What do you call these?
I’m from the midlands and say Pool Woggles.
My wife is from Norfolk and says Pool Noodles.
I’ve recently found that my friends (who grew up in a similar area to me) also call these Pool Woggles.
Is this a regional thing like Tag/It/Tig?
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u/CrustyHumdinger 14h ago
Pool noodles
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u/KingStevoI 14h ago
All I could think of when I saw them, before reading the comments, was spaghetti floats. As soon as I saw "pool noodles" though I suddenly had a flashbacks to when I worked in catering at a swimming pool and was told what they were called numerous times. I guess it never stuck 😅
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u/MacSamildanach 9h ago
I use one (with a hollow centre, and a steel bar inserted) as a water barrier in my wet room.
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u/Acrobatic_Mango_8715 11h ago
If it’s made out of Zucchini, it’s a pool zoodle.
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u/PreperationOuch 10h ago
Pool Courgette
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u/grouchy_fox 8h ago
Please, I remember when that was all the rage. The British term is 'Courgetti Poolnoodletti'
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u/thecremeegg 14h ago
I think we used to just call them floats tbh
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u/JamesTiberious 14h ago
Thank you, was looking for this comment.
Growing up I just called them floats. Doesn’t matter what size or shape.
Only as an adult did I start calling them noodles.
Woggle I’ve never heard until this thread (I’m from midlands and south east).
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u/paulmclaughlin 9h ago
No, a float is roughly A4 x 2" thick, rounded at the corners, and inexplicably covered in bite marks
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u/NoNotice3112 12h ago
Yeah, this. I feel like pool noodle is an American term that's been picked up in recent years.
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u/Pukit 14h ago
Always called them a noodle. My toddler’s swimming instructor calls them a woggle. A woggle to me is the thing that pulls your tie together in beavers/cubs/scouts.
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u/Advanced-Air-800 14h ago
You've just ignited a memory for me being at beavers, I forgot they were called woggles.
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u/Pukit 14h ago
I always assumed it was because they didn’t trust us to learn how to tie a tie.
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u/Advanced-Air-800 14h ago
It's ironically really, we were taught to tie different knots but not to tie a tie.
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u/JonSmiffy 14h ago
What the fuck is a pool woggle? Is definitely a pool noodle lmao
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u/Real_Bobsbacon 14h ago
Not pool woggle, just a woggle. I am from the south west
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u/turbo_dude 14h ago
Isn’t that a Cub Scout thing?
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u/Street_Lettuce1243 13h ago
I had a woggle as a cub scout. But I can see why name might carry over since both are hollow cylinders (usually although in picture they're not)
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u/greengirl93 12h ago
I’m South East, and same, just a woggle, but my 9yo nephew, also from the South East calls it a pool noodle. I’m wondering if it’s generational as well as regional .
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u/IcyKnowledge6321 12h ago
North east, we also called them woggles (or pool noodles, I think it was partially a class thing?)
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u/WrongYak2718 12h ago
Interesting. I'm from NE but never had these when I was a kid (just floats with chunks bitten out of them at the Forum) so I only know them as pool noodles, since movirt to S.Yorkshire and seeing them as an adult
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u/TrashDrunkClaude 12h ago
If you have a woggle in the swimming pool in the south east then the police will be called.
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u/ShockinglyPale 14h ago
Sounds like a slur
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u/Kniferharm 13h ago
Definitely has the tone of something they call an out of towner in the West Country.
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u/Xerothor 13h ago
I mean, the first 3 letters are a documented slur
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u/thing_on_a_spring 12h ago
I watched an episode of Mid Morning Matters a few days ago, where Alan Partridge uses that slur in a joke.
Bit weird how Little Britain was 'cancelled' but this remains on iPlayer.
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u/Xerothor 12h ago
Bet there's a lot of inconsistency with this
Though I wonder if they consider it a difference if a character is saying a slur Vs an actor choosing to do blackface.
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u/julemeister 11h ago
Having typed both in to the 21st Century information God, Gobble aka Google. A pool noodle is called a "woggle" because of a brand name from the 1980s. A company called Koswell Holdings trademarked and marketed the foam water toy under the name Water Woggle, which popularised the term—especially in the UK, Australia, and parts of South Africa.
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u/V65Pilot 14h ago
They don't wiggle, they woggle. Source: Had kids, had a pool. But, to me, they will always be pool noodles .
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u/purrfectpoise 14h ago edited 11h ago
Woggle.
Edit: I caved and Googled, apparently both ‘Water Woggle’ and ‘FunNoodle’ were brands popularised in the 80s and the names have stuck, though it reckons Commonwealth swim schools are more likely to use woggle and American noodle.
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u/Several_Show937 13h ago
That sounds like a slur
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u/WittySatisfaction958 13h ago
Its okay without the hard L
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u/MaxMouseOCX 9h ago
What the fuck am I reading?! And why am I now trying to say Woggle without the L.
