Doddle, Doodle

“Things have changed since a bit since Neolithic and Roman times, though, and many wonder what effects modern technology might have on the size of such circles (online social networks). Perhaps there is indeed a cognitive limit, imposed by the brain’s internal architecture, on how large a social structure can be maintained. But there may also be another limit: time.

Maintaining 150 friendships face-to-face consumes a lot of that. Cobbling together many times this number of connections online, though, is a doddle.” –The Economist When something is doddle to do it means it is easier to get it done. Possibly, for anyone on social media it is a doddle to get more than hundreds friends, and there are some who have thousands, tens of thousands and millions.

Doddle is a British slang word indicating to something that is easier to do, an easy task, a task that can be easily accomplished. Doddle is a noun. Doddle means a child’s play, walkover, an undertaking that is done without much effort. It is a not doddle to hit six sixers in an over in cricket but Yuvraj Singh did it.

Dodder is a verb meaning trembling, tottering as a result of age: babies and elderly. The variants of dodder are dodderer (noun) and doddery (adjective). Indian’s eminent cartoonist R K Laxman used to doodle in classrooms during his students days…his cartoon in The Times of India became a staple with ‘the common man’ in the side-lines and frontlines of national events, and his cartoon strip ‘You Said It’.

Doodle is a verb meaning to scribble, to draw something in an absent-minded way, to sketch without much attention or focus. Doodle as a noun refers to a scrawl, drawing, a rough drawing done with an absent mind. Doodle comes from the Low German word ‘dudelkopf’ which referred to a foolish person. Doodlebug is an insect.

The world’s most popular search engine (website) is Google, and its logo is commonly known as ‘Doodle Bar’. Nowadays, the Google’s Doodle Bar (in which you enter text to search about, to know about) also makes news because it often celebrates momentous events of the past coinciding on the day, or commemorating a personality on his birth anniversary for the contribution made to the humanity.

When Dennis Hwang produced a doodle for Bastille Day, the founders of Google Larry and Sergey appointed him as the chief doodler. A team of illustrators, or doodlers, and software engineers designed the doodles. Every day on the homepage of Google, there is a different doodle!
-Kovuuri G Reddy