bread

[keithmorris]

why is the name of the end of a loaf called a nobby,\I think this is a london term.

[stokemaveric]

no thats just a term for cockney......lol

[Clanad]

Here in the U.S. it's most generally called a "heel"...

[zig_zag]

or a knuckle

[inksplotter]

Probably just because it looks nobbly. No relation to why clerks are called Nobbies, because the Indian for clerk is nhobi.

[Quizmonster]

I'm not sure about the loaf's-end meaning of 'nobby', but the application of that word as a nickname for people called Clark(e) has probably nothing to do with Indian words at all.
�Nobby' has been an adjective meaning �posh' since the 1700s - ie belonging to the nobility (abbreviated to the nobs). Men who worked as clerks...ie pen-pushers...in the City obviously had to be well-dressed, wearing suits, bowler hats etc. Clearly, people - and maybe they themselves - thought of them as being a cut above their neighbours the brickies, dustmen etc in their rough work-clothes.
It's also possible that the Clarkes who moved into cities thought of themselves as 'better' than their country cousins, so they changed the spelling to make themselves seem rather more up-market.
The surnames Clark and Clarke are just variants of �clerk', so the idea of poshness rubbed off onto them, too, whatever their job...hence Nobby Clarke.

[Yodel]

When I was a kid we used to call the end of the loaf the 'topper'. Not sure where this came from (Mum was a Lancashire lass and Dad was a cockney).

[cointreau]

In the east Midlands the term 'noggin' is sometimes still used, but I'm not sure if that's a variation on the term nobby...my gran used to say 'noggin and buppy' (crust and butter).

[VS Prasad]

In urban slang, nobby describes how the end of a thing is
or some thing about its highest notch.

A stupid story with a pointless ending is called nobby.

A man with a long penis is also called nobby.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term =nobby

[lankeela]

In Norfolk people often describe a puppy as being a 'nobby' little chap if he is smart and into everything,

[valawil]

I don't know about 'nobby' for the loafs end, but my mum (and I still do) always called it a 'nobbler' (or Knobbler). She was an East London lass, tho' born in Ireland