Subject: sebaggle this, sebaggle that

From: Jean-Joseph Cote <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 00:54:20 -0500

Well  maybe this didn't work out as well as I had hoped it might, but I
still had fun, and apparently so did some of you.  First, I will pass
along Elliott's clever analysis of the situation.  He wrote:

>> All but one of them were written by someone making an attempt to sound
>> like David Randall.  One was written by someone who is entirely David
>> Randall.  One was written by someone who is sort of semi-David
Randall. 
>> (Don't try to do the math, it's too painful.)
>
>OK.  I guess this means one is DR's fictitious def, and one is the
>dictionary def rewritten by DR in his style, so I'll try to guess both.
>
>To do this systematically, I assign each one a Randall Score equal to
its 
>total number of the following Randall Def Features:
>
>	PN   proper nouns
>	AD   specific dates
>	ES   mentions Spain
>	MA   mentions the Middle Ages
>	G-D  involves religion
>	MGM  involves literary or show business
>	PhD  general over-researched appearance
>	FF   far-fetched concept
>
>These are based on my impression of the popular impression of a Randall 
>Def -- i.e., my recollections of the kind of def that gets lots of "must

>be David"s -- rather than on the archive of actual Randall defs, since I

>figure everyone (including David himself) will be going for the former. 

>
>Distinguishing features of the REAL David's defs (compared with my 
>recollections of non-David defs) seem to be
>
>	PN   proper nouns
>	AD   specific dates
>	PhD  general over-researched appearance
>	Bzt  short (less than 1 line long)
>	(<)  begins with an etymology in parentheses, naming the
>	     source language
>
>Each def is also assigned a REAL Randall Score as a sum of these.

Ed also adds:
>   I have cooked up a new scoring unit for this round only:
>
>drandall, n. -- 1.  A unit of measurement delineating
>how much like a David Randall definition a Fictionary
>entry is, approximately equal to one Fictionopoint.
>2.  [fictioners' slang] An entry much like David
>Randall's.
>
>drandall, v. -- to imitate the David Randall style of 
>Fictionary weirdness, with inspiredly ludicrous
>toponyms and eponyms, and just plain bizarre-o-
>matic deadpan humor.

And now.... the results!
_______________________________________

>sebaggle - v. - 1. To follow the railroad tracks when travelling by foot
>in densely forested areas.  2. To make camp along the railroad
>right-of-way.
Aussie scores 0

Elliott:
RS = 0 (FF)
RRS = 0
It's a hard choice, but I'll guess this is the real word -- some bit of 
orienteering arcana that only Jean would know.
[Ah, but then Hutch would know it as well... but you weren't aware of
that.  -JJC]
_______________________________________

>sebaggle - n. - A baked good made of salt water algae; provided by
>fishwives of non-goyish extraction.
Laura scores 0

Elliott:
RS = 2 (G-D, FF)
RRS = 0
Took me forever to get this one, but it's funny.

Hutch: This one doesn't sound terribly tasty, but it also doesn't sound
like David.

Pierre: LOL! I think that's carrageenan too far. Besides, if an alewife
is a fish, is a fishwife an ale?
[No, but there apparenly is a restaurant near Monterey called The
Fishwife, and they do serve ale there.  They don't seem to have an
in-house microbrew.  -JJC]
_______________________________________

>sebaggle - v. [New England dial.] - To empty the nets of a fishing
vessel
>without disconnecting them from their booms.
Larry scores 0

Elliott:
RS = 1 (PN)
RRS = 1 ((<))
_______________________________________

>sebaggle - n - 1. A resident of the tropics [slang, a resident of Sebago
>Bay, Jamaica].  2. A nudist or naturist.
Hutch scores 1: Ed 1

Elliott:
RS = 2 (PN, FF)
RRS = 0 (no (<), since source language is not named)

Hutch: Well, this one's me, so I know it can't possibly be either true
OR David's.

Ed: I can't help but give at least one drandall to nekkid-ness.  So
there.
_______________________________________

>sebaggle - v. - To artificially alter the population density of a
jurisdiction 
>for the purposes of electoral fraud.  From Joseph Sebage, 1805-1884,
U.S. 
>Representative from Maine.  See also gerrymander.
Melissa scores 2: Elliott 2

Elliott:
RS = 4 (PN, AD, PhD, FF) 
RRS = 3 (PN, AD, PhD)
This is my 2-point guess, since it has the highest RS and RRS of any def 
I haven't already eliminated, and is nice and short.

Hutch: This one's not M. Randall either. But come to think of it, he DID
do an eponym of an eponym a few rounds back. Nah, he wouldn't go
for it again, would he?

Kir: Could be true.  Could be David.

David: to alter artificially
_______________________________________

>sebaggle - v. [airport workers' slang] - To lose a  traveller's luggage,
>with clandestine intent.
Ed scores 3: Judith 1, Hutch 1, David 1

Elliott:
RS = 1 (FF)
RRS = 0

Judith: One point for clandestine intent.

Hutch: I'm trying to think of what kind of "clandestine intent" an
airport
worker could have to lose a piece of luggage. This is David: 1 point.

Kir: Funny!

