Subject: [Fictionary] BURLING results

From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2024 13:09:33 -0500

The correct definition, from the free dictionary dot com, is "dressing or
finishing cloth". Even though I cheated a bit by presenting the -ing form
instead of the infinitive, I didn't fool enough of you, and the free
dictionary dot com earned the most points at six. However, Jean-Joseph's
"Reliable, trustworthy, dependable" came in a strong second with 5 points,
making Jean-Joseph the winner of this round!

I may have lost a def from Hutch, though I can't find it in the usual
crevices of my email. Sorry, Hutch!

PIERRE: 1
burling, n. The activity of visiting shopping malls hunting for bargains.
- Eric: From "Burlington"? *One point* for cleverness.
- Nicolas: I hope there is a word for this
- Pierre: Shop One or Shop the Mall! (Sign in Burlington, North Carolina)
- Hutch: As far as I can tell, shopping malls rarely have actual
"bargains", however frequently they advertise them. I have heard of
"saling", which is browsing garage sales.
- Elliott: Burlington antedates malls.
- Jean-Joseph: Sounds invented, but I'll be embarrassed if it's not.

NICOLAS: 2
burling, n. (Naut.) 1. Tightly coiled rope or cable. 2. A brewing mutiny.
- Pierre: Is a brewing mutiny a mutiny in a brewery, or is it a mutiny that
hasn't come to a head yet? "Tightly coiled rope or cable" could be a real
def, even though it's a fake
def. *Two points*.
- Hutch: I could believe the first, but not the second.
- Elliott: The word sounds appropriate to both defs, but the defs don't
sound appropriate to each other.  If #1 were right, wouldn't #2 be
something like "an efficient crew", "a taut ship", etc.?
- Jean-Joseph: Rope I can see, but tightly coiling cable doesn't seem like
a great idea. And I don't see the connection to to an uprising among the
baristas.

DAVID: 1+2 = 3
burling - n. - stripped, washed, stripped, and dried jute fibres ready to
be woven into burlap
- Nicolas: Two similar ones but burlap seems too on the nose
- Pierre: Burl? nah.
- *Hutch: 1*
- Elliott: Implies that "burlap" is "burl" + "ap", when every schoolchild
knows that burlap is so named because when you wear it, you feel like
you've got a burr on your lap.  Burlington would mean "jute-mill town".
Hmm.
- Jean-Joseph: By elimination I'm down to the two textile definitions, and
I'll give the *two points* to this one.

THEFREEDICTIONARY DOT COM: 2+2+1+1 = 6
burling (v) Dressing or finishing cloth by removing knots, lumps, slubs, or
loose threads.
- Eric: So, "burling" makes 3/7 of us think of burlap. I reject them all.
- *Joshua: 2*
- *Nicolas: 2*
- Pierre: I don't know "slubs", but *one point*.
- Hutch: I would have gone for this one instead of the "burlap" definition
above, but "knots" and "slubs" are not things you would see in woven cloth:
you would see them in spun thread, and you would remove them before
weaving. (My mother is a spinstress and weaver.)
- Elliott: Burlington would be "cloth-finishing town".  Maybe....  But I
don't know "slub", and I'm reluctant to vote for a def that I don't
understand.
- Elliott, later: Checking the OED afterwards: "To dress (cloth), esp. by
removing knots and lumps; ‘to dress cloth as fullers do’ (Johnson)."  And
the first definition for _burl_ is "A small knot or lump in wool or
cloth.". 1879 quotation:  "The burler..carefully removes any knots or
burls."
- Jean-Joseph: *One point* to the remaining textile def.

JOSHUA: 1+1+2 = 4
burling, n. a large, circular chamber dug in the center of a rabbit warren,
used as a nest by the highest-ranking doe of the colony.
- *David: 1*
- Eric: Would have gotten a point if it had used the phrase "queen rabbit".
- *Nicolas: 1*
- Pierre: Rabbits, you have failed to heed the previous warrening!
- Hutch: Somebody has been reading Watership Down recently. However, my
recollection is that, in reality, nests for the does are in dead-end or
blocked side-passages, rather than in any large central space.
- Elliott: This is a nice one.  Do rabbits have a pecking order?  No idea!
What's the advantage of being in the center?  Security?  Warmth? Burlington
would be "Town of the Senior Doe".  *Two points*.
- Jean-Joseph: Do rabbits really have a social structure like ants?

