Scottish word of the day: Guddle
Less well known, perhaps, is the word ‘guddle’ which has the added appeal of describing not only the mess typical of a teenager’s bedroom but also any confusing or complex situation.
For example, a person could find themselves in a bit of a guddle if they slept in and missed the bus to work, or attempting to book holday tickets online could be a total guddle for some folk.
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Hide Ad‘Guddling’ is a term used to describe attempts to catch fish with your bare hands - a rather messy and difficult task which would fit in with the widely-accepted definition of something messy or confusing.
It is thought that the term previously applied to any mess involving water - perhaps stemming from the fish-catching definition - such as children guddling around in a puddle, and is perhaps onomatopoeically-derived from the noise made by hands in water scrabbling around for fish.