David: 1 point.  I like 'clandestine'.
_______________________________________

>sebaggle - n. - A breed of sheep with wool that sheds in clumps
>in the spring.  Originally bred by Walter Paceton, fourth Earl of
Sebaggle.
Pierre scores 4: Aussie 1, Melissa 1, Laura 2

Elliott:
RS = 3 (PN, FF, PhD)
RRS = 2 (PN, PhD)

Aussie: 1 point for Walter Paceton, fourth Earl of Sebaggle.
Long may he wave.

Hutch: Sheep don't actually "shed," do they? Never had anything more
to do with sheep than I could possibly help.

Pierre: This is the kind of wool used to make blindfolds with so that you
can sebaggle someone with sebaggle.
_______________________________________

>sebaggle - n. - A contrived scandal, intended to create free publicity
for
>a theatrical production.  (From DeCrecy Sebaggle, whose production of 
>_Our American Cousin_ at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., ran 
>continuously from 1865 to 1901.)
Elliott scores 5: Melissa 2, David 2, Pierre 1

Elliott:
RS = 5 (PN, AD, MGM, PhD, FF).  This is in ghastly taste.  No one would
be perverted enough to submit it if it weren't true, so ... oh.
RRS = 3 (PN, AD, PhD)
Of course this gets a high score from me, since I deliberately put those 
features into it.

Hutch: Oh my! That's just SICK! "Sick and WRONG!"
But it's also not David.

Kir: Hmm, has that Davidish twang.

Ed: Oh, here I find myself wishing furiously for another point to award
--
not just because this is a likely drandall, but also because it really
does
tickle my funnybone -- but I am out.  Dang.  Whoever submitted this,
accept a virtual drandall 'long with my personal apologies. 
_______________________________________

>sebaggle - v. - To fool someone in an extremely straight-faced way.
Judith scores 5: Hutch 2, Kir 1, Larry 2

[It must be noted that Judith initially declined to participate in this
roundciting as proof of inability an anecdote from her childhood in which
she had a poor result in an assignment calling for a composition written
in the style of some article they had read.  But she seems to have done
quit well indeed this time with her stealth approach! -JJC]

Elliott:
RS = 0, or maybe 1 if this counts as MGM.
RRS = 1 (Bzt)

Hutch: This is very suspicious. I didn't notice it until the third time
reading
through this list. This is David: 2 points.

Kir: No one would do that here. 1 point.

Pierre: I think this is the real def.

Larry: I'm giving this one 2 points, because it's what I would have
written
if I were David trying NOT to sound like myself.
_______________________________________

>sebaggle - n. [19th cent. London dialect; fr. Parisian _cebaille_,
>Neapolitan _cebaglio_, Turkish _zepak_] - 1. A criminal who pretends
>to have gone mad and raves in the street while his partner picks the
>pockets of onlookers in the assembling crowd.  2. A deranged beggar.
>3. A member of a heretical South Italian offshoot of the Franciscan
>order, the Tarentines, devoted to the principles of impassioned poverty.
>4. A mendicant Dervish.
David scores 13: Aussie 2, Judith 2, Kir 2, Ed 2, Pierre 2, Laura 1,
Larry 1, Elliott 1

Elliott:
RS = 5 (PN, G-D, MGM, PhD, FF) or perhaps even 6 if we allow half of
an AD point for "19th cent." and half of an ES point for "South Italian".
RRS = 3 (PN, (<), PhD)
Of the whole lot, this is certainly the one you'd chose to show someone 
what is meant by "a David Randall definition".  However, I don't think 
it's actually by David, because the sentence in (1.) is too long and too 
hypotactic.  Ranjit, maybe?  But I'll hedge my bet with 1 point.

Aussie: 2 points - One for sheer volume, although really Senor
Randall has been very concise for the last couple rounds, and
one point for the Neapolitan cebaglio, which sounds like zabliglione
and thus, delicious.  I am operating on the assumption that David
may be taking it to heart that he is required to sound more like
himself than ever.

Judith: Two points for passion.

Kir: Lovely!  David outdoing David, unless it's not.  2 points.

Ed: 2 drandalls, whether it's genuine or ersatz.

Pierre: Definitely Randallish. Two points.

Larry: I give this one one point, as this is like David on crack.
_______________________________________

Okay, so what's really going on here?  I wrote:
>One was written by someone who is entirely David Randall.  One
>was written by someone who is sort of semi-David Randall.  (Don't
>try to do the math, it's too painful.)

And as it turns out, nobody can touch the real David.  (His definition
came in first, and as soon as I read it, I had a feeling that nothing
else would come close.)  And as I also expected, Elliott also did well.

But who is semi-David?  Recognize the name Laura?  No, you don't, do you?
 Turns out that's Laura Randall, David's mother, who has recently joined
our ranks.  Welcome!(Maybe if we're nice, she'll bake us all some
sea-bagels. :-)

As for the truth, I did some advance work on this, and I can say with a
pretty good degree of confidence that there is no word "sebaggle".  Not
in the any of several dictionaries that I checked (including the OED),
and a half-dozen search engines came up empty as well.  But the next time
you're tempted to think that a certain definition was authored by Mr.
Randall, remember... maybe you're getting sebaggled.

Jean-Joseph