Padiddle, perdiddle, padoodle, and even wilder variants all belong to the same car game: spot a vehicle with one headlight out and claim the point, slap the ceiling, or, in older versions, collect a kiss. Kurt from Philadelphia grew up with one form, and his girlfriend from Minnesota with another, which fits a word passed mostly by mouth rather than print. The game is attested from the 1940s, and the Dictionary of American Regional English uses padiddle as its headword, but there’s no single canonical spelling or pronunciation. More road-trip wordplay, including slug bug, appears in an earlier episode. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “By the 1940s, “Padiddle” Was a One-Headlight Kissing Game”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Kurt. I’m from Philadelphia.
Hi, Kurt. Welcome.
Hey there.
Well, do you guys know the game Padiddle?
Yes, as a matter of fact, we do.
Well, let’s hear you describe it.
Awesome. Well, it’s a game that you play in the car that when you see somebody with one headlight out, you hit the ceiling of the car and then you say Padiddle and whoever gets to do it first gets a point.
Mm—
Well, the debate is that my girlfriend and I, when we were driving back from visiting my parents, in Ohio, the game Padiddle came up.
I can’t remember if I hit it or if she hit it.
And then it turns out that she calls that game Padiddle, and I call it Padiddle.
And so there was this massive debate about who was right, about what the correct name of the game is.
She’s from Minnesota.
I’m from Ohio.
And it’s hoping that you can let us know, what’s the actual name of the game? Where did it come from?
And Kurt, how much is writing on this?
Oh, lots of pride.
Lots of pride.
There is a bit of a wager.
And especially if I lose, I have to greet all of her friends in this really exaggerated manner.
Tent how she does it.
What?
You have to do the girl squeal and the girl hug when you see her friends or something?
Exactly.
I’m going to be, it’s fun!
And you’re there!
There’s a lot of writing on this.
There’s a lot of writing on this.
Oh, boy.
All right.
Well, I’m happy to tell you that you’re both right and you’re both wrong, and you’re playing it wrong.
Oh, whoops.
So it looks like both of you are going to have to pony up.
Oh, boy, yeah.
All right, let’s break this down as simple as we can.
First, let’s talk about the history.
As far back as the 1940s, this was a kissing game.
When you saw a car with its headlight out, a boy could claim a kiss from a girl or a girl could claim a kiss from a guy.
Oh.
And the thing is, the girl also had the option of smacking the guy if she wanted instead of kissing him.
Ooh.
Yeah, so for a long time, for decades, it was just a kissing game.
And there are lots of complicated versions that involve different things happening when you saw your third padiddle of the night.
Pediddle is the name for the vehicle with the one light.
Wait, you can get to third base by the third pediddle?
Well, it depends.
It depends on how old you are, where you are, and how much the folklore journals wanted to put in print.
I love this particular phrase in one of these journals.
It says, sometimes the couples save up their pediddles throughout the evening and have a reckoning before departure.
In other words, they don’t give little smooches along the way.
They just neck a little bit before they go home.
Oh, okay, okay.
Kurt, is that the way you played it?
I hope they park before they pull up the reckoning.
So you’ll both be happy to hear that this will bring you closer together if you start playing it correctly.
Oh, yeah.
She might smack you once in a while.
And then the other thing is the name of this game, because it’s transmitted from mouth to ear and mouth to ear, that is, it’s rarely been put in print except in folklore journals.
It’s heavily corrupted.
I’ve got seven different variants of the name right here in front of me.
It’s a lot of different versions, the badiddle and perdido and padoodle and padungle.
Lots of variants of this.
And this is what happens to any word that is transmitted orally or verbally, right?
It’s the telephone game.
It’s the Chinese whispers game.
Something becomes corrupted as it’s passed from mouth to ear.
And so there isn’t a canonical perfect form of this word.
There is not one form of it that’s the right one.
Great.
You’re killing me.
Awesome.
Is there any way to tell what’s the most common?
No, no, you’re not allowed to do that.
You’re just not really.
Like I said, it rarely appears in print.
If you wanted to say that there was one form that is the most correct, I would choose what is called the head word from the Dictionary of American Regional English.
And they have chosen the spelling P-A-D-I-D-D-L-E.
Padiddle.
Okay, okay.
That’s the way you were doing it, right?
That was your spelling, right?
Yeah.
I think I’ve got to feather my cap on this one.
I think you do too.
But I want to see you greet her friends that way.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you’ve got to change the rules though.
It’s far more fun as a kissing game.
Hitting the roof of the car.
What kind of fun is that?
That’s lame.
That is, well Kurt, you can work on your pediddle technique.
I mean the two of you together.
I think that would be a great solution to the whole thing.
Yeah, you’ll be married by the end of the year.
Kurt, thank you so much for calling.
Thanks guys.
Okay let us know how that works out.
Alright bye bye.
Give us a call about the games that you play, the words that you know and the fights you’re having with your spouse or partner.
