[Fictionary] hold on to your hats - it's the wind trolley results!

Fri Apr 26 11:27:20 EDT 2013

There was such a device in a Joan Phipson book--she is/was an Aussie writer of books for older kids [and shares/ed an editor, Margaret McElderry, with David Randall and my friend Nancy Bond]. I think it may have been a mail trolley over a stream in some small town. Also used for groceries and in one book--from the 50's ?--the kids crossed the stream in it when the water was too high.  Linda

---------- Original Message ----------
From: Ranjit Bhatnagar <ranjit at moonmilk.com>
To: fictionary <fictionary at swarpa.net>
Subject: [Fictionary] hold on to your hats - it's the wind trolley results!
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:48:38 -0400

"There are so many delightful mechanical definitions from the
Industrial Age, it makes it hard to pick just two." - Nicolas

And the results?  Kite trolleys are quite popular, earning six points
for Hutch and seven points for Jean-Joseph, who claimed another two
points by guessing the REAL definition, which is the little string
that keeps your hat from blowing away in the wind.

Take it away, Jean-Joseph!  Or let the wind carry it to you.

- ranjit

wind trolley (n.) -- A spring-powered clockwork credenza on wheels,
invented by Sir Henry Cavendish to shuttle food and dishes between
kitchen and dining room without intrusion by servants.  Also called
"deadwaiter".
, wh
-- eLLioTT, with 2 points
2 points from David
I can believe "deadwaiter". Sorry, not "wind trolley". - Hutch
I like the idea of a horizontal counterpart to a dumbwaiter. - Nicolas
Too whimsical. - Jean-Joseph
love the word credenza. - Linda

wind trolley - n. - A device that rides on a kite string and is driven
upward toward the kite by the wind.  Upon reaching a button on the
string near the kite, it furls its wings and descends back to the
kite-flyer by means of gravity, to be reset and sent up the string
again.

-- Jean-Joseph - 2 points for correct guess, for a total of 9 points
2 points from Hutch: This one is similar to mine. Would Ranjit have
included them, thinking that everyone would be fooled by two, too
similar definitions? Well DUH! Of course he would! Did he? 2 points
says yes.
1 point from Jim
2 points from Elliott: Lovely idea! Two points.
1 point from Pierre
1 point from Nicolas: This sounds like a plausible (and fun!) toy
add-on to a kite.
The kite runners would love this, if they didn't bloody the device. - Linda

wind trolley - n. - a device consisting of a box attached to a set of
grooved wheels with a sail; loaded onto a kite string, the box can
carry cargo up the kite string to the kite. In 1841, French
photographer Jacques du Jeanville attached an early camera to such a
device and obtained the first ever aerial photographs

-- Hutch, with 6 points
2 points from Jim
2 points from Pierre: I'm voting on a straight kite string ballot
2 points from Linda: I really think this is the real thing.
Lovely idea! But I'm out of points. - Elliott
I think I remember reading about the first aerial photographs in a
history of flight comic book my dad had, and I'm pretty sure they were
from a manned balloon during the Civil War. - Nicolas
Well, looks like I'm not the only one to be familiar with this real
device.  Not surprising.  I can't remember what they're actually
called. - Jean-Joseph

wind trolley - n. - an iceboat using a kite for propulsive power. This
design was common in the mid 19th to early 20th centuries, but has
largely been replaced by sail power, which permits tacking against the
wind.

-- Jim, with 1 point
1 point from David
Pretty sure not. I'm pretty sure that this does exist, or has, at any
rate. The problem is not that you cannot tack with such an
arrangement. (You can.) I believe the problem is that you don't have
the control of a kite that you have of fixed sails. That is, if the
wind drops, fixed sails just luff and then fill as soon as it returns;
a kite falls in the ocean (or on the ice). - Hutch
This one was in the running for me, although I wonder if there'd be
much of a name distinction between the two? - Nicolas
I'm pretty sure real sails were well understood much earlier than
this. - Jean-Joseph
Useful. - Linda

wind trolley, n. A small spring-powered cart used to carry items on a
track in a factory. It is wound with a crank and placed on the track
that leads to its destination.

-- Pierre,with 3 points
1 point from Hutch: This one is the same as the "deadwaiter" above.
But in a manufacturing context, the name "wind trolley" feels
believeable.
2 points from Nicolas: This is relatively mundane, so I can imagine
this being the precursor to a continuous conveyor belt or roller
system.
If it were "wind-up trolley", maybe... - Jean-Joseph
Could get going too fast? - Linda

wind trolley - n. - A string and button (to go in the lapel button
hole) that prevents your hat being blown away by the wind

-- http://www.thehatmovement.co.uk/basics.html#windtrolley
discovered here:
http://ask.metafilter.com/207842/What-is-this-button-on-the-back-of-the-collar-for
2 points from Jean-Joseph: Phrased very informally.  Seems like a
giveaway that it could be real.  I'll give it two votes.
*LOL* - Hutch
This does seem like a problem in need of a solution, but I suspect
there were other more common ones. - Nicolas
Geeky, but practical. Did it catch on in Chicago? - Linda

wind trolley, n. A skilled goalkeeper in football (soccer),
particularly one known for long airborne dives. From the Ukrainian
VB5 at 2V7:8.

