[Fictionary] LOVAT results

[Jim Moskowitz]

It’s time to reveal who wrote what, who voted for what, and who gets to run our next round!


lovat - n. - an albino vixen.   DAVID
   David: Tom Wolfe would use this as a stole to accompany his white suit.  I know, it's my own definition. Just sayin'.
   Jean-Joseph: OK, invoking the arbitrary "no organisms" rule…
   Joe: I love the idea that there would be a word for this, but it seems like too much of a special case.  Or are vixens particularly prone to albinism?
  2 points for correct voting!


lovat - n. - a tightly bound bale.   NICK
   Jean-Joseph: 1 point — Ordinary enough for One point.
   Helen: 1 point - It's such an elegant definition, like a line of poetry.
   Ranjit: 1 point
   Liz: 1 point


lovat - n. - a tool for cleaning Kalman filters.  JEAN-JOSEPH
   Jean-Joseph: Mine, let's see how many people get this math joke.
   Elliott: 2 points — ... using Von Neumann whitening, of course.  Two points for funny.  (Is this secretly vowel harmony def #3, because Kalman is a Hungarian name?)
   Pierre: Isn't that a DSP thing? How can you clean a DSP filter?
   Ranjit: Yeah, they need a linting now and then.
   Eric: Heh! :-) I'm sure all the signal processing engineers are amused? I don't remember exactly what one is, but I'm pretty certain you don't clean it with a brush.
   Plus 1 point for correct voting!


lovat - n. - a refrigerated van or small refrigerated truck.  RANJIT
   Jean-Joseph: 2 points — One of the definitions left standing: Two points.
   Eric: 2 points — Just boring enough to get my vote. Two points!
   Fran: 1 point
   Ziv: 1 point


lovat - n. - a small warbler with a reddish stripe on its rump.    LINDA
   Ranjit: 1 point — I will give a point to almost anything with a reddish stripe on its rump. 1 point.
   Jean-Joseph: Organism.
   Eric: Nope. No birds.
   Plus 2 points for correct voting!


lovat - n. - a Mongolian meat stew simmered with onions and spices.  HELEN
   Pierre: 2 points
   Hutch: 1 point — Similar to the Hungarian word, it feels like it could be Mongolian as well ... mostly because I don't know any Mongolian, I suspect. 1 point
   Joe: 1 point — Yum!  
   Jean-Joseph: Since we have some new players this round, I guess it's appropriate that somebody submitted a definition for something prepared in a yurt. It's been a while!
   Elliott: Vowel harmony def #1.
   Eric: My new plan is to never vote for any Mongolian definition, Mongolian has only one word and that word is "yurt".


lovat - n. - a muted green color used especially in tweed and woolen garments.  OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS [i.e., the real definition]
   Linda: 2 points
   Liz: 2 points
   David: 2 points — and the Lord Lovat Award.
   Jean-Joseph: 1 point — I like this, not enough to really believe it or to give it full score, but I will award it One point.
   Joe: 1 point, because this somehow sounds more plausible than my remaining candidates?
   Ziv: 1 point
   Eric: 1 point — I hate it already. One point.


lovat - n. - a cushioned bar in front of a church pew for kneeling during prayer.   JOE
   Linda: 1 point
   Pierre: I've used this, and I've never heard anyone call it a lovat.
   Jean-Joseph: We always just called this a "kneeler".
   Hutch: Just a "kneeler" isn't it?
   Ziv: Honorable mention for this one for me. Feels like something that ought to have a weird and obscure name, but I'd think it would be something more latin-y sounding.    
   Plus 1 point for correct voting!


lovat - n. - an annual medicinal herb native to the Mediterranean region, also known as moonflower.   LIZ
   Pierre: 1 point
   Hutch: Okay, 1 point 
   Helen: 1 point - When in doubt, it's probably either a bird or an herb. I'll go with the herb.
   Jean-Joseph: Organism.
   Plus 2 points for correct voting!


