Subject: CACKLE-BLADDER: results!

From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 13:23:03 -0500 (EST)

Jean-Joseph's 4 point newspaper plus two more for psyching me out and
guessing the correct definition give him an impressive six points.

But that's not good enough!  For Pierre's kachelblatter earned seven
points all by itself, even though I wasn't able to reproduce the umlauts
that were supposed to appear over the a's in that word.  Why, if the
umlauts had been there, he might have taken over the world by now.  Take
it away, Pierre!

-- ranjit

cackle-bladder (n.) - A derogatory term for bagpipes, or one who plays the
bagpipes.

--- Snibor Eoj, 2 pts

Hutch: 2, "I had thought about making up something like this, but the more
I look at it, the more I think it might be right."
Jean-Joseph: "I'm going to reject anything involving an actual bladder."

cackle-bladder - Early Celtic version of the Bagpipes. Cackle-bladder is a
bag that is made of goat intestines which has a round stone ring attached
to one end. This ring has a bar across the middle and a piece of parchment
attached to one side of the circle. The bag is filled with air, placed
under the arm and gently squeezed. When the air moves out of the end where
the ring and parchment is where it then makes a cackling sound (high
shrill).

--- Sandy, 2 pts

Kir: 2, "I s'pose"
Hutch: "Generally known as a whoopie cushion."
Jean-Joseph: "Bladder.  What a lot of work to make a stone ring?  Wouldn't
wood or bone be much easier?"
Snibor Eoj: "Damn.  Another bagpipe."

cackle-bladder n. an expandable water pouch carried by aboriginal peoples
of Australia which is made from the bladder of an emu.

--- Nora, 1 pt

Snibor Eoj: 1
Jean-Joseph: A bladder.  And not particularly appetizing.

cackle-bladder (n) - a jester's wand, made of a pig's bladder tied to a
stick, mimicking the scepter of a king

--- MyS, 4 pts

Snibor Eoj: 2, "I like this."
David: 2
Jean-Joseph: "A bladder.  Can the jester get away with making fun of the
king?  Maybe some other king."

cackle-bladder, n. (Swiss German Kachelblatter) The leaves of chick-peas,
used as fodder after the chick-pea harvest.

--- Pierre, 7 pts

MyS: 2, "though I am skeptical of chickpeas having leaves and the Swiss
needing a term for them"
Aussie: 2, "I'll betcha 2 points that this is it!"
Judith: 2
Fran: 1
Jean-Joseph: "Do they eat chickpeas in Switzerland?  Maybe.  I'd give it a
point if I had any left."

the cackle-bladder.  A method of blowing off recalcitrant or dangerous
marks after they have been fleeced.  The insideman shoots the roper with
blank cartridges on the pretense that the roper has ruined both the mark
and the insideman.  He then hands the mark the gun, while the roper spurts
blood on the mark from a rubber bladder he holds in his mouth.  The mark
flees, thinking he is an accessory to murder.  The insideman keeps in
touch with him for some time and sends him to various cities on the
pretext of avoiding arrest.  Cf. to cool a mark out.

--- The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man  - David W. Maurer (1940)
--- 4 pts

Jean-Joseph: 2, "No way.  Except that Ranjit picked this word.  Two points
(which will probably go to Elliott)."
Amy: 1, "Wow, wonderful complexity.  I don't buy it, but it's great; one
point."
Kir: 1, "worth a point"
Hutch: "I love this one. I just have a hard time imagining a dictionary
including this as a def."
Snibor Eoj: "I almost have to vote for this on the grounds that nobody
would possibly submit a definition like this and expect it to get votes.
But not quite."

cackle-bladder - n. - The morning edition of a newspaper that is published
twice daily

--- Jean-Joseph, 6 pts = 4 + 2 for correct guess

Amy: 2, "Ooh, very nice!"
MyS: 1
Linda: 1 "which name I might steal for MY newspaper someday"
Judith: "Also ran"
Jean-Joseph: "Mine.  Inspired by the Swedish word 'blad', meaning 'leaf',
from which you get newspaper names like 'Nyheter Dagbladet' (roughly, The
Daily News Sheet, I think).  And a rooster crowing.  How long has it been
since any US newspsper printed two editions, anyway?  When I was a kid,
the Worcester (MA) Telegram & Gazette printed the Morning Telegram and the
Evening Gazette, complete with distinct comic sections.  But that was long
ago."
Ranjit: "I have adopted 'DAGBLADET!' as my general purpose curse, for
stubbed toes and the like."

