Subject: LANGRET results

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 11:34:31 -0400 (EDT)

Ugh, bounced out of wrong address. Luckily, Linda's email reminded me to
rummage... (and yes, you'd already voted. :) )

I apologize for the delay! -- Kir

Whoo hoo, the dictionary gotcha with no points for the true def! What 
are the odds? 

LANGRET - n. - A kind of loaded die. [Obs.]
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary,  1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

Above and beyond that, however, Pierre takes it away with 9 points
for 
LANGRET - n. - A tool used in an evaporation pool to stir or collect 
sea salt.

Over to you, Pierre!

--Kir

THE DETAILS:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"No votes for anything related to EGRET or REGRET" -- Elliott

JUDITH
LANGRET - n. - A tall wading bird

"Long egret"-Pierre
"Egret" - Elliott

LINDA
LANGRET - n. - In Scotland, a sad, slow, melodious song of unrequited 
love. cf. Am. torch song or Port. fado.  

"Auld Lang Syne + Regret" - Elliott

DAVID
LANGRET - n. - the sadness one feels when one realizes that one will 
never speak French like a native.

"Langue regret" - Pierre
"Hee hee but no points" - Fran
"Language + regret" - Elliott

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary,  1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
LANGRET - n. - A kind of loaded die. [Obs.]

"Tit fot tat" - Pierre
"But what kind?" - Elliott

ELLIOTT 
LANGRET - n. - 1.  An oscine songbird, Mimus proteus, whose
eggs are laid in the nests of other species and whose young develop
song, plumage, and size similar to those of the host.  2.  (Also
langrette; more at -ETTE.  pej.)  A graduate student who
unconsciously takes on mannerisms, turns of phrase, style of hair and
clothing, or other incidental traits of his or her adviser.

"This doesn't sound plausible. Mimus is the mockingbird, and they
sound like all sorts of birds, one after the other. Among the
oscines, markings in the mouth are how the parents recognize their
children, not plumage. And how, or why, would they grow to the same
size as their hosts? Cuckoos are usually much larger than their
hosts." - Pierre

"(1) is fictitious, but we need a word for (2)" - Elliott

JEAN-JOSEPH (4)
LANGRET - v. - In the game of innebandy (floorball), to move the ball
forward across two lines without making the required lateral pass to
another player.
2 (Pierre)
1 (Elliott)
1 (Ranjit)

"One point for sonica and one for basset" - Pierre
"Just weird enough to marginally believable" - Elliott
"It's a verb!  A VERB!  One point." - Ranjit

PIERRE (9)
LANGRET - n. - A tool used in an evaporation pool to stir or collect 

sea salt.
1 (JUdith)
2 (MyS)
2 (David)
2 (Fran)
2 (Ranjit)

"Book recommendation: _Salt:_a_world_history_ by Mark Kurlansky.  If
you read this, you don't need to read his other two books on cod and
on the Basques, because those are covered in "Salt."  It's a very
interesting book, which among other things links many wars in history
to the control of salt supplies.  Even wars you thought were about
something else entirely!" - Fran

"Don't EGRETS tend to hand out in salte water marshes?" - Elliott
[Kir adds: nope. Fresh water is fine, and there are species that don't
mind fairly dry uplands, like the cattle egret.]

"Two points because I like evaporation pools." - Ranjit

RANJIT (8)
LANGRET - n. - an elevated observation post
2 (Judith)
1 (David)
1 (Fran) 
2 (Elliott)
2 (Linda)

"For sounding like it could be real" - Fran

"Plausible, somehow.  From the crenellated langret surmounting the
barbican, Lady Elspeth looked haughtily down on the English knights
outside the gate.  "We've already got one!", she thundered.  "Take
two points and be gone with ye!"" - Elliott

"2 points for no known reason" - Linda

FRAN (3)
LANGRET - n. - on some birds, an area of bare skin between the beak
and the eye.
1 (MyS)
1 (Pierre)
1 (Linda)

"EGRET" - Elliott

"I love all birds (except a certain banty rooster) but this is a new
one.  1 point, Linda PS Our Muscovy ducks have extra rubbery tissue
in that spot."

A POSTSCRIPT
----------------------------------------------------------

After voting, Elliott then mailed this note: 

[After checking.] Oooh, the false die!  Excellent.  The OED has a
circa 1550 quotation:  "A well fauored die that semeth good & square:
yet is the forhed longer on the cater and tray, then any other way,
and therfore holdeth the name of a langret. "  "Cater" is 4, and
"tray" 3; "forhed"  seems to be "forehead".  So I suppose this means
the 3 and 4 faces (which are opposite each other, at least on modern
dice) are larger than the others, so that the dice roll 3s and 4s too
often.  A pair of langrets would overproduce numbers from the middle
of the range, especially 7s, but since these are already the
likeliest rolls, the cheat might go undetected for a long time.

Very sneaky!

----- End forwarded message -----

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From: Elliott Moreton <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 13:12:07 -0400 (EDT)

> mind fairly dry uplands, like the cattle egret.]

Some egrets do tend to occur more often in saltwater, such as the Snowy
Egret:

http://r5gomp.fws.gov/gom/habitatstudy/metadata2/snowy_egret_model.htm

and the Reddish Egret:

http://audubon2.org/webapp/watchlist/viewSpecies.jsp?id=172

I once watched some sort of white egret fishing on the beach at Cancun at
night.  You could see the still-living fish wriggle as it slid down that
long, long neck.

em

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 07:39:10 -0400 (EDT)

Cool!

Yeah I should've been clearer; habitat choices do vary w/ species. Have you seen
www.ebird.org ?

Kir