Subject: [Fictionary] SURRA results

From: E Cohen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2021 23:37:50 -0400

Congratulations to Jim's elephant trail, whose 14 points ran away with 
the prize! Nicolas' salt deposits came in next with a solid eight 
points, and I am pleased to note that the true definition received only 
one point.

Thank you all for such a full and varied ballot.

Take it away, Jim!

--------

General comments

Ranjit: It feels funny to give my votes to the first two defs in the 
list - would I have chosen differently if I'd read them in a different 
order? These are all quite good!

Jean-Joseph: OK, often it's best to go with the least intriguing 
possibilities: two points for the elephant trail and one for the salt 
deposits.

Elliott: None of these are the least bit plausible.

--------

Real definition

surra, n. A disease of some mammals, characterized by loss of appetite, 
weight loss, fever, and salivation. It is acute and generally fatal in 
horses, donkeys, mules, cattle, buffalo, deer, camels, llamas, dogs, and 
cats; a chronic form of the disease occurs in pigs, sheep, and goats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surra

1 Pierre

Pierre: One point, though the sets of animals sound taxonomically 
implausible.

Pierre: Looking it up afterward, I sighted a ked. Trypanosoma 
melophagium (I'd expect "melophagi" or "melophagorum") is transmitted by 
keds.

--------

Pierre

surra, n. A wind-eroded mass of rock resembling the sail of a submarine.

4: 2 Ranjit, 1 Elizabeth, 1 real vote

Ziv: Resembling the what now?

Ranjit: 2 points and i had to check if submarines really have sails, and 
they do, and now i can visualize just what this rock would look like.

Hutch: Geological, or topological, words tend to be older than submarines.

Elliott: Now I'm picturing a seventeenth-century pirate submarine, which 
sneaks up on its prey completely submerged except for three masts hung 
with black sails and a Jolly Roger. "

--------

Jean-Joseph

surra,conj. (obs.) Subsequently; and then.

2: 1 Ranjit, 1 Jim

Ranjit: 1 point for the audacity of conjunction

Jim: 1 point for the chutzpah of making it a conjunction."

--------

Linda

surra, n. A soft humming sound.

3: 2 Nicolas, 1 Elliott

Ziv: Someone inspired by susurrus, maybe?

Pierre: Susurrus.

Hutch: Someone is trying to pull "sussuration" out here.

Nicolas: 2 points on susurrate grounds.

Elliott: Plausible because of ``susurration'' ... but of course, that's 
just what they want us to think.  One point.

--------

Elliott

surra, n. A failure mode of early swivel chairs, occurring when the 
center of mass of the occupied chair lies so far off the swivel axis 
that the chair topples when swivelled.

Hutch: Funny, but no.

Nicolas: Harry the Handsome Executive, is that you?

Eric: Is that the game where you shoot a staple gun?

--------

David

surra, n. (fr. Warlpiri) Stewed termites.

Ziv: Almost want to give one point for Warlpiri, but there's too many 
great definitions this round.

Hutch: The two food definitions are too similar to be believed. Not that 
the foods are similar.

Elliott: Australian languages aren't big on fricatives, so I'm guessing no.

--------

Elizabeth

surra, n. A filled, flaky, Moroccan pastry, containing soft-cooked egg.

--------

Ranjit

surra, n. A picnic with lots of time and wine

Hutch: I don't believe this definition in the slightest, but there 
certainly does need to be a word for such a picnic. I've always thought 
of it as a "Hash House Harriers Trail" ... as long as you include beer 
along with the wine.

Elliott: ``If I, could save time, in a bottle ...''

--------

Hutch

surra, n. A camelid closely related to llama, alpaca, guanaco, and 
vicuña; markedly larger than the llama (approx. size of a horse). Like 
the llama, they were associated with an Aymar deity, but that deity went 
out of favor when its priests failed to predict the coming of Europeans 
to the Andes. Breeding decreased radically during Spanish rule and it is 
unknown whether any remain alive today.

Pierre: Is this the grass mud horse?

Nicolas: I want there to be a secret llama.

--------

Fran

surra, n. A viscous slurry of water, clay, moss, and dye used to 
decorate adobe walls, resulting in colored patterns that become 
permanent moss patterns. v.To decorate a wall with a slurry of water, 
clay, moss, and dye, typically in geometric patterns.

1 Ziv

Ziv: One "I want this to be real" point

Pierre: Tossup between this and the disease.

Elliott: Moss? Does that even grow in New Mexico, or is the climate too 
arid for moss?

--------

Ziv

surra, interj. A command for banishing demons. v. To banish demons with 
the command "surra."

1 Fran

Elliott: I've always had good luck with ``kill -9'', but I'll be sure to 
try ``surra'' next time the need arises.

