Subject: You asked for it. You got it. Cothurnus.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 15:58:07 EDT

And the runaway victor (come back, Victor!) is Pierre, with a zillion points 
for a definition by which I personally wasn't conviced.... :)

cothurnus - (n) in medieval tapestry, a thread finished with a knot (See also 
athurnus)
RANJIT
1 Judith, 1 Jean-Joseph

Kir: really really tempting -- it's a toss up of this v. either the
nettle drink or the arabic word, and I really do like alchemy and weird
herbalism
Pierre: Knot likely.

cothurnus - (n) the practice of singeing the beard or whiskers with hot coals
ELLIOTT
1 Aussie, 2 Jean-Joseph

Pierre: Burning question: Who does this?
Jean-Joseph: 2 points, and if it's real, you have to tell us why it's done.

cothurnus - (n)  1. a high thick-soled laced boot worn by actors in Greek and 
Roman tragic drama  2. the dignified somewhat stilted style of ancient tragedy
TRUE
2 DavidR, 2 Stimpy

Eric: This looks like someone trying to capitalize on the long-toes phenomeon 
from last round, with a couple of definitions that are *slightly* related.
Hutch: The name of a shoe turning into a descriptor of a theater style??? Oh,
come on!  [Nyah nyah -- ed.]
Kir: Was it cold or muddy enough to require boots instead of sandals
and wrappings?

cothurnus - (n) a baked dessert consisting of a sweetened hard-baked shell 
filled with an almond-flavored cream, popular in the countryside surrounding 
Florence
ERIC

Kir: Sounds WONDERFUL

cothurnus - (n) fermented beverage made from sweet nettles
AUSSIE
1 Kir, 2 JDMS

Eric:  "Of all the cothurnus joints in all the cities in the whole world, she 
walks into mine."  Shyeah, right.

cothurnus - (n) an entity which shares its thurnus with another
JUDITH

Pierre: Begging the question, "what's a thurnus?"

cothurnus - (n) improperly healed scar tissue containing pus
DAVIDR
1 JDMS, 2 Pierre

Kir: Yuk!
Pierre: Two points, pus or minus.

cothurnus - (n) summer thunder
NOVA & JAMES

cothurnus - (n) a dovetail joint secured with four pegs
JDMS
1 Hutch

Kir: You don't need to secure a dovetail joint, really, and 4 pegs is way 
beyond redundant.  Decorative, though.

cothurnus - (n) an ornamental bracket used for mounting a crucifix on a wall
JEAN-JOSEPH
2 Aussie, 1 Pierre

Eric: Uh-oh, it's the Pope again!  More Pope smoke!   ;-D

cothurnus - (n) [Arabic quturnu, censer] (Alchemy) a vessel in which a powder 
is heated until it emits smoke or gas, which is then collected
PIERRE
2 Eric, 2 Judith, 2 Hutch, 2 Kir, 1 Stimpy

Eric: Now, *THIS*, I like, 2 points worth!  I'll chose it both in the belief 
that I could get 2 points for myself for it, and also not feel too bad if 
it's one of my
competitors, here -- they'll have definitely earned it. Or it could be *yet 
more* Pope smoke, but... nah

cothurnus - (n) the raised edge on the pouring spout of a pitcher or 
decanter, designed to keep the contents from dripping down the outside of the 
container
STIMPY
1 Eric

Eric: I *want* there to be a word for that, I guess.  (Anybody else out in 
the viewing audience miss "Sniglets"?)
Kir: Which generally doesn't work?

cothurnus - (n) [<Mongol. _kutsurnu_, 'short battle sword'] stylized 
ceremonial sword carried by emperors of the Yuan dynasty as a symbol of 
authority
JENNIFER

Hutch: More literally translated: "sword carried next to one's yurt"

cothurnus - (n) the spiral shell of the cothurnum aeternam, a mollusk native 
to southern Polynesia
HUTCH
1 DavidR

Kir: Southern Polynesia?  Are the mollusks that habitat-specific?
Also, names in binomial classification have the genus capitalized -- or is 
that MyS's claim of all typos are hers?  Hmmm...  Why just the shell and not 
the whole critter?  Hmmmm Wait, this definition ALSO sounds like one from 
last summer. Hm. It must be a plot.
Pierre: Can you write shell scripts for it?

And now, Fictionary Theatre presents:
The Cothurnus of Peace
A one-act play by Aussie Meyer

SETTING: The desert encampment of the Mongol horde.In front of a heavily
brocaded yurt, betassled with cothurnus and athurnus galore, A comely
maiden waits on the Emperor.  

ENTER the Roman Claudio, stomping stiffly in his cothurnus, and his
travelling companion Friar Buck, the Ethiopian monk.

Claudio: Hail, Emperor! Canst thou spare a dram of cothurnus for the
weary travellers? Perhaps your serving-maiden can pour us a cup from the
cothurnus of thy jug, The sun withers me like whiskers cothurnus'd.

Mongol Emperor: Come you from the Roman Empire?  I know your people,
weak from spooning your sweet, sloppy Neapolitan cothurnus.  I'd sooner
lick the pus from a cothurnus!

Claudio: Hah! So you prefer to lick your wounds, Emperor?  

Mongol Emperor: An insult! 
(he leaps up, brandishing his cothurnus.  The rumbling of cothurnus is
audible in the distance as lightening cracks the sky)

Friar Buck: Peace, Emperor! Let us be as a trio of thurnusi, nestling
together in the spirit of cothurnus.  If you have a cothunus where I can
mount my crucifix for a moment, I'll fire up some herbs of harmony in
the cothurnus, so that we might breathe their blessed vapors.

Mongol Emperor: And I suppose you intend to nestle yourselves in my yurt
like a polynesian hermit crab invading a cothurnus?

Claudio:  Not at all!  I am a jack of all trades and can build a shelter
from slats and pegs as fast as you can say "cothurnus"!

- MyS

---

From: Elliott A Moreton <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 17:26:49 -0400 (EDT)

> Jean-Joseph: 2 points, and if it's real, you have to tell us why it's done.

Okay, you got me -- it's not real.  But one of the kings of Crete, I 
think the Tyrant Dionysius, was supposed to have been so paranoid about 
assassins that he wouldn't let anyone trim his beard with a blade.  
Instead, he had his daughters cothurnize him.  I'm sure someone 
eventually got him in the end -- do any of our resident classicists know 
the story?

em

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 18:55:39 -0400

>from last round, with a couple of definitions that are *slightly* related.

I think we need a little more specificity here, since that "Eric" isn't me.

(Hunh.  We got a Jim, a David ... and the only repeat is an Eric?)

-- Eric  | "People always grow up like their names.  It took me thirty
    ec@  |  years to work off the effects of being called Eric."
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