Nurdle, Nerdle, Nodule

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, hello, good morning. This is Rebecca. I’m calling from Wisconsin.

I have a word. And the back story is I was in the kitchen putting away leftovers with my husband.

And I said to him, I’ve got a little nurdle of meatloaf here.

Should I, you know, stick it in the fridge or give it to the dog?

And he laughed and he said, do you know, you are the only person I’ve ever heard use that word.

And I said, what word?

And he said, nurdle.

And I was like, no, that can’t be right.

I use it all the time.

So I started to ask my family, my friends.

And as it turns out, I could not find a single person who uses that word.

And then I thought, I got a little paranoid.

I thought, is it even a word?

Did I make it up?

I’m not that clever.

So I just would like to know if you know the word nurdle and where it comes from.

Rebecca, we can assure you that you’re not alone.

You’re not the only nerd who uses nurdle.

Good, good.

I am not the only person on the planet.

No, no, no.

And this is a safe space for people like you, Rebecca.

Good.

But I should ask, how are you spelling it?

I spell it N-E-R-D-L-E.

Okay. N-E-R-D-L-E.

Because a lot of people spell it N-U-R-D-L-E.

You can find examples of people using the word nurdle for bits of styrofoam packing material,

Little crusty bits of something, little greebles you find in your pocket.

Some people use the term for, you know, just a thingamabob, a what’s it, a dumaflatchy.

You might also hear the word nurdle used more often now with the U spelling, N-U-R-D-L-E,

To denote little pellets that are used in the production of plastic.

They’re about the size of a pea or a lentil.

And that’s showing up in the news a whole lot more

Because it turns out that that kind of nurdle is a huge source of pollution.

Oh.

Yeah, sometimes like container ships will sink and billions of them will be released into the ocean.

They’ll show up in the bodies of sea creatures and the surfaces of them collect harmful bacteria

And then they pile up on the beaches.

They’re just bad news.

And one more use of the word nurdle that might be related since the 1960s or so.

It’s been used to denote that waved-shaped dab of toothpaste that you put on your toothbrush.

Oh, that’s a nurdle.

That is a nurdle.

That’s a nurdle.

Yeah, we probably have listeners who are old enough to remember Vote Toothpaste, which was sold in the 1960s.

And they would advertise that by saying, put a nurdle of vote on your toothbrush.

How about that?

Well, I’m old enough to remember it, but I don’t remember it.

But that’s, see, that’s always something, for me, it’s always something kind of gloppy or soft, you know, but not liquid.

You can have a nurdle of ice cream, but you couldn’t have a nurdle of milk.

So, yeah, that fits with the toothpaste thing, kind of squishy.

Yeah, so we don’t know the origin of it, but maybe some ad executive came up with a nurdle of toothpaste,

And it took off from there.

We don’t really know.

One theory about it is that it comes as a kind of corrupted pronunciation of the word nodule,

N-O-D-U-L-E, meaning a knot or a knob, a round thing.

That would make sense.

I just have to educate my family and friends, you know, so they use it too, because it’s a very useful word.

Indeed.

Yeah, whether you’re talking about little food scraps or toothpaste or whatever.

We appreciate your call and your time, Rebecca. Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

All right. Be well. Take care.

Take care. Bye.

You know, Grant, there was actually a lawsuit involving the word nurdle that was between two toothpaste companies.

And they actually define what a nurdle is in the text of this lawsuit.

It defines nurdle as a small amount of toothpaste akin to what consumers would use when brushing their teeth.

Because you may remember Aquafresh, the toothpaste, has a picture of a toothbrush with a nurdle on it.

Right, that lady-shaped S-shaped thing.

Right.

And they were accusing Colgate of co-opting that image.

And so there was a fight in court, I think around 2010.

Around the appearance of toothpaste on a toothbrush.

Yes, yes.

And a slogan that they used.

The world knows no boundaries when it comes to nonsense that we consume about.

Nerdles.

This is the place to get your nerdles satisfied.

You got a little nerdle of information that you want to know.

We are loaded with nerdles.

877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.