ERIC: 2+1 = 3
burling, n. A customs official in charge of enforcing regulations on
foreign currency and currency exchange. (Fr. Russ. "болгяг", guard.)
- *David: 2*
- *Joshua: 1*
- Nicolas: Now I want to play Papers Please
- Pierre: "Болгяг" doesn't sound Russian. Is it Turkic or Mongolian? 'Г',
like 'к' and 'х', is followed by 'а', not 'я', although it's followed by
'и', not 'ы' (the Czechs beg to differ). I don't see how "болгяг" would
turn into "burling" either.
- Hutch: I would have expected a Russian currency official to have some
connection to either valyuta or den'gi (two words for, roughly, "money") in
their name.
- Elliott: Definition 2: A customs official in charge of pocketing a hefty
share of any foreign currency in exchange for not enforcing regulations on
it. You can get from Canada to Burlington by boat.
- Jean-Joseph: I think that transliterates to "bolgyag". Hmm. Does that
seem like it would morph into "burling"? I'll guess not. (More likely it's
from Pierre.)

ELLIOTT:
burling (n.) -- 1.  A failure mode of lava lamps, in which wax stops
circulating and accumulates at the top due to a weak or reversed
temperature gradient.  2.  Obstructed turnover in rotating leadership
positions owing to a lack of willing successors.
- Nicolas: The failure mode of lava lamps is kid begging and begging for
one and then almost never using it 😆
- Hutch: I've certainly been in the latter situation. But I'm highly
skeptical of both definitions: they both seem overly specific to be real.
:-D
- Elliott: Self-plagiarism; #1 is reverse-biasing the "convective heat
diode" def for "ucalegon", the one that sounded so physically impossible.
 (Even an actual physicist I described it to started to object ``But
Maxwell's Demon ---'' before identifying it as a convection cell.)  #2 is
new, but does it accurately describe Burlington?
- Jean-Joseph: Maybe from Elliott?

JEAN-JOSEPH: 2+2+1 = 5
burling - adj. - Reliable, trustworthy, dependable.
- Eric: *Two points*. Because I reject _a priori_ all the burlap/fiber
definitions, and the only other plausible definition is mine.
- Nicolas: It's probably actually this one
- Hutch: I suspect that someone is thinking of "burly" (or perhaps the
Dwarfish Ankh-Morpork arms dealers Burley and Stronginthearm). But going
for an adjective is worth *2 points*. (Besides which, I don't really
believe any of the rest either. :-D)
- Elliott: Maybe people used to esteem those virtues enough to name a town
after them.  *One point*.
- Jean-Joseph: In honor of Hutch's and my mutual friend Doug Berling, who
certainly has these qualities. (I saw Doug late last summer, but I expect
it's been many years since he and Hutch have crossed paths.)

---

From: E <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2024 13:26:02 -0500

> foreign currency and currency exchange. (Fr. Russ. "болгяг", guard.)

Impressed at the amount of Slavosophia in this group, pointing out the
many things wrong with my attempt. In my defense, I looked up the
Cyrillic alphabet on *two* separate sites to write the definition.

-- Eric

---

From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2024 12:55:06 -0500

> - Elliott: Burlington antedates malls.

Do either of you live in or near North Carolina? I used to live in Raleigh 
with my mom and commute to a job in Charlotte, passing through Burlington, 
before I found a place to live in Charlotte. I now live in western North 
Carolina, but still remember the Alamance.

Pierre
-- 
Por H o por B, los campos magnéticos se difieren dentro de un imán.

---

From: E <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2024 13:23:36 -0500

> Carolina, but still remember the Alamance.

Nope, just lots of exposure to Burlington Coat Factory ads.

-- Eric

---

From: Fran Poodry <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:23:40 -0800

Hutch said:
I would have gone for this one instead of the "burlap" definition above,
but "knots" and "slubs" are not things you would see in woven cloth: you
would see them in spun thread, and you would remove them before weaving.
(My mother is a spinstress and weaver.)

