Use your noodle

Our version is 'Use your noddle.'

Here's a site that covers it. You have to scroll down a bit to find it though.

http://www.takeourword.com/Issue083.html

Check with M. Polo-you know the chinese invented pasta to save their G.N.P

It is sad and passe-to use your noodle-or use Gay to describe a happy-swashbuckler kind of person-not that there's anything wrong with that

I have no idea whether it is current or dated. I know I grew up hearing it a bit, and I'm not particularly old. Try a casual poll of friends and ask where they grew up and where their parents were from, perhaps -- that's what I usually do when investigating a regionalism or similar.

In other news, my last name is derived from the Yiddish surname Lockshin, meaning "noodle".

My 11-year-old son knows the phrase, and Nick Jr. has a "Use Your Noodle" activity pack for kids--so it's current among the younger set.

It's popular on Sesame Street too. Elmo has a friend "Mr. Noodle" who isn't very smart. They have to remind him how to do things and "use his noodle."

To bring out my relentlessly irrelevant and seemingly creative side, perhaps it has to deal with actual noodles.

Noodles are quite useful things, just as the mind can be. You can use them in all sorts of dishes, in many different ways, each time producing a different taste. Maybe it's one of those sneaky suggestions to help you apply your mind to more situations.

A. J. Luxton said:

I have no idea whether it is current or dated.

Click to expand...

I believe it's an older expression that, once put into commission, has proved its timelessness. People will probably hear this expression for quite some time.