1722 Canoodle

So I read an interesting word in an article the other day. Canoodle. It reminded me how fun our language can be. The sentence in which it was embedded was "She wasn't done with her fan fiction tribute until she had turned the author's tame canoodlings into graphic heavy-breathing erotica."
What contrast. Tame canoodling versus graphic heavy-breathing erotica. Makes the act of canoodling seem very tame indeed.
But what, actually, is canoodling? Is it short for caressing your noodle? Or is it something like limp and tepid Canadian kissing?
Maybe it's a word from the same origin as "hunky dory." "That's hunky dory, Dave, me and the wife are going to the drive-in later on and do some canoodling, eh.
What is a hunky dory? Some very macho and handsome flat-bottomed boat? And why would it be an synonym for things being great? Not a lot to aspire to if you asked me. Man, I want my life to be like a good-looking flat-bottomed boat.
Perhaps while they're getting ready to go to the drive-in they'll dilly dally. "Oh, the date would have been hunky dory all right but Jen had to dilly dally and make us late. We still had time for a little canoodling though. But no hanky panky.
Did you ever notice how folks never seem to dally dilly? They always dilly dally. Must be the same people that get involved in stop and go traffic. How do you stop and go if you never were going in the first place? Don't you actually go and stop? You can't just start out by stopping. You have to stop going to stop. No matter how much you dally dilly or dilly dally.
Kind of makes you scratch your noodle, if not caress it.
Still¾ain't our language a dilly?
America ya gotta love it.