But there are some woven fabrics which have the slubs deliberately left in,
such as dupioni silk or shantung silk. Sometimes slubs are a feature of
upholstery fabric as well. But I agree that in most other cases, you would
definitely remove the slubs or if you had particularly slubby thread you
just wouldn’t use for weaving fabric. Sometimes yarn with slubs is used for
hand knitting, though.

*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>*

On Sun, Jan 28, 2024 at 10:10 AM Ranjit Bhatnagar <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> - Pierre: Is a brewing mutiny a mutiny in a brewery, or is it a mutiny
> that hasn't come to a head yet? "Tightly coiled rope or cable" could be a
> real def, even though it's a fake
> def. *Two points*.
> burling (v) Dressing or finishing cloth by removing knots, lumps, slubs,
> or loose threads.
> burling, n. a large, circular chamber dug in the center of a rabbit
> warren, used as a nest by the highest-ranking doe of the colony.
> - *David: 1*

---

From: Hutch <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2024 01:13:49 -0500

Hmm, guess I hadn't learned as much from Mom about textiles as I had
believed. Or it could be that SHE hasn't learned it. I know she's never
made anything even vaguely like shantung silk :-)

BB,
Hutch

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On Tue, Jan 30, 2024 at 8:33 PM Fran Poodry <[email-masked]> wrote:

> But there are some woven fabrics which have the slubs deliberately left
> in, such as dupioni silk or shantung silk. Sometimes slubs are a feature of
> *“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” ― Margaret
> Mead <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/61107.Margaret_Mead>*
>
>
>> - Jean-Joseph: Rope I can see, but tightly coiling cable doesn't seem
>> like a great idea. And I don't see the connection to to an uprising among
>> the baristas.
>>
>>
>> DAVID: 1+2 = 3
>> - Jean-Joseph: By elimination I'm down to the two textile definitions,
>> and I'll give the *two points* to this one.
>>
>>
>> - Hutch: I would have gone for this one instead of the "burlap"
>> definition above, but "knots" and "slubs" are not things you would see in
>> woven cloth: you would see them in spun thread, and you would remove them
>> before weaving. (My mother is a spinstress and weaver.)
>> - Elliott: This is a nice one.  Do rabbits have a pecking order?  No
>> idea! What's the advantage of being in the center?  Security?  Warmth?
>> Burlington would be "Town of the Senior Doe".  *Two points*.
>> - Elliott: Definition 2: A customs official in charge of pocketing a
>> hefty share of any foreign currency in exchange for not enforcing
>> regulations on it. You can get from Canada to Burlington by boat.
>> - Elliott: Maybe people used to esteem those virtues enough to name a
>> town after them.  *One point*.

---

From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2024 01:26:36 -0500

> - Pierre: I don't know "slubs", but *one point*.

I should have two, right? Can we call Emmanuel Recount?

Pierre
-- 
ve ka'a ro klaji la .romas. se jmaji

---

From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2024 10:50:20 -0500

Pierre: "I should have two, right? Can we call Emmanuel Recount?"

I completely forgot to take correct votes into account when scoring. I'm on
the phone now with Emmanuel, just a moment.... ok, the fax from Recount
Industries is coming in, and I've included it below. Apologies for the
miscount.

We now have a tie between Joshua and Jean-Joseph at 6 points each. I'll
leave it to you two to decide who'll take the next round (unless you
specifically don't want to decide, in which case I have a vaguely
appropriate measure in mind that I can apply.)

Ballot with Emmanuel's annotations in **bold**:

PIERRE: 1 **and then 1 more for a correct guess = 2**
- Eric: From "Burlington"? One point for cleverness.

NICOLAS: 2 **and then 2 more for a correct guess = 4**
def. Two points.

DAVID: 1+2 = 3
- Hutch: 1
I'll give the two points to this one.

- Joshua: 2
- Nicolas: 2
- Pierre: I don't know "slubs", but one point.
- Jean-Joseph: One point to the remaining textile def.

JOSHUA: 1+1+2 = 4 **and then 2 more for a correct guess = 6**
- David: 1
- Nicolas: 1
would be "Town of the Senior Doe".  Two points.