lovat - n., pl. lovatok - a Hungarian equestrian competition judged on style and skill rather than speed.   PIERRE
   Hutch: 2 points — Pretty sure that basically all "equestrian" competitions are judged on style and skill; speed is always merely a tie-breaker. If speed is the primary factor in determining the winner, the competition is referred to as a "race". Nonetheless, somehow this feels right, as an eastern European word. 2 points
   Elliott: 1 point — Vowel harmony def #2.  "Rather than speed" doesn't sound like it belongs in a definition, somehow.  One point.
   Jean-Joseph: That does look like the way you might form a plural in Hungarian (ex. lake = to, lakes = tavak). But that also makes it a bit too foreign to likely be a word that you'd pick.
   Ziv: My linguist senses are tingling for this one---I believe you that this could be a Hungarian word. But I can't imagine the Hungarian plural making it into English usage... 


lovat - n. - an object or device from which a swung sledgehammer can rebound so as to strike something from below.  ELLIOTT
   Elliott: How do you hammer upwards?  You might be mining, or driving nails into a wooden ship's hull; how do you do it?  Do you bounce it off something, like an anvil, or a little trampoline?  Do you use a hydraulic device where you bash down on one side of a U and a piston shoots up on the other side?
  Helen: 2 points - If this does exist, why shouldn't it be called a lovat? And if it doesn't exist, it should. I've watched enough Vermont timber-framers almost kill themselves using sledge hammers and chainsaws from below. Some quite dear to me. Though I can't really see this working for a chainsaw.
   Ziv: 2 points
   Fran: 1 point
   David: 1 point, and the Swing Low Sweet Sledgehammer Award 
   Jean-Joseph: No. No. This sounds like such a bad idea. Like a trampoline for a sledgehammer (but presumably made of solid iron or something)? If it's going to retain enough energy to do anything useful on the way back up, it's going to be an invitation for somebody to get hurt. So hard to control.
   Joe: I am imagining all the injuries that would happen from improper use of such a device.  Ouch.


lovat - n. - fertilizer made from a mixture of cattle manure, horse manure, sheep manure, chicken manure, and straw.   FRAN
   Pierre: 1 point
   Liz: 1 point
   Eric: 1 point — I usually add shallots and dill. One point.
   David: 1 point, and the Duke's Mixture Award 
   Jean-Joseph: Huh. Some benefit to the particular mixture? I can easily picture fertilizer that's made form whatever manure is available, but I'm not so sure about a custom blend.


lovat - n. - where a bay or bow window is built over a portico, the trim extending from the portico roof to the part-wall below the window.   ERIC
   Ranjit: 2 points — i like excessively technical details.  
   Jean-Joseph: I'm having trouble even picturing what this would look like.
   Helen: You would certainly need a lovat to build something like this. 
   Plus 1 point for correct voting!


LOVAT - n. - LOw VAntage Training (U.S. Army) : military exercises simulating combat where soldiers must remain close to the ground, e.g. bombardment drills.   ZIV
   Fran: 2 points
   Joe: 2 points; This sounds plausible, so whoever came up with this deserves my 2 points.
   Jean-Joseph: Nah.
   Elliott: Sounds plausible to me, but the word was given to us in all lower-case letters, and I don't think the roundmeister would have done that if the real def was all caps.  One point.  [Jim’s note: Actually, I’m pretty sure I always put the word in all-caps, to leave its actual capitalization ambiguous.]
   Plus 1 point for correct voting!


Overall/general comments
   Jean-Joseph: Oh man, it's easier when none of the definitions seem plausible than when it's like this and most of them do.
   Fran:  I did not find 3 defs I wanted to give points to. However...
   Elliott: Many of these defs are vaguely plausible, but not outstandingly so, leaving me with no easy choices.



AND THE WINNER IS… well, actually the most points (10) went to the correct definition, so I didn’t do a stealthy enough job.  But in second place, with 6 points, is a tie between Ranjit’s refrigerated truck and Elliott’s sledgehammer trampoline.  As a tiebreaker I’ll point out that Elliott ran a round recently, so I think that Ranjit should get to run the next one. But congratulations to you both, and to everyone for participating! We now return you to your physical distancing already in progress.

-Jim


P.S. Because there’s always the chance that I missed or miscounted something, please let me know if you think we actually have a different winner.