Random thought: I wonder if true cobblers resent the modern connotation of “cobbled together” more or less meaning “to haphazardly assemble”. I would hope my cobbler isn’t cobbling together my shoes!
@jarrod Just looked it up the OED and the first use in that sense is from 1589: “To expresse that which the Greeks could do by cobling many words together.” Interestingly the derivation is unclear, but they say cobbler was used much earlier.
@jarrod cobbled together shoes where made from scraps of stuff left over. You might get bits cobbled together for a cheep pair, but they were different to those made by a shoemaker.
@jarrod In Norway we use «å koble sammen» (to link together) about anything that is linked together in some way or another. I think koble/cobble has the same root.
@jarrod I think there’s a similar, older thing with ‘bodge’. A bodger was a furniture maker, but you wouldn’t want a bodged job (or botch job) of your furniture, or anything else