giggling gear
other.— «“Giggling Gear”—This is a term used in playing a joke on an apprentice who will be sent to the stock room ostensibly to get a part for a machine [sic] being instructed to ask for a “giggling gear,” there being no such thing,and the laugh that the jokers get out of it gives the first part of the term “giggling.”» —“Trade Jargon—Carpet Industry” by Ellis H. Custer in Westchester and Yonkers, N.Y. Lexicon of Trade Jargon Mar. 23, 1938. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The adjective corny describes someone or something “unsophisticated” or “naive.” This sense of corny goes back at least as far as the 1920s. Seed catalogs of the time often contained bits of goofy jokes and broad humor...