[Fictionary] KROOHPYYH results

[Jim Moskowitz]

Thanks for a fun round, everybody!  I tried to 
find the right balance between unorthodox and 
insane in my choice of word, and kroohpyyh has 
always boggled my mind since I first ran across 
it.  Discussions of its Sapir-Whorfy implications 
are left to the adventurous.
-Jim


--General comments--
Nora: Wow, none of these sound plausible, but 
then the word didn't sound plausible, either!
Nick: I'm glad I avoided the croupier pun I was initially thinking!
Elliott: The ballot was a very nice surprise. 
The word called nothing to my mind except those 
passwords you make from the initial letters of a 
phrase (``Keep Roundheads Out Of Harvard --- 
Parade Your Yeomanry Here!''). Fortunately, 
others were more fertile of invention!



--The entries--

kroohpyyh - n. - [Geol] cone-shaped mound with ice core.  --  by HUTCH

Ranjit: Mmm, two points for rocky road ice cream cone.
Nick: I can't picture this.
Eric: Two points.
Linda: I thought the def said "cone-shaped mound 
with ice cream core"--must be hungry.
Pierre: 1 point
Elliott: Mound of what?  One points for 
plausibility:  The weirder it's spelled, the more 
the geologists like it.
J-J: Two points.



kroohpyyh - n. - A copper ore containing 
commercially significant amounts of tellurium and 
barium, often with trace amounts of astatine, 
primarily found in the Trans-Caucasus region.  -- 
by J-J

Nick: 2 points for most believable.
Linda: 2 points, as I've just read a book about 
Kazakhstan in which a lot of mineral finds were 
discussed. The book is Apples Are From 
Kazakhastan, and I like the agricultural and 
cultural comments better.
Pierre: 2 points
Elliott: What are the commercial uses of tellurium?
J-J: I was going here for the notion that the 
word might come from Georgian or something, 
because I don't know if anybody knows anything 
about Georgian.  To be honest, my first thought 
was that it looked like it came from the language 
that Wookiees speak.




kroohpyyh - n. - Diet marmite.  --  by DAVID

Nora: hee! hee! Marmite is already diet! What it needs to be is lower sodium!
Nick: I think Australians wouldn't allow this spelling. Kroopy, maybe?
Hutch: Somewhere I've GOT to get some Marmite and 
find out just what all the shouting is about. 
"Marmite - Love it or hate it!" [Yes, that's 
really their ad campaign]
Elliott: Once, in the Northampton Stop and Shop, 
a friend and I were admiring the wall of Spam. 
``That's funny'', I said, ``they have regular 
Spam, low-fat Spam, and low-sodium Spam, but they 
don't have low-fat low-sodium Spam.'' ``That'', 
my friend replied, ``would be an empty can.''
J-J: Uh... no thanks.



kroohpyyh - n. - Ditch surrounding a village to 
protect from wild animals, often concealed behind 
a zareba.  --  by ERIC

Ranjit: Ha-ha!
Nora: 2 points because I think this is the best definition.
Nick: No fair including fictionitions in the definition!
Hutch: Wasn't "zareba" a word from a few years back?
J-J: Nice try.



kroohpyyh - n. - Finnish onomatopoeia for the 
sound of snoring. -- from 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-linguistic_onomatopoeias#Snoring

Nora: 1 point because I like Finnish sounding 
words (like my late dog's name, Tikko).
Nick: It does have a slight Vader-breathing vibe 
to it when I try to pronounce it.
David: 2 points
Hutch: But it doesn't SOUND like snoring
Eric: One point. Because why not.
Pierre: I don't know about onomatopoeia, but in 
ordinary nouns and verbs, "o" and "y" don't occur 
in the same word unless it's a compound (or maybe 
borrowed).
Elliott: This is very funny and almost plausible, 
but does Finnish have syllables that start with a 
consonant cluster?  None of the Värttinä lyrics I 
can recall do, but you never know with 
onomatopoeia.  Two points for awesomeness.
J-J: Well, it's not impossible.  But it's also 
not really English enough to be legit.



Kroohpyyh - n. -  The first warning sign of hair; 
generally followed by "The Prong" and Gnegg's 
Flux [ziggurat].  --  by RANJIT

Nora: the bald man's dream!
Nick: Are these... band names? Like hair as in metal?
Hutch: Hunh? as in Excuse me? that is, Pardon ME??? or perhaps WTF???????
Pierre: Huh???
Elliott: Ignotum per ignotius, artfully bizarre.
J-J: Say what?



kroohpyyh - adj. - 1. Highest quality. 2. Deep 
golden yellow. From an ancient Hemiari word for 
the resin of the Boswellia sacra tree, 
frankincense.  --  by NICK

Nora: As in "This is a kroohpyyh definition."? ;)
Hutch: The "-yyh" ending feels like it ought to 
be something transliterated, rather than an 
equivalent to the "-y" adjectival ending in 
English. Other than that, this one is extremely 
tempting. Give it my imaginary tie-breaker point.
Pierre: I've heard of this language, but had to 
look it up. Himyarite is a scantily-attested 
Semitic language, so the word for frankincense 
would most likely have the consonants "lbn".
Elliott: Are genera ever named after people?
J-J: One point, I guess.  Something seemed to 
ring true about this, until I realized that the 
work bears a faint resemblance to "myrrh".


kroohpyyh - n. - fr. Russian via Greek orthodoxy. 
A long straight metallic horn used in funeral 
processions.  --  by LINDA

Ranjit: 1 point.
Nick: I wonder if this is onomatopoetic?
Hutch: The "-yyh" ending feels Slavic. With two 
Slavic fictionitions, the horn sounds best and 
feels right: 2 points
J-J: I've got a notion that Slavic languages 
don't have double letters. But maybe that's just 
Serbo-Croatian.



kroohpyyh - n. - A Ukrainian military camp in 
which soldiers camp in a circle around the 
general's tent.  --  by PIERRE

Nick: 1 point now that I'm committed to former SSR defs.
David: 1 point
Hutch: The "-yyh" ending feels Slavic. With two 
Slavic fictionitions, the Ukranian camp doesn't 
quite ring true. If it were "Mongol" or "Tartar", 
it might make it work: 1 point
Linda: 1 point
J-J: Same for this one.



--The Winnah--

Take it away, Hutch!



--One final comment--

Elliott, after submitting his vote:
"I'll be doggonned, it was the Finnish snore after all!
Here's the scoop on consonant clusters, from 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_phonology#Phonotactics
Originally Finnish syllables could not start with 
two consonants but many loans containing these 
have added this to the inventory. This is 
observable in older loans such as ranska < 
Swedish franska ("French") contrasting newer 
loans presidentti < Swedish president 
("president"). In the past decades it used to be 
common to hear these clusters simplified in 
speech (resitentti), particularly, though not 
exclusively, by either rural Finns or Finns who 
knew little or no Swedish or English. Even then, 
the Southwestern dialects formed an exception: 
consonant clusters, especially those with 
plosives, trills or nasals, are common: examples 
include place names Friitala and Preiviiki near 
the town Pori, or town Kristiinankaupunki. 
Nowadays the overwhelming majority of Finns have 
adopted initial consonant clusters in their 
speech."