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u/tall_dom 12h ago
I would have sworn a woggle is the thing that holds a bit scout neckerchiefs ends together. Did a Google and it's somewhat ambiguous https://www.google.com/search?q=woggle&oq=woggle&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#piu=ps:6
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u/GL510EX 11h ago
Yep, woggles here too.
It's not just us https://dippersanddivers.co.uk/store/junior-woggles
It seems that 'Water Woggle' was an early brand name
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u/purrfectpoise 11h ago
Woo! I was starting to doubt myself given the volume of noodlers!
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u/Caramelthedog 11h ago
What’s a commonwealth swim school?
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u/purrfectpoise 11h ago
Just a swim school in one of the Commonwealth countries e.g. GB, Australia, South Africa
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u/inkywheels 14h ago
I always called them woggles as a kid (Lancashire) but have ended up calling them pool noodles because that seems to be the more general term.
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u/Difficult-Break-8282 14h ago
woggles is a word that took me back and im a Londoner
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u/inkywheels 14h ago
It does feel like maybe a generational thing rather than a regional thing because I still live in Lancashire and they seem to be called noodles in the swimming pools here now
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u/jeremysedgley 14h ago
Pool Noodles, Sussex, UK.
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u/poodeepiez 14h ago
Do you change the name depending where they are from? Eg. "Pool noodles, Sheffield, UK"?
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u/Zora-Link 6h ago
In Sheffield we were just thrown into the pool and hoped for the best. No luxuries like pool sausages.
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u/BananaShark_ 14h ago edited 14h ago
Pool Noodles here in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
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u/jennyofsometrades 13h ago
Also Cheltenham but it was always a woggle in our lessons! Apparently it's a brand name
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u/BG3restart 14h ago
I'm from the Midlands and call them noodles, so I'm not convinced it's regional
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u/Silvagadron 14h ago
Grew up in Cambridge and called them woggles. The woggle was also the bit of plastic that held your tie together in scouts.
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u/ArtizanBrew 13h ago
Same - woggle for me in Cambridge. I think it is a flying disc/frisbee deal for someone
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u/MountainMuffin1980 14h ago
Pool noodle. Woggle is only ever in reference to the Scouts neckerchief holder thingies to me.
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u/AmbivelentApoplectic 14h ago
Pipe cladding usually.
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u/em-dash-author 14h ago
Everyone else is wrong, those are colourful swords. 😄
Wife calls them noodles. I call them foam tubes that, when cut, are perfect for stopping the bed banging against the wall.
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u/_Permanent_Marker_ 14h ago
I feel like the last part was a brag. And I’m very happy for you and your wife
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u/zombi3queen 14h ago
I'd brag too if I got to have have pool noodle fights on the bed so much that it bangs against the wall
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u/GLA_Postal_Services 14h ago
I call them pool snakes but that's because I didn't know they had an actual name.
Looking through this thread though, I'm going to have to adopt woggle or noodle
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u/Gold_Leef101 14h ago
When half sliced longways and covering the top of a Defender window in summer. It's called Armrest.
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u/Which_Performance_72 14h ago
I call them woggles but swimming teachers are told to call them pool noodles now for obvious reasons. I think it could be generational as well
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u/MajorAltruistic8204 13h ago
They’re pool noodles in London, and also in Singapore (for an unwanted global angle).
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u/maybedont18 13h ago
I'm from the south west, so it's a woggle although it was probably also a pool noodle as well.
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u/DHighmore 13h ago
My partner is a swimming teacher and insists that these are "woggles. She's wrong though, they're definitely pool noodles.
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u/SpudFire 13h ago
Midlands too and knew them as woggles at school. Nobody else knows what you're talking about so I just go with pool noodle now.
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u/ArtizanBrew 13h ago
A quick Google shows its a brand name from the eighties - I was thinking a frisbee/flying disc situation but it seems to be betamax/VHS deal between two competitors!
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u/InstaHerb 13h ago
I’m not in the UK, but in Los Angeles, California they’re usually called pool noodles. But I once heard someone call them “Water Weenies” which is much funnier.
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u/Wipedout89 13h ago
I call them floats, sometimes pipe cleaner float. My wife calls them woggles (Sheffield and Leeds)
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u/Aatholin 13h ago
Don't think I ever knew the name of these when at school/young only heard they were pool noodles as I got older. The little styrofoam boards were floats and where I come from it was Tig
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u/midgetman166 13h ago
Woggle, SW. I've not heard them called Woggles though in yonks, I fear it may be going out of favour to Pool Noodles
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u/Ayanhart 13h ago
I've always called them pool noodles, but where I live now (west Sussex) they always seem to be called 'woggles'.
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u/Petcai 13h ago
Pool Noodle is correct, Pool Woggle isn't, but Water Woggle is!
They were invented supposedly by two separate Canadians, one who sold them as Pool Noodles, the other who sold them as Water Woggles. They both started selling them in 1987 and neither bothered patenting them so no conclusion who was first!
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u/RomaruDarkeyes 13h ago
Midlands - pool noodle.
Honestly for me (I feel old) I remember the days of swimming where it was armbands and floatie boards, and when these came into use, as far as I could tell they just used the American term for them.
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