cackle-bladder--n.--[Scots dialect] parsnips

--- David, 4 pts

Fran: 2
Hutch: 1, "I seem to be voting the Scots ticket this time around"
Jean-Joseph: 1, "Sure."

cackle-bladder, n.  a reddish-brown Medieval dye made from rooster wattles
and combs.  Becomes more orange if alum is used as a mordant with cotton.
Becomes more purple if vinegar is the mordant on wool.  cf. Lamb's bleat,
bishop's mole.

--- Linda, 2 pts

David: 1
Aussie: 1, "I doubt it, but I like it, so 1 point."
Jean-Joseph: "Who's been working with primitive textiles lately?"
Kir: "I can't image a dye like this from those parts, but someone knows
ta's dying tech..."

cackle-bladder (n.) - the sac which enables a living shark to maintain
neutral buoyancy, and which acts as a whoopee-cushion when removed by a
fisherman and dried to a chamois-like texture.

--- Fran, 4 pts

Linda: 2
Sandy: 2
Hutch: "Generally known as bagpipes?"
Jean-Joseph: "Bladder.  Linda."

cackle-bladder (n.) A small frog (Rana arias) found in the eastern United
States, known for its stuttering call.

--- Amy, 2 pts = 1 + 1 for correct guess

Judith: 1
Jean-Joseph: "The image of a spring peeper with its throat sac inflated
reminds me too much of a bladder."

cackle-bladder - n. - (archaic) stress incontinence found in older women,
brought on by laughter.

--- Aussie, 1 pts

Sandy: 1
Hutch: "Rolling on the Floor ... Peeing"
Jean-Joseph: "Better than milk coming out of your nose?"
Snibor Eoj: "That's a much better phrasing than my abandoned attempt at
'laughing so hard that you wet yourself'."

Cackle-bladder (n):  A weed of the milkweed family, Asclepias polygala.
The seed pods burst with a characteristic "cackle" sound.

--- Judith

Jean-Joseph: "Obscure organisms rarely get my vote."

Essay-format comments:

Linda:  As for comments, my son Jon loves bagpipes, but very few others do
(as a former oboist I can't criticize), nor do most people like parsnips
for some silly reason, nor chick peas except as hummus.  AS for blowing
off a mark, a few bodies have been found in ponds and rivers in my rural
area of RI  (not close to my road at least) floating face down, alas. In
Jr. H.S., for a class project, I made a jester hat to wear and also a
little dummy--those were my less cool days, but the teacher and class
liked them.  I like the chick pea def, and the kazoo-like goat intestines.
As for medieval dyes, I will submit a list of real and funny ones later.
Does the stuttering frog say, " rr-rr-rrr-ribbit?"  Incontinence in older
women is no laughing matter, but may be helped by Mg and kegel exercises.
AS for wild milkweeds, there is a relative called Indian hemp that has
four leaves together, but I've only seen it in one woodsy place in CT.
All in all, very good bluffing with plausible  (to non-linguists)
derivations.  Linda
PS The emu bladder sounds very water-proof.

---

From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 15:07:20 -0500

> umlauts had been there, he might have taken over the world by now.  Take

What happened to my votes and comments?

I'm leaving for Germany tomorrow. I'll pick a word probably by Sunday, but if 
I don't, you may want to check if I'm dead.

My German dictionary doesn't have "chickpea" or "garbanzo", but the word I'm 
thinking of, in standard German, is "Kicherblätter". It has "kichern" 
(giggle), but not "Kichererbse".

phma

-- 
.i toljundi do .ibabo mi'afra tu'a do
.ibabo damba do .ibabo do jinga
.icu'u la ma'atman.

---

From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 15:16:54 -0500 (EST)

> What happened to my votes and comments?

Never received, sorry to say!  All the email from you I have in the past
week concerns such matters as enchiridion and nuchthereminal, which i
can't remember how to spell but I just bought a theremin.

Sorry, Pierre!

-- ranjit

---

From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 15:48:38 -0500

> can't remember how to spell but I just bought a theremin.

I just sent it again. Let me know whether you get it.

phma