in the USA - that had come to mean a pail or bucket. Around that same era, it also took on, in USA slang, the meaning 'head', but the actual phrase 'use your noggin' appeared nowhere in print before the 1950s, so it's really very recent. (Even more recent than I am!) So, block or bucket it would seem to be, Paul.

[treaclefight]

noggin the nog was great woofgang, we called one of our labradors nooka.

[Maudlettice]

1 Nog = a piece of wood built into brickwork or blockwork for fixing purposes. 2 Nogging pieces = horizontal timbers placed between the vertical studs of a stud partition to stiffen them. 3 Nogging strips = thin nogging pieces bedded between bricks or blocks in a bricknogged partition for additional stiffening. 4 Bricknogged = bricks or blocks laid into a stud partition (to fill the shapes formed by the studs and the nogging pieces). 5 Nogging meaning head was in Cockney slang in the 1850's to my certain knowledge.

[Quizmonster]

The Oxford English Dictionary - the 'bible' in such matters - contains no reference to 'nogging' meaning 'head', though it deals with the building process of 'nogging' as previously outlined. Its earliest-recorded reference to 'noggin' in the 'head' sense dates from 1866 in the USA. 'Nog-head' was used in Britain as long ago as 1800 to mean a 'blockhead'. But what we are considering here is, specifically, 'noggin'.

The OED does not fight shy of listing Cockney rhyming slang...far from it...the dictionary is full of it. I wonder, therefore, where you found the 1850s/Cockney 'head' reference for 'noggin(g)' on its own, Maude.

[Maudlettice]

I'll answer your question later, Quizmonster. Meanwhile, not forgetting egg-nog or egg-nogging (hot or cold drink of eggs, milk, sugar, spice, and brandy or rum), snog or snogging (you don't need me to tell you), the spirit measure of nogging was usually 1 gill, in some areas nogg = local beer, in other areas nogging = small mug or cup, and that in Scotland the word for nogging is dwang.

[treaclefight]

well just as long as I'M still right..... :-D

[Maudlettice]

Noggin is only a misspelling of nogging. To answer your question, Quizmonster, I am an expert in construction with a large and ancient specialist library. The Victorians were the most awful jerrybuilders. To reduce costs, door openings were commonly 5' 9" x 2' 3", some 5' 6" x 2' 3". I have the records of certain Victorian developers, one with a handwritten chatty exchange of correspondence from a City developer in 1853 writing about low ceilings and small doors containing the instruction "tell the occupiers to watch their noggins". Staircases were also small and steep, and the same letter details (of necessity) how to remove a corpse.

[Maudlettice]

Since posting the above I have had a chance to look through my medieval building trade info and see that it notes that "there are many terms for the minor framing members between posts" ie noggins. It lists 1259 Westminster "punsons", 1284 Scarborough Castle "stodes", 1285 Corfe Castle "studas", 1324 Westminster again "pounsons", 1348 Tower of London "puncheons", 1478 St Maryatte Hill, London "quarters" and so on. In technical French I note that nog = a cylindrical wooden peg i.e. a dowel, and noggin = a quarter of a pint.

[Quizmonster]

Dear Maude, Thanks for the response...the trouble is I still don't see that it answers the original question! Nobody is disputing that nogging or its abbreviated form noggin' refers to a building technique involving blocks. But it seems to me that the injunction in your document for people to 'watch their noggin(g)s' is not just another way of saying 'watch their heads'. They are simply being asked to look out for the blocks themselves in case they happen to knock their heads against them! Rather like these low-beamed pubs with signs saying: "Duck or grouse".

The key point is that - in over a century of rolling/constant dictionary-compilation - the scholars at the OED have failed to find a single use of the word 'noggin(g)' to mean 'head' earlier than 1866 in the USA.

Were you to send a photocopy of your document to the publishers, The Oxford University Press, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to examine it. If you convince them, I have no doubt your reference will appear as the earliest-recorded example in the next edition of the dictionary. Until then, I'll remain sceptical, I'm afraid. With all due respect to your good self, I value the Oxford scholars' erudition - in matters of language - more highly.

[Maudlettice]

Are you not being silly and pompous, Quizmonster?

[Quizmonster]

Neither, in my view, Maude. What I do suspect, though, is that you are deliberately heading off into the sort of terrain we've already long since tramped over in our "lop = rabbit/lop = flea" shenanigans! That is, into a situation in which you are perfectly well aware you haven't got a leg to stand on! I thought it was a joke last time...now I'm not so sure.

I have to tell you that if you (a) disagreed with Stephen Hawking (b) on a matter involving physics/cosmology (c), I'd side with him, not you. This matches exactly the you (a)/OED (b)/language (c) scenario we find here.

[Maudlettice]

Tripe. However, where is this going? I had intended to post a supplementary taking us on from the construction of buildings by vertical studs only, through the Fire of London, then to how and why noggin was inserted into the Building Acts, how noggin then changed over the centuries and became the description in my first answer. If anybody is interested please post a new question under noggin, otherwise it stops here.

[Quizmonster]

And high time, too! Life really is too short to quibble with world-renowned authorities such as the OED. I still think that - if you are serious, Maude, though your last two remarks about my actual answers suggest not - you should do something about it. Here is the OUP's address:-

Oxford University Press Great Clarendon Street Oxford OX2 6DP Telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Email: [email protected]

What harm would a quick e-mail do you?

If, when the next issue of the dictionary is published, it contains your reference as the earliest - and also if you, I and AnswerBank all still exist! - I shall be truly delighted to congratulate you right here.

[Maudlettice]

Tripe.

[Quizmonster]

As suspected...not serious. Manifestly so, now. Surely it's obvious that what is necessary is not for you to convince me or anyone else that you are right...it's for you to convince the Oxford academics that they are wrong!

"Silly, pretentious double-tripe!" is doubtless a satisfying catcall in the playground or during a fifth-form discussion, but it's hardly the stuff of academic debate. Indeed, the last time I saw 'academic' debate at this level was in the Newman and Baddiel TV show of a few years ago. Every week these two, as 'professors', would discuss some terribly learned topic such as "Monetarism in Germany between the wars". When that fell apart in disagreement, Professor A would say something such as: "See your bike?" To this Professor B would reply: "I am familiar with this mode of transport." Professor A would come back then with: "Your bike's a girl's bike!"

Dear, oh dear, oh dear!

[Maudlettice]

Amazing! The Tripe has made thee truly poetical. I think I'll have a go at it meself.