-- Eric
Note from Ranjit: I double-checked the VB5 at 2V7:8 with Eric.
I just don't get this. "wind" for long airborne dives, I suppose, but
why would a goalie be a "trolley"? And what does the "VB5 at 2V7:8" code
mean? Was that supposed to be letters with diacritic marks? - Hutch
The Ukrainian what?? Assuming these are krokozyabry, they could be
Ð¦Ð’ÒÐÑž â€” the letter Ñž is Belarusian, not Ukrainian. - Pierre
I assume an encoding error ruined the punchline? - Nicolas
What's that last bit, some kind of mangled Cyrillic Unicode?  Or
obscure chess notation?  If it had come through cleanly, I probably
would have voted for this one. - Jean-Joseph
If not for the Ukranian, I might have given points. - Linda

wind trolley, v.  to wind the wire on the crank of a mail trolley, as
in the kind used to deliver mail in a box over a stream in a rural
setting.  Very common in outback Australia.  They pun with upwind and
downwind to designate the to and fro directions from one side of the
stream to the other.

-- Linda
Neat idea, but the definition doesn't sound 'dictionary-ish' enough. - Hutch
Believable, but the text doesn't sound very dictionary. - Nicolas
Admiration for making it a verb, but it unfortunately seems really
awkward. - Jean-Joseph

wind trolley, n. On a rigid airship, the armature used to launch small
fixed-wing aircraft. Loose translation of the German term
"Hochgeschwindigkeitsluftstromwaggon".

-- Nicolas, with 3 points
1 point from Eric
1 point from Jean-Joseph: Hmm.  Hmm hmm hmm.  Well, I have to give my
other vote to something, and I can't come up with a good reason not to
give it to this one.
1 point from Linda:   One point for the airship def.  My husband has
collected airship books for decades.
Several interesting paragraphs from Hutch, which I shall reproduce
below the ballot.
That would be "-wagen". - Pierre
Mine. I got silly with the German. - Nicolas

-- David, with 3 points
2 points from Eric
1 point for good taste, from Elliott
I think someone's blood sugar is down. What does "not enough cheesy
poofs" have to do with EITHER "wind" or "wind"? The public demands an
explanation!!! :-D - Hutch
Heh. - Nicolas
If it had run out completely, and had nothing left to serve but
wind... - Jean-Joseph
Very funny! - Linda

Hutch, on the Hochgeschwindigkeitsluftstromwaggon:

On the cover of a REALLY HORRIBLE science fiction novel I have
somewhere, is a drawing of small, fixed-wing craft landing and taking
off, from a strip on the back of a large rigid airship ("zeppelin").
I've always wondered about that and this definition made me think
about it and run some numbers.

Now, the runway length needed for STOL is 450 m. This might seem to
limit such a possibility as the length of the pre-World War II
Zeppelin airships (the Hindenburg) was only 245 m. However, the
Hindenburg could also maintain an airspeed of 140 kph. A Cessna 172
(for example) has a stall airspeed (flaps fully retracted!) of 100
kph. In other words, you could posit an aircraft setting down on a
Zeppelin-type airship vertically (or even moving in reverse, relative
to the airship!), so the length isn't an issue.

The next question is the arch of the back: could a fixed-wing craft
land on that circular surface? The Hindenburg had a 41 m diameter. On
its back, the curve of the skin has dropped less than 10 cm at a
distance of 6 m from centerline, and just over 25 cm at a distance of
10 m from centerline. This gives a 20 m-wide runway space with arch of
25 cm from edge to center. One website I saw recommended building a
grass strip with a 30 cm arch (for drainage). The wingspan of the same
Cessna 172 is just over half that width (11 m) and, more importantly,
the landing gear track is only 2.5 m, or 1/8 the "runway" width.

In fact, you could imagine a Cessna-type aircraft flying over the back
of a Hindenburg-sized airship, matching airspeeds, and then picture
"ground" crew muscling the landing aircraft into a space BETWEEN other
tied-down aircraft.

All that said, there was such a device in use on German airships
during WWI and similar devices were explored by the US military
between WWI and WWII. However, this name just doesn't have a military
kind of flavor to it.
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