Subject: sawby -- the results

From: Jean-Joseph Cote <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 16:38:54 -0400

Hutch opines: Good grief! NONE of these feel believable. *sigh* Whudevuh

>sawby - n. - A lantern mounted at the prow of a ship.
by Ranjit.  David 2 = 2 points
Linda: One if by land, two if by sawby
Elliott: Because it's the light you saw by?  Hee hee!  But no points.
Pierre: Sawby, bawby, sillebawby. Doesn't pass the shroff test.
[Jean-Joseph: For those of you who weren't around at the time, back in
April of '97, the word "baubee" (a Scottish coin, name derived from the
Laird of Sillbawby) was submitted (by Ranjit), and the winning
definition, from Mark-Jason Dominus, was "the red lantern hung from the
poop of a ship at night".]

>Sawby - n. - A carved wooden coin used as a voting
>token in medieval guilds. 
by Dave T.  Aussie 1, Kir 2  + 1 for correct guess = 4 points
Aussie: I know it's wrong, but I like it nonetheless.
Linda: This must have been before the blackball
Kir: Voting token? Alright. I buy that.
[Jean-Joseph: Another strange coincidental reference to "baubee".]

>sawby - n. [obs.] - Device for making straight cuts in
>lumber, sim. to a plumb bob.
by Hutch.  Dave 2, Aussie 2, Linda 2 + 2 for correct guess = 8 points and
victory
Hutch: *sigh* That's not going to get any votes.
[The above comment accompanied the word when he submitted it, and he
later sent me a note saying something like, "Did I really send you some
horrible definition, or did I just dream that?".  You never can tell...]
Aussie: Sounds overcomplicated enough to be obsolete.
Linda: Two points, but isn't there a miter box?
Kir: Hm. As I'm doing a lot of building in my own house, I'd say I don't
use a pl;umb bob for making straight cuts. I use some kind of
straight-edge (usually a triangle or a framing square [which is 2
adjecent legs of a rectangle] and a pencil).  So even though the obsolete
portion of this is tempting, the plumb bob parts makes me hesitate...

>sawby - adj. - Rough, uncouth.  From the Indonesian
>"sawabay", meaning unfinished.
by Judith.  Pierre 2, Ranjit 2 = 4 points
Linda: Neat derivation
Ranjit: All too believable.
David: Indonesia is a country, not (except by the most recent of
invention) a language or a nation.  Try instead Javanese, Malay, etc.
[Jean-Joseph: I sat next to an Indonesian woman named Elly on a plane
once, and she taught me The Five Phrases in Indonesian.  At least, that
what she called it.  The numbers 1-10 are satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima,
enam, tujuh, delapan, sembilan, sepuluh.]

>sawby - adj. [Shropshire dialect] - Of wool: Having a
>rough texture caused by infestation with parasitic flies.
by Pierre.  Elliott 1 = 1 point
Linda: Haven't run across these yet, but uuugggh!  Hope I never do.  But
wouldn't the pest be moth?
Kir:  I could see a parasite making wool rough, but flies as the type of
parasite? Makes me think of all sorts of horrible thinks about larvae in
the skin! Icky!
Elliott: One point for plausibility, and for using the word "Shropshire".
[Jean-Joseph: Apologies from me for having omitted this word from the
initial list -- I remember having received it, but then I seem to have
lost it until Pierre said, "Hey, where my definition?".  And I remember
thinking when I was making up the list that I could have sworn there had
been two "-shire dialect" definitions.)

>sawby - n. - A large swallow (Progne subis) of No.
>America the males of which have mottled brown plumage.
by Aussie.  Linda 1 = 1 point
Linda: One point.  This sounds almost familiar
Kir: Hmmm.... thinking about swallows... mottled brown is typically
female plumage. But I'm only familiar with barn and cliff swallows...

>sawby - n. - A solar tattoo, produced by covering the skin
>with a stencil and exposing it to sunlight to cause tanning.
by Elliott.  David 1, Hutch 1, Ranjit 1, + 2 for correct guess = 5 points
Linda: I can imagine people etching in fine lines with a magnifying
glass--ouch!
Pierre: So who does this?
Kir: Funny, my sister did this one summer. She used electrical tape to
mask off a design...
Ranjit: Clever!

>sawby - n. - (Somersetshire dialect) - 1. Gifts given by a
>landlord to his tenants on Easter Sunday. 2. Money left
>to a servant or a tenant in a will.
by David R. (of course). Kir 1 = 1 point
Dave: Isn't that what's supposed to happen on Boxing Day?
Linda: Is this related to a daryolys?
Kir: I like this.

