ERIFF results

[fpoodry at speakeasy.net]

OK, I'll start looking up words.  Where'd I put that old Scientific American?
ha.

Seriously, I looked up Friedman and he really did write *something* back before electric refrigerators, but I don't think the Saharan dust ever goes to Greenland--though it does land in Florida, I believe. I was just gambling that y'all's SciAm collections didn't go back as far as the mid 80's.

I'll send out a word sometime in the next few days, but I figure I'll have to give people some extra time if you are traveling over the holiday.
-Fran


> -----Original Message-----
> From: eLLioTT morEton [mailto:emoreton at alum.swarthmore.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 10:38 PM
> To: fictionary at plover.com
> Subject: ERIFF results
> 
> Fictioneers!
> 
> Fran's so-far-over-the-top-it's-in-low-Earth-orbit glacial dust garnered 
> 11 votes, swooping over Jim's just-plain-WRNOG food-and-insecticide 
> slogan, which only got 7.  David's berserker dustup got 5.  Moral:  
> Plausibility is for losers!  
> 
> Nobody voted for the real definition, which was the work of Oxford E. 
> "Ned" Dictionary.  Neddie loves it when that happens.
> 
> Anyhow, great round, people.  Haul it away, Fran!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> em
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> General comments
> 
> Hutch:  WOW! An exciting crop of creative excrescence!
> Ranjit:  Bah, I hate them all.  Especially mine.  And also especially the
> dictionary definition, for which I am reserving special contempt to be
> unleashed as soon as I find out which it is.
> Eric:  Good round, dude.
> Jean-Joseph:  Google turns up a bunch of proper nouns and misspellings of 
> 'sheriff', although it also asks "Did you mean: reef", which puts a spin 
> on the underwater embankment that hadn't occurred to me.  Nothing from 
> dictionary.com, either.  Guess I'll have to wait and see.
> Nora:  I don't believe any of them, so I am going to vote for the most fun 
> ones!
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> eriff (n.) -- The dried skin and pulp of the coffee cherry that is removed 
> from coffee beans in processing.
> 
> By:  Eric
> 2 (James 2)
> 
> Hutch:  "cherry" and "bean"? Those don't sound right together.
> Ranjit:  bagasse!
> Jean-Joseph:  Either chaff or bagasse.
> Jim:  chaff by way of riff-raff?
> James:  TWO POINTS
> Nora:  coffee cherry?  I find it difficult to think that would be part of 
> a real definition, and if it is, WOW!
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> ERIFF (abbrev.) -- An acronym, standing for "Eat Regularly In Four Foods", 
> developed in 1928 as part of a public awareness campaign by the Food, 
> Drug, and Insecticide Administration to encourage consumption of meat, 
> dairy, grains, and vegetables.  From the original brochure: "You'll be 
> spiff, you'll be teriff, if you always ERIFF."
> 
> By:  Jim
> 7 = (Ranjit 2 + Eric 1 + Fran 2 + Nora 2)
> 
> Hutch:  The FDA has *not* ever had that for a name!
> Ranjit:  I'm gonna be chanting that catchphrase all week.  Two points!
> Eric:  One point, for impressive stupidity.
> Fran:  I love this one:  2 points!
> Jean-Joseph:  Uh.... no.
> Nora:  This is just hilarious!  I give it two votes for the impossibleness 
> of it!
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> eriff (n.) -- A mixture of ground peach pits and poultry bones, formerly
> used with limited success as a fertilizer for cotton planting.
> 
> By:  Jean-Joseph
> 1 (Pierre 1)
> 
> Hutch:  I have a hard time seeing poultry bones as a good choice for
> fertilizer. Maybe that's why they had only limited success?
> Jean-Joseph:  More bagasse, or maybe picoline... wait, this one is mine.
> Pierre:  1
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> eriff (adj.) -- Glorious overabundance even to the point of waste; the
> mixed emotion of reveling in abundance with concern or guilt over the
> excess.
>      "The cellar being eriff after our harvest, we ate well with 
> little worry for the winter" - Jacobsen, "Ten Years in the North", 1881.
>      "I am all but eriff at your generosity, and do not know whether I 
> can accept" - from a letter from Alice B. Toklas to Vera Lachaise, 1949.
> 
> By:  Ranjit
> 1 (Linda 1)
> 
> Hutch:  Naah! Don't believe there was ever a need for such a word.
> Linda:  1 point for the??excessive food? (Thanksgiving's coming up, 
> hooray!)?
> Fran:  OK, good also:
> Jean-Joseph:  Opposire of 'bereft'?
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> eriff (n.) -- An underwater embankment, man-made.
> 
> By:  Hutch
> 3 = (Fran 1 + Pierre 2)
> 
> Fran:  But for some reason I am ROTFL on this one, so 1 point:...  I love 
> using slang like ROTFL because I am (at over-30) very unhip.  So I
> feel that it MUST be funny to say such things.  Like ZOMG and pwn and
> !!!eleven!!  It is funnier when I use these terms in communication with my
