Cumberground -- the winner
MYShaner at aol.com
MYShaner at aol.com
Tue May 29 09:54:39 EDT 2001
The winner is Aussie, with a resounding 9 points! Take it away....
- Melissa
cumberground - n. - anything utterly worthless and in people’s way
CHARLES MACKAY, LOST BEAUTIES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 1 POINT
Joe: I like this one, but it sounds too good, so I'm going to refrain from voting for it. [Cackle, cackle -- MyS]
1 – Hutch
cumberground - n. - a rocky hillside
DAVIDR 0 POINTS
Fran: prosaic. not that that's bad.
cumberground - n. - an area of grassland where cattle gather to sleep
AUSSIE 9 POINTS
1 – Jimmosk
2 – Ranjit: Cozy!
2 – Joe
1 – Jean-Joseph
2 – Linda
1 – Pierre
Fran: aww.
cumberground - n. - A section of railroad right-of-way under construction where the track bed has been prepared with ballast, but ties and rails have not yet been set
JEAN-JOSEPH 1 POINT
1 – Linda This is totally sentimental, as David and I live train trips
Fran: mmm, ballast.
Jean-Joseph: I shall reject out of hand anything that appears to be a cognate of "encumber", leaving me with the cattle bed, overstuffed, the memorial, the boxing ring, and the coal. I like the coal, as I also gave some thought the adjective sense of "ground" rather than the noun. But Deadhead though I may be, I'll also reject the two Cumberland Mine definitions ("Make good money, five dollars a day, made any more I might move away"). And how can a village SQUARE be cumbergROUND, I ask you?
cumberground - adj. - overstuffed, grotesque, obscenely obese
JUDITH 6 POINTS
2 – Jimmosk
2 – Jean-Joseph
2 – Hutch: Of the two remaining after throwing out everything to do with land and terrain, I find this one to be the most amusing.
Fran: ew
cumberground - n. - agricultural land formed over the terminal moraine of a glacier, often unsuitable for crops, but adequate for the grazing of sheep, cattle, or other hoofed mammals; in appearance there are usually slightly sloped grassy fields with a number of boulders
LINDA 5 POINTS
1 – DavidR
2 – Dave T
2 – Fran: for the nice descriptive terms, much more lyrical than "a rocky hillside"
Hutch: When I read this over again, I somehow wish I hadn't decided not to believe all of the land and terrain definitions. This feels very right.
cumberground - n. - [Cumberland Mine, Nova Scotia] A memorial to miners who perished in an accident
PIERRE 1 POINT
1 – Joe
Fran: sentimental
Hutch: The Cumberland Mine Company must actually exist if TWO people used it for their fictionitions.
cumberground - n. - a village square where contests of strength, such as wrestling, take place on market days
FRAN 4 POINTS
2 – Aussie Yes! YES! Let's go down to the cumberground, and watch the Finnegan lads take on the Burns brothers!
2 – Pierre
Linda: is there room with all the stalls for selling?
cumberground - adj. - of anthracite coal, milled to the fineness of rice for use in screw-fed furnaces -n.- coal thus milled. Originally a trademark of the Cumberland Mining Company
RANJIT 7 POINTS
2 – DavidR
1 – Aussie I don't trust the "anthracite" but "milled to the fineness of rice" is very nice.
2 – Judith
1 – Dave T
1 – Fran: I can just picture it.
cumberground - n. - a patch of land where one buries unwanted items
JOE 2 POINTS
1 – Judith
1 – Ranjit: Wouldn't that be an unencumberground? Still, I like it
Fran: like dead miners?
Linda: There is a place like this--in our town we call it The Dump (transfer station, really). At my home we call it The Basement or The Attic, or What Used to Be My Art Studio.
More information about the Fictionary
mailing list