ERIC: 2+1 = 3
- David: 2
- Joshua: 1

ELLIOTT:

JEAN-JOSEPH: 2+2+1 = 5 **and then 1 more for a correct guess = 6**
burling - adj. - Reliable, trustworthy, dependable.
- Eric: Two points. Because I reject _a priori_ all the burlap/fiber
definitions, and the only other plausible definition is mine.
- Nicolas: It's probably actually this one
- Hutch: I suspect that someone is thinking of "burly" (or perhaps the
Dwarfish Ankh-Morpork arms dealers Burley and Stronginthearm). But going
for an adjective is worth 2 points. (Besides which, I don't really believe
any of the rest either. :-D)
- Elliott: Maybe people used to esteem those virtues enough to name a town
after them.  One point.
- Jean-Joseph: In honor of Hutch's and my mutual friend Doug Berling, who
certainly has these qualities. (I saw Doug late last summer, but I expect
it's been many years since he and Hutch have crossed paths.)

---

From: Jean-Joseph Cote <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2024 08:22:27 -0500

I've got a file full of potential words, so I'm prepared to run the next 
round of Joshua doesn't want to, but if he does, then let's find out 
about the intriguing tiebreaker.

Jean-Joseph

On 2/2/2024 10:50 AM, Ranjit Bhatnagar wrote:
> I completelyforgot to take correct votes into account when scoring. 
> I'm on the phone now with Emmanuel, just a moment.... ok, the fax from 
> Recount Industries is coming in, and I've included it below. Apologies 
> for the miscount.
>
> We now have a tie between Joshua and Jean-Joseph at 6 points each. 
> I'll leave it to you two to decide who'll take the next round (unless 
> you specifically don't want to decide, in which case I have a vaguely 
> that hasn't come to a head yet? "Tightly coiled rope or cable" could 
> be a real def, even though it's a fake
> def. Two points.
> - Elliott: The word sounds appropriate to both defs, but the defs 
> don't sound appropriate to each other.  If #1 were right, wouldn't #2 
> be something like "an efficient crew", "a taut ship", etc.?
> like a great idea. And I don't see the connection to to an uprising 
> among the baristas.
>
>
> DAVID: 1+2 = 3
> burling - n. - stripped, washed, stripped, and dried jute fibres ready 
> to be woven into burlap
> - Elliott: Implies that "burlap" is "burl" + "ap", when every 
> schoolchild knows that burlap is so named because when you wear it, 
> you feel like you've got a burr on your lap. Burlington would mean 
> "jute-mill town".  Hmm.
> and I'll give the two points to this one.
>
>
> burling (v) Dressing or finishing cloth by removing knots, lumps, 
> slubs, or loose threads.
> definition above, but "knots" and "slubs" are not things you would see 
> in woven cloth: you would see them in spun thread, and you would 
> remove them before weaving. (My mother is a spinstress and weaver.)
> - Elliott: Burlington would be "cloth-finishing town". Maybe....  But 
> I don't know "slub", and I'm reluctant to vote for a def that I don't 
> understand.
> - Elliott, later: Checking the OED afterwards: "To dress (cloth), esp. 
> by removing knots and lumps; ‘to dress cloth as fullers do’ 
> (Johnson)."  And the first definition for _burl_ is "A small knot or 
> lump in wool or cloth.". 1879 quotation:  "The burler..carefully 
> removes any knots or burls."
> - Hutch: Somebody has been reading Watership Down recently. However, 
> my recollection is that, in reality, nests for the does are in 
> dead-end or blocked side-passages, rather than in any large central space.
> Burlington would be "Town of the Senior Doe".  Two points.
> - Pierre: "Болгяг" doesn't sound Russian. Is it Turkic or Mongolian? 
> 'Г', like 'к' and 'х', is followed by 'а', not 'я', although it's 
> followed by 'и', not 'ы' (the Czechs beg to differ). I don't see how 
> "болгяг" would turn into "burling" either.
> - Hutch: I would have expected a Russian currency official to have 
> some connection to either valyuta or den'gi (two words for, roughly, 
> "money") in their name.
> - Jean-Joseph: I think that transliterates to "bolgyag". Hmm. Does 
> that seem like it would morph into "burling"? I'll guess not. (More 
> likely it's from Pierre.)
>
>
> ELLIOTT:
> - Nicolas: The failure mode of lava lamps is kid begging and begging 
> for one and then almost never using it 😆
> skeptical of both definitions: they both seem overly specific to be 
> real. :-D
> diode" def for "ucalegon", the one that sounded so physically 
> impossible.  (Even an actual physicist I described it to started to 
> object ``But Maxwell's Demon ---'' before identifying it as a 
> convection cell.)  #2 is new, but does it accurately describe Burlington?
> Dwarfish Ankh-Morpork arms dealers Burley and Stronginthearm). But 
> going for an adjective is worth 2 points. (Besides which, I don't 
> really believe any of the rest either. :-D)
> town after them.  One point.
> - Jean-Joseph: In honor of Hutch's and my mutual friend Doug Berling, 
> who certainly has these qualities. (I saw Doug late last summer, but I 
> expect it's been many years since he and Hutch have crossed paths.)
>
>
>

