[Fictionary] Results: Cathead

[Matthew Fowles Kulukundis]

All~

First a confession, I included two definitions that explicitly marked
themselves as not serious because I wanted to see what would happen.


Actual - 11 pts
cathead - n. A horizontal beam extending from each side of a ship's bow,
used for raising and carrying an anchor.
- I'm having trouble picturing this. It sounds like the beams stick out to
port and starbord. But (a) I can't recall seeing such things in ship
pictures, and (b) it seems like you'd want to suspend the anchor from as
close as possible to the fore-aft axis of the ship, so that its weight
doesn't tend to roll the ship as the anchor is raised or lowered.


David Randall - 2 pts + 2 for correct definition = 4 pts
cathead - n. [English naval slang] Scarring formed after flogging.
- Eeeuuw! Another kind of nautical cat.


David Van Stone - 1 pt +1 for correct definition = 2 pts
cathead - adj. Used to describe a path which has a single perpendicular
turn.
- I've heard people call this a ``knight's move'', after the way that
knights move. Why would they call it a ``cathead''?
- Two catheads make a dogleg?
- Probably just a pun on dogleg.


Elliott Morton - 3 pts
cathead - n. A used baseball that is no longer spherical.
- Crabbed pedantry will object that new baseballs aren't spherical either,
because crabbed pedantry doesn't play much baseball.


JC Ravage - 9 pts + 2 for correct definition = 11 pts
cathead - n. A landform that is a peninsula at low tide and an island at
high tide.
- Cool concept. Semi-plausible because of the way ``head'' can mean a bit
of land that pokes out into the water.
- Believable because of head as in point.


Jeff Hutchinson - 1 pt + 2 for correct definition = 2 pts
cathead - n. [colloquial from Central Appalachia] Cattail root, esp. raw in
a salad.
- Are they edible?


Jim Moskowitz - 2 for correct definition
cathead - n. Popup or popunder clickbait.
- Hunh. Like the Cheshire Cat's head, it just sort of hangs there?
- Inspired by catfishing?


Joking Linda - 1 pt + 2 smart ass votes
cathead - n. A litter box on a ship used by the ship's cat.
- This used to confuse me no end when I was a kid. Kittens, everyone knows,
come in litters. Cats have litter boxes. And yet adults will point to
something and call it ``the litter box'' when it contains no kittens.


Josh Smift - 1 smart ass vote
cathead - n. The opposite of a cattail.
- It's good to see that the fictionary list has not lost its interest in
speculative philosophy. What is the opposite of a cattail? Is it not that
which has every property that a cattail lacks, and lacks every property
that a cattail has? And is not one of the latter, the property of being
conceivable by the human mind?


Linda - 1 pt + 1 smart ass vote
cathead - n. A negatively charged wire formerly used in television sets
that had tubes. Often, a series of these wires.
- Portmanteau of cathode + lead?
- CATHODE and CATWHISKER.


Nick Ward - 1 pt + 2 for correct definition = 3 pts
cathead - v. To build an earthen fortification.
- Kudos for being a verb, but I don't see anything to make it plausible.


Pierre Abbat - 0 pts
cathead - n. [Old Irish, from Latin cathedra] The office of a bishop in
early Scotland and Ireland.


Ranjit Bhatnagar - 3 smart ass votes
cathead - n. [Irish, pronounced 'chaw'] the head of a cat
- "Cat" does mean "cat" in Gaelic, but the word for "head" is "ceann" or
the like. The closest spelling that could be pronounced "chaw" is "teadh".



Having tied the actual definition with 11 points, JC is a pretty clear
winner for this round.  Unless you count Ranjit taking a plurality of smart
ass votes.

Matt
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