> students than with you, I think, but at lest I amuse myself by writing 
> this
> e-mail.
> Pierre:  2
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> eriff (n.) -- 1.  A canary-bird two years old.  2.  A rogue just 
> initiated.  (Etymology unknown.)
> 
> By:  OED
> No votes.
> 
> Hutch:  "canary-bird"? It 'twere just "canary" I might've gone for this 
> one.  Really like the newly initiated rogue, too, but I seem to recall 
> (from Dickens and assorted fantasy novels) that the correct phrase is
> "stooled to the rogue".
> Jean-Joseph:  David Randall.
> [No, no.  We initiated David years ago. --EM]
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> ERIFF (n.) -- Desert dust embedded in glacial ice. NOAA researcher Dr. 
> Carolyn Wender quotes social critic Arthur Friedman, who inspired her 
> current project: "When icebergs have on occasion been towed by ship to 
> equatorial regions to provide iced treats for the well-to-do, there have 
> been found patches of eriff embedded in the ice rendering it unfit for use 
> as a bed for caviar or in drinks.  However, such "riffery" was certainly 
> good enough for use in crank freezers for iced creams and sherbets."  
> Wender now examines the eriff in icebergs calving from ever-older sections 
> of glacier, analyzing it for mineral content and pollen, and has a new 
> analysis of the changing wind patterns over the Atlantic ocean which have 
> carried Saharan dust to Greenland.  (Scientific American, September 1984, 
> p. 77)
> 
> By:  Fran
> 11 = (Judith 2 + Ranjit 1 + Linda 2 + Eric 2 +Jean-Joseph 2 + Jim 2)
> 
> Judith:  If this is not the "real" answer (and I doubt if it is), whoever 
> wrote it deserves to be the winner, so I'm giving it the 2 points.
> Hutch:  Okay, this one is just TOO FAR over the top.
> Ranjit:  I don't know why something like that would need a name, but this 
> is the only other def with a usage example, and I like saying "riffery",
> so one point here.
> Linda:  two for the Scientific American spoof
> Eric:  Two points.  Because weird words with no obvious Greek or Latin 
> roots?  Soil science, all the way.  Podzol.  Karst.
> Jean-Joseph:  Well, this certainly strikes me as authentic.  Whether it's 
> authentically about 'eriff', or some other word that means dust in a 
> glacier, I can't say.  But I'll give it two points.  I have to assume that 
> this quote from Friedman is from some time ago, before refrigeration made 
> this sort of thing unnecessary.
> Jim:    <confusion> This example sounds utterly like an Elliott fiction. 
> But... he's running the round! </confusion>  It gets 2 points for 
> imitation
> of Elliott, if not Webster.
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> eriff (n.) -- A breed of goat from Albania and Macedonia.
> 
> By:  Pierre
> 1 (Hutch 1)
> 
> Hutch:  I dunno. Simple, straightforward (boring?). But believable: 1 
> point
> Linda:  I like the Macedonian goats.
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> eriff (n.) -- Truncheon; nightstick.
> 
> By:  James
> 2 (Jean-Joseph 1 + Jim 1)
> 
> Hutch:  What the sheriff carries? This one earns my next points ... that I
> don't have to give.
> Jean-Joseph:  One point for not being fancy.
> Jim:  1 point
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> eriff (n.) -- 1. (Old English) a combat between two berserkers.  2. 
> (Middle English) a brawl.
> 
> By:  David
> 5 = (Judith 1 + Hutch 2 + James 1 + Nora 1)
> 
> Judith:  That's the only thing left...1 point.
> Hutch:  I can't decide whether I believe this one or not, but I'm voting 
> for it: 2 points
> Jean-Joseph:  Now, If I were Elliott, I'd probably have some insight into 
> this one based on whether they used a double-F in Old English.  Or 
> something.
> James:  ONE POINT
> Nora:  I think this combat would be bloody... bloody funny!  only because 
> I think the word berserker is funny, too.  This gets my one vote!
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> eriff (n.) -- The sundown crepuscular period.
> 
> By:  Judith
> No votes.
> 
> Hutch:  Crepuscular just means 'dim' or 'like twilight'. I just don't see 
> this for 'evening twilight'.
> Jean-Joseph:  I like 'crepuscular'.  Even though I'm not really sure what 
> it means.
> [I thought this one was inspired by "erev" -- EM]
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> eriff (n.) -- A drumming sequence of four measures of four beats each,
> characterized by emphasis on the second beat.  Variations using quarter, 
> eighth, and sixteenth notes are frequent.
> 
> By:  Linda
> No votes.
> 
> Hutch:  Another along the lines of Fran's joke definition. Don't think so.
> Jean-Joseph:  Tempting.
> Jim:  (specifically, each is twice as frequent as the previous!)
> Nora:  I liked this one, too because it was like the joke definition.  :)  
> No votes to give, though...  half vote?
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> 
>