---

From: Joshua Randall <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2024 10:17:36 -0500

I'm happy for Jean-Joseph to do it! I'm also intrigued by what the
tiebreaker would have been, though, just to know.

On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 8:48 AM Jean-Joseph Cote <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> round of Joshua doesn't want to, but if he does, then let's find out about
> the intriguing tiebreaker.
>
> Jean-Joseph
>
> I completely forgot to take correct votes into account when scoring. I'm
> on the phone now with Emmanuel, just a moment.... ok, the fax from Recount

---

From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2024 11:07:39 -0500

I'm afraid the tiebreaker's not that exciting - I was just going to check
whose definition I received first, which I didn't know offhand because I
used a random number generator to scramble the ballot. (Answer: Joshua was
first by three days!)

---

From: E <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2024 11:58:02 -0500

On 2024-02-04 11:07 AM, Ranjit Bhatnagar wrote:

> because I used a random number generator to scramble the ballot.
Glad to know I am not the only nerd.

-- Eric

---

From: Hutch <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2024 20:52:58 -0500

Not sure, but I think I have you both beat. When I run rounds I record them
(in Excel) with both date/time and a random number generator, so that I
can, with only a few clicks, sort by either date received or randomly ...
as well as by name and other aspects. Excel also has a macro to generate
the email with fictionitions and another to generate the email with the
results.

BB,
Hutch

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From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2024 21:10:50 -0500

As a big fan of spreadsheets, I bow down to you! I may try to do something
like that next time I run a round.

On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 8:52 PM Hutch <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Not sure, but I think I have you both beat. When I run rounds I record
> them (in Excel) with both date/time and a random number generator, so that
> I can, with only a few clicks, sort by either date received or randomly ...

---

From: E <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2024 21:29:59 -0500

Hahaha! Yes, I also use a spreadsheet but you easily have me beat with
the macros.

On 2024-02-04 9:10 PM, Ranjit Bhatnagar wrote:
> As a big fan of spreadsheets, I bow down to you! I may try to do
> something like that next time I run a round.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 8:52 PM Hutch <[email-masked]
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>     Not sure, but I think I have you both beat. When I run rounds I
>     record them (in Excel) with both date/time and a random number
>     generator, so that I can, with only a few clicks, sort by either
>     date received or randomly ... as well as by name and other aspects.
>     Excel also has a macro to generate the email with fictionitions and
>     another to generate the email with the results.
>
>     BB,
>     Hutch
>     On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 12:08 PM E <[email-masked]
>     <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>

--
-- Eric   |   @GoudyBoldItalic   |   post.news/goudybolditalic

---

From: Jean-Joseph Cote <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2024 00:02:46 -0500

OK, let's start the parade of new candidate words.

Does anyone know FAKING BOX ? (Yes it's actually two words.)

If you know it, let ME ([email-masked]) know. Don't reply to Pierre.

If you got this message from Pierre, but not also from me, either email 
me or post a message to the list, so that we'll know that we're still 
having some forwarding problems.

If you don't know the word but would like to try submitting a 
definition, send it to me.

And if you're Pierre, please forward this message to the list.

Thanks!
Jean-Joseph