[Fictionary] turbary (with commentary)

[Josh Burdick]

Here are the revised counts. Re-checking the bit bucket, I find more 
votes from Elliott as well, along with director's-cut commentary.

I think that JimM won this, but leave the list moderator to make that call.

> turbary - adj. - A body ornament worn like a bracelet around the leg, 
> just above the knee.
>
Jean-Joseph's. Nick (1), Linda (2) . Some asked why it doesn't slide down.

Elliott: "What keeps it from sliding down?  Turbary garters?"
Pierre: "How do you keep it from falling down?"

> turbary - n. - an ecclesiastical official charged with insuring 
> consistency of decisions by all
> the courts spiritual within an archdiocese.
>
JimM's. Nick (2), David (1), Pierre (2)

Elliott: '``Courts spiritual'' is a nice touch, but there are other defs 
that look more etymologically plausible. '

> turbary - n. - a stew of mixed songbirds
David's. Elliott (1)

Elliott: "Not a syllable wasted.  One point!  (Maybe from TURDUS?) "
Pierre: "Four-and-twenty songbirds turbed in a stew..."

Nick wrote: "Looks like we've got a... repeat definition." I believe 
that he meant that this definition was disturbing, like Fran's 
definition. My personal opinion is that such a stew is fairly tame for a 
fairy tale, but admittedly it's been a while...

> turbary - noun(plural turbaries).1.land, or a piece of land, where 
> turf or peat may be dug or cut.
> 2.(Law) the right to cut turf or peat on a common land or on another 
> person's land.
>
The correct definition, guessed by David and Elliott (for two points 
apiece).
Pierre also wrote (without, as far as I understand, allocating any 
points): "Une autre tourbe de sphaigne. I'm guessing that this is the 
real one."

Elliott expounds (presumably this is the bit that persuaded my tiny 
mailreader's mind that his message was spam):
"
Oooh!  This sounds very plausible.  Two points and a powdered wig for 
Def #2 all by itself.  What a vast world of Blackstone fanfic it opens!

A _turbary glebe_, where the parson has to live entirely on the proceeds 
of a peat bog.  An _easement of turbary_, the right to cross another's 
land to get at your peat. _Turbary estray_, the right to any foreign 
peat that somehow turns up on your land.  The First Statute of Turbaries 
(6 Eliz. I, c. 21, "An Act to relieue turf-cutteres wrongfully 
confined"), which provides that a man may recross another's land while 
carrying the very last slice of turf, notwithstanding that by cutting it 
he extinguishes the turbary and therewith the easement by which he entered.

And of course the Second Statute of Turbaries (8 Eliz. I, c. 1, "An Act 
to relieue the distresse of many parrishes, long without their 
preestes"), amending the First Statute of Turbaries by empowering the 
equity courts to aid those who, on realizing their predicament, had 
angrily flung the crucial last slice over the property line, where the 
neighbor had seized it by right of turbary estray.
"


>
> turbary -- (adj.)  Of cheese, filled with bubbles of pressurized gas 
> which
> burst audibly when bitten into.
Elliot's.

He asks:
"
No, seriously:  Why doesn't this happen in bubbly cheeses?  Why are the 
bubbles all at, or near, atmospheric pressure?  The cheese is in a 
wooden form, so it can't expand, and cheese shrinks as the water 
evaporates; how come that doesn't compress the bubbles?  Do any 
fictioneers know cheese?
"

To this, Pierre bestows the coveted: "One point and the 
streuble-cabbaging-frogmouth award."
> turbary, n. a small shrub with waxy gray berries, similar to bayberry
> and used in the same way to make candles.
Linda's.

Elliott: "bary/berry ... Never seen it before, so I won't swallow it.   
(BERRY)"
Pierre: "I don't have the Mary-merry-marry merger, so this doesn't 
sound, let alone
look, right."

>
> turbary - adj. 1. disturbing 2. abhorrent
Fran's.

Elliiott: "Plausible, but I find your lack of peat disturbing."
Pierre: "Disturbary."

>
> turbary, n. A cage or habitat for flightless birds.
Nick's.

Pierre: "Isn't this a ratitary?"
Elliott: "(Maybe also inspired by TURDUS?) "

> turbary, n. A building used to dry peat in the Outer Hebrides. The 
> peat is
> used as fuel in the blackhouse; once the thatch of the blackhouse is
> thoroughly saturated with peat smoke, it is removed and used as 
> fertilizer,
> and the blackhouse is rethatched.
>
Pierre's. Linda (1)

Elliott:"I usually am suspicious of defs that don't sound like they came 
from a dictionary, and this is one of them.  The word also sounds too 
Latinate for the Hebrides (vague memories of TORVUS, or something like 
that).  I like the idea of using your roof for fertilizer. "

Pierre quotes Weston Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:
"It is replaced each October and the old thatch is believed by the 
natives to
have great value as a special fertilizer for their soil because of its
impregnation with chemicals that have been obtained from the peat smoke 
which
may be seen seeping through all parts of the roof at all seasons of the 
year."

Lastly, Hutch casts zero votes for any of them: "Absolutely none of them 
are believable this time!"

Josh


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