Diddle is a lovely, little onomatopoeic word with many attributes. In Britain it is in common usage, generally meaning to deceive, swindle often in some financial transaction, e.g. giving someone the wrong change, or selling a fake antique as the real thing.

Another meaning, beloved of children and teenagers is to micturate, wee, or pee. Hence “I’m going for a diddle”.

Other less common uses are to jerk up and down or back and forth.
In slang, chiefly US, according to the OED: to have intercourse with (a woman), to practice masturbation:

There was a young man from Toulouse
Who thought he would diddle a goose…

OR, if you insist on another: from WENTWORTH & FLEXNER Dict. Amer. Slang 146/2
There was a man from Racine
Who invented a diddling machine;
Both concave and convex,
It could fit either sex,…


Diddle is also employed, to quiver or shake, or fiddle with:
The children diddled with the knobs on the television. Or, to waste time: diddled around all day
The compound diddledum is refers to something trifling, and diddle-daddle, is ‘stuff and nonsense’.

Its roots are unclear. Perhaps akin to Old English didrian, dydrian to deceive, or from variant of dialectal doodle, fool, simpleton; akin to Low German dudeldopp.

Now there’s something for you all to play with.

...as in "Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the dish ran away with the spoon..."

quote:

Originally posted by haberdasher:
...as in "Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the dish ran away with the spoon..."

No. You underestimate the sensual value of that mode of diddling. The next line reveals the bovine sexual ecstasy: "The cow jumped over the moon." The succeeding lines betray other inuendos from diddle: the trifling (quasi-humorous) meaning is plain in: "The little dog laughed to see such fun," and the deception and swindle has to wait for your last line: "And the dish ran away with the spoon."

You see its all there! I think

!

Didn't come out of "Politically Correct Parental Goose," I'll wager.

And of course not many words have 50% d's!

We once discussed this word in relation to dildos

[BTW, what word has 80% either u's or e's?]

QUEUE

Probably a word more familiar to British Wordcrafters.

Well, if we're talking Nursery Rhymes, we certainly can't forget:

Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John
went to bed with his britches on
one shoe off and one shoe on
Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John


hmmmmm . . . .

quote:

Originally posted by Caterwauller:
Well, if we're talking Nursery Rhymes, we certainly can't forget:

Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John
hmmmmm . . . .

Now CW, you are getting personal. But how did you know? Please don't answer that.

quote:

Originally posted by pearce:
There was a young man from Toulouse
Who thought he would diddle a goose…

Now there’s something for you all to play with.

But sadly, nobody has taken the bait. Come on you Limerick writers.
It should be easy to improve on this:

There was a young man from Toulouse
Who thought he would diddle a goose.
The goose yelled 'Oh No"!
The man screamed 'Ho Ho',
'Not a duck ? , but you're bound to amuse'

There once was a man from Toulouse
Who diddled his favorite goose.
But soon he yelled, "Yuk!
My hand's full of muck!
I got that old goose's caboose."

[Ewwww! Normally I am a lot more sophisticated. ]

quote:

There was a young man from Toulouse
Who thought he would diddle a goose

Reminiscent of this one:

There once was a man of St. Johns
Who wanted to bugger the swans.
But the noble hall-porter
Said, "Sir, take my daughter!
Them birds is reserved for the dons!"

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
There once was a man from Toulouse
Who diddled his favorite goose.
But soon he yelled, "Yuk!
My hand's full of muck!
I got that old goose's caboose."

There once was a man from Toulouse
Who diddled the rear of his moose.
The moose let a fart.
This broke the man's heart.
Out came something warm, wet and loose.

I'm taking your word on the meaning of "diddle".

Oh, we are so bad, aren't we, Frank?

A woman who comes from Toulouse
Was loose and a little obtuse.
She jilted poor Bruce,
Her childhood Zeus,
And seduced the gray goose in that spruce!

There once was a man from Toulouse
Who thought he would diddle a goose,
Not the swain of a swan
Nor with woman came on,
And he soon sired a feathered pappoose.

quote:

There once was a man from Toulouse
Who thought he would diddle a goose,

There once was a man from Toulouse
Who thought he would diddle a goose.
This form of abuse
Is a rather abstruse
Way of putting goose down to good use.

quote:

Originally posted by Frank Hubeny:

There once was a man from Toulouse
Who diddled the rear of his moose.
The moose let a fart.
This broke the man's heart.
Out came something warm, wet and loose.

It dawned on me that the rhyme was probably not up to OEDILF standards since Toulouse and loose sound alike, and the topic really is about geese, so here's a revision:

There once was a man from Toulouse
Who diddled the rear of his moose.
The moose let a fart.
This broke the man's heart.
Now he's back on the back of his goose.