>sawby - n. - A complicated procedure for allowing two
>railroad trains to pass on a single-track line when the
>only available siding is too short to accommodate either
>one.
Truth.  Dave 1, Elliott 2, Hutch 2 = 5 points
Dave: Wow, that really would be complicated.  You would have to unhook
and rehook cars... yuck!  I guess I'll give it 1 point.
Aussie: I'd really like to see this being done, especially with a tankard
of good Sawby ale to accompany the entertainment.
Linda: I'm still trying to visualize this, and I believe it --almost--can
be done, but lots of forward and back and side to side, like a train
dance.
Kir: Hm. "Do a sawby?"
Elliott (after submitting hs guesses and then peeking in a dictionary or
something): Well, dern.  I was hoping someone had been really, really
creative.  It's a cool def anyway.
[See additional info and a comment from Elliott below.]

>Sawby - n. cap. - A coastal English village in Yorkshire,
>famous as a launching spot for Captain William Scoresby, jr.,
>the Arctic Explorer who mapped a good deal of Greenland.
>Currently the village is notable for its tourism, locally brewed
>ale, and fishing fleet.
by Linda.  Pierre 1 = 1 point
Linda: Mine--Capt. Scoresby really existed--you can see a film LOOSELY
based on the truth called Captain Jack, with Bob Hoskins. There is even a
Scoresby website and more info on *Britmovie*, plus info on Jan Mayen
Island, one of Scoresby's discoveries.  Scoresby mapped the East Coast of
Greenland, and got polar exploration going with some of his advancements.
 The real village is called Whitby, not Sawby; and it used to be a
whaling fleet center, now a tourist center.  The more famous Captain Cook
also lived there.
Kir: Scoresby, eh? Ancestor of Lee Scoresby, perhaps?

__________________________________
I actually wrote up the real definition used here, because the only
glossaries where I could find the word were very railroad-specific and
assumed that the reader was familiar with trains.  It's often spelled
"saw-by", and refers to the fact that in an extreme case, the trains wind
up going back and forth many times, like a saw, in order to get by.  A
web search on "saw-by", "saw by", or "sawby" will turn up a couple of
interesting references and examples.  I first became familiar with this
while leaning the truth behind the Casey Jones story.  The famous wreck
occurred when Jones was approaching a station at an excessive speed.  In
the station, a couple of local freights were in the midst of a sawby when
one blew a brake hose, blocking the other train from exiting the main
line, and setting up the collision when Jones was unable to stop his
train in time (despite the proper signals which were in place).

As one fine example, Elliott submitted, along with his guess, the
following fine example of a sawby (which he was imagining to be
fanciful):

Wow.  After much thought I can see how that would work:

          aaaaaaaaaaA        Bbbbbbbbbb   (1)

                     aaaA
                aaaa         Bbbbbbbbbb   (2)

                    aaaA
          aaaaBbbbbbbbbb                  (3)

                    aaa
   aaaaBbbbbbbbbbb        A               (4)

                    aaa
   aaaaBbbbbbbbbbb A                      (5)

                   Aaaa
   aaaaBbbbbbbbbbb                        (6)

   aaaaBbbbbbbbbbb             Aaaa       (7)

                    A
   aaaaBbbbbbbbbbb              aaa       (8)

                    A
   aaaa             Bbbbbbbbbb  aaa       (9)

   aaaaA            Bbbbbbbbbb  aaa      (10)

(repeat from beginning until:)

   Bbbbbbbbbbb           Aaaaaaaaaa      (11)

Then move A to the other end:

                    A 
Bbbbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaa                     (12)                   

Bbbbbbbbbbb aaaaaaaaA                    (13)

This gets one point for naming something that needs a name, one point for
posing a clever puzzle, and one point for  taking the stress pattern less
travelled by, making THREE POINTS in all.  But the gummint will only let
me give two.  All right, so TWO POINTS.

[If any of you have too much time on your hands, I'll note that I think
there's a much simpler solution to Elliott's puzzle than the one he has
provided.  If I'm following his diagrams properly, I believe he's using a
siding that is connected to the main line on both ends, and that can
accommodate half of the cars from train A, plus the engine.  The number
of cars in his train varies -- oh, maybe that's what he means by "repeat
from beginning" -- he's allowing for an arbitrary number of cars.  In any
event, I think it can be simplified a bit.  And there are uglier cases as
well.]

[Man, my spell-checker didn't care for those diagrams!]
____________________________________

So anyway Hutch, you pessimist: You're up!

Jean-Joseph