Subject: Prepare Ye For the Coming of the DERB!

From: Jeff Hutchinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 23:12:22 -0700

The scoring was a tortoise-and-hare race this time. David took an early
lead with the first flowers of spring (a rather Randall-esque definition,
in my opinion) and maintained it through the first half of the week. Then
people decided they liked MyS's small trowel. At the time I sent out my
"Last Warning" message, they were tied 5 - 5.

Then Elliot's vote came in. The first and only to pick the correct
definition, he was the tie-breaker, giving his one-point vote to David
Randall for the win. All yours, Herr Randall!

Two general comments:

Kir -- I can't believe I have to pick BETWEEN these
every-single-one-of-which-is-unbelievable definitions!

Elliot -- The German meaning of _derb_ is 'tough; rough; crude'.  It
seems that most of this round's entries contain at least one of those
three options: rough bread, a tough pump, rough qua rough, a crude crowd,
rough scouring. I therefore vote 2 points for "rough, uncrystallized,
massive" as a plausible German loan into geology, and 1 point for the
first flower of spring for being different from the other defs.

[... which gives Elliot two points -- Hutch]
[I failed to actually check on this, but what's the topography of
Derbyshire like? Are there perhaps massive, rough hills/mountains? Could
this be the derivation of the place name, perhaps through Gaelic? --
Hutch]

derb : n : a spongy rye bread leavened with sour milk from the Caucasus
region.
Aussie Meyer
Score -- 3 (David 2, MyS 1)
Aussie -- Ugh, what was I thinking?  Looks misspelled AND ungrammatical!
MyS -- Most cultures, so to speak, have some version of the Killer Amish
Regenerating Bread.
Kir -- Isn't leaven YEAST?  still, I like the hint of xleb... [(a) Leaven
is whatever you put into bread to make it rise. Yeast is used most
commonly, but there are other possibilities, like sour milk. (b) What's
"xleb"? -- Hutch]
J-J -- By the time I managed to get my hands on milk from the Caucasus,
I'm sure it would be sour, but this sounds like an awfully specific
ingredient. :-) [My thoughts exactly *L* -- Hutch]

derb : n : a pump used in mining operations, capable of pumping thick
mud.
Jean-Joseph Cote
Score -- 4 (David 1, Joshua 2, Pierre 1)
Aussie -- Muddy mud or drilling mud?
Kir -- I'd think I'd've met this word, not that I hang out with
well-drillers... Joshua -- Well why not? 2.
Pierre -- I'll costean you one point on this one.
J-J -- Mine. (So to speak.)

derb : adj : rough, uncrystallized, massive.
Oxford English Dictionary
Aussie -- Smells like ranjit. [Nope, smells like the OED. -- H]
Kir -- ...and geologists....
Pierre -- "He took this derb hunk of obsidian and made a deadly dagger
out of it."
J-J -- Plausible, though the seemingly incongruous third word is
off-putting.

derb : n : [Lanc. dial.] the first flower of spring; it is considered
good luck to brew a tea of 'derb-water' and drink it at dawn.
David Randall
Score -- 6 (Aussie 2, MyS 2, Kir 1, Elliot 1)
Aussie -- Yes! And if your derb's a daffodil, you get TWO POINTS!
MyS -- Two points for whimsy, but probably not for truth.
Kir -- Which leave me this improbable thought, so I'll give it 1 point
for daintiness, although I would wonder about some of those early flower
remedies. What flowers available in Lanc (Lancastshire?) would *not* be
toxic?
Pierre -- Any relation to the glabella?

derb : n : a mob; a riot.
Joshua D. Mackay-Smith
Score -- 0
Aussie -- "I was winged in the derb, Martha, by the Pinkerton's boys."
Pierre -- Can a derb be derb? [Why not? As J-J has pointed out before,
any noun can be verbed. -- Hutch]
J-J -- Also plausible, though not so interesting.  (But who said it had
to be interesting?)

derb : v : to scour with sand.
Judith E. Schrier
Score -- 1 (J-J 1)
Aussie -- Blah.
J-J -- ... leaving one point for this one.

derb : n : [Berber, influenced by Arabic daraba, to beat a drum] a
Tunisian frame drum, usually made from camel skin and played with the
hands.
Pierre Abbat
Score -- 3
Aussie -- "The distant rumble of Berber derbs." That's pretty euphonic. -
ONE POINT!
MyS -- Too...plausible...must...resist....
Kir -- 2 points for sounding like something I'd've thought of
J-J -- I do like this one.  It would be a fine sort of word to pick.  But
I don't think you did. That leaves me with two choices:

derb : n : a small trowel used in bricklaying.
Melissa Shaner
Score -- 5 (Joshua 1, Pierre 2, J-J 2)
Kir -- Very plausible def, but wouldn't one have said "small bricklayer's
trowel?" I dunno...
Joshua -- This...is a 1.
Pierre -- 2
J-J -- Okay, I'll give this two points.

BB,
Hutch

P.S. Sorry, Kir! Won't happen again *S*

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From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 21:52:02 -0500

>commonly, but there are other possibilities, like sour milk. (b) What's

Russian for bread - pronounce "x" as "kh" (it's written as "x" in Cyrillic).
This reminds me of Starting Forth, by Leo Brodie, in which someone types
"XLERB" to a Forth interpreter. The interpreter searches the dictionary,
scratches his head, shows it to NUMBER who laughs at it, and finally, with a
puzzled expression, retorts: XLERB ?

phma