The TLS writes: “To noodle, according to our 1993 Chambers, means ‘to improvise on a musical instrument in a casual or desultory way, esp in jazz’ — which seems right for what [Bednarik] was suggesting Chin was up to. The transfer from jazz to translation, itself a craft open to improvisation, is apt.” Regrettably, another craft open to improvisation went unmentioned:
no subject