--------

Jim

surra, n. A broad trail created by elephants.

14: 2 David, 2 Ziv, 2 Jean-Joseph, 2 Pierre, 1 Hutch, 1 Nicolas, 2 Fran, 
2 Elliott

Hutch: There's bound to be a word for this. Why not "surra"? 1 point

Nicolas: 1 point. Seems like this might have a name.

Elliott: I like it.  Is that thing where they hold each other's tail in 
single file for real, or just in kids' books?  Two points.

--------

Nicolas

surra, n. Salt deposits remaining after a body of water evaporates.

8: 1 David, 1 Jean-Joseph, 2 Jim, 2 Hutch, 2 Elizabeth

Pierre: Chott award.

Jim: 2 points since I’m a sucker for geology definitions (although the 
one about the sail on a submarine was too specific for me to believe).

Hutch: 2 points. Believable

Elliott: Maybe suggested by similarity to SLURRY?"

-- Eric   |   @GoudyBoldItalic

---

From: Jean-Joseph Cote <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 00:50:16 -0400

> the llama, they were associated with an Aymar deity, but that deity 
> went out of favor when its priests failed to predict the coming of 
> Europeans to the Andes. Breeding decreased radically during Spanish 
> rule and it is unknown whether any remain alive today.
>
When I was in Chile a few years ago, and we saw guanacos (the first one 
caused great excitement on the bus, but after we had seen a few 
hundred...), I had a question for our guide:
"_La_ llama, _la_ alpaca, _la_ vicuña, _el_ guanaco... ¿por qué? 
Guanacos son mas machos?"
He didn't have an answer.

-- 
J-J Cote
[email-masked]

---

From: Josh Smift <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 01:03:37 -0400

Totally uninformed speculation: All four are from native languages, three
happened to end in an "a" sound and one in an "o" sound; since in Spanish,
feminine nouns often end in a, and masculine in o, they just ran with that.

                                      -Josh ([email-masked])

On Sun, Oct 24, 2021 at 12:50 AM Jean-Joseph Cote <[email-masked]>
wrote:

>
> Hutch
>
> surra, n. A camelid closely related to llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuña;
> markedly larger than the llama (approx. size of a horse). Like the llama,
> they were associated with an Aymar deity, but that deity went out of favor
> when its priests failed to predict the coming of Europeans to the Andes.
> Breeding decreased radically during Spanish rule and it is unknown whether
> any remain alive today.
>
> "*La* llama, *la* alpaca, *la* vicuña, *el* guanaco... ¿por qué? Guanacos
> son mas machos?"
> J-J [email-masked]
>
>

---

From: Hutch <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 01:40:19 -0400

A "chirra" is a critter vaguely similar to a llama that is used as a pack
animal, wool source, and (occasionally) meat source in the northern,
mountainous regions of Mercedes Lackey's fictional Valdemar. That's where I
came up with this idea of an extinct, horse-sized llama.

Yes, a secret llama. *LOL*

BB,
Hutch

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------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

On Sat, Oct 23, 2021 at 11:38 PM E Cohen <[email-masked]> wrote:

[snip]

> [snip]

---

From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 04:12:34 -0400

> feminine nouns often end in a, and masculine in o, they just ran with that.

Exactly. They're from Quechua. Some animal names come in masculine and 
feminine forms, which may or may not be related: el perro (dog), la perra; el 
caballo (horse, borrowed from Celtic), la yegua (from PIE). The basic 
hymenopteran words are feminine (abeja, avispa, hormiga), but Russian 
"муравей", which is cognate with "hormiga", is masculine, even though most 
ants are female. Latin "rattus", which is masculine, turned into feminine 
"rata", even when referring to a male rat; "rato" means "while" (the sense 
"male rat" is archaic). If the word for an animal exists in only one gender, 
one adds "macho" or "hembra" for the other.

Pierre
-- 
li ze te'a ci vu'u ci bi'e te'a mu du
li ci su'i ze te'a mu bi'e vu'u ci

---

From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 10:03:37 -0400

This one is a reference to Laura Nyro's 1968 song "Stoned Soul Picnic
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CfSgsvqJE>" which starts like this:

Can you surry, can you picnic?
Can you surry, can you picnic?
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
There'll be lots of time and wine
Red yellow honey, sassafras and moonshine

---

From: Fran Poodry <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 09:45:53 -0700

*Elliott: Moss? Does that even grow in New Mexico, or is the climate
too arid for moss?*

Well, having just been in highly arid Utah, there was moss growing on some
rocks in round little lumps maybe 2-3 cm across. But not very widespread,
no.

> -- Eric   |   @GoudyBoldItalic
*Fran Poodry (she/her)*
*Oregon, USA*

*“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” ― Margaret Mead
<http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/61107.Margaret_Mead>*