[Fictionary] mooncusser results!

[E Cohen]

Hi all!

The real definition was the land pirate. Votes were very spread on this 
round, with four entrants tied at four points each, so I shall have to 
leave it to Nick, Ranjit, Hutch, and Elliott to figure out who goes next.

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General comments:

Elliott: The definitions that are plausible on their own merits are 
implausible as words I would have expected you to treasure up for a 
fictionary round. I have done my best.

Elliott: (having looked it up afterwards:) Good grief, it really is the 
wrecker! There's a long Wikipedia article [1] claiming there's no 
evidence that anyone ever wrecked a ship using false lights, but that
doesn't mean they didn't try. Nice one! Where'd you find it?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_(shipwreck)

Eric: I'm not sure where I found it. Possibly the late, great, and 
greatly-lamented podcast _Futility Closet_.

Hutch: Wow! Fictionitions all over the place this time. I REALLY don't 
know which ones to pick.

Jean-Joseph: Having now peeked: Oh, well, leave it to me, a guy who has 
visited hundreds of lighthouses, not to have encountered this word. But 
I have encountered the concept (spoiler alert): the main character in 
_The Shipping News_ discovers near the end of the story that the reason 
his family was disliked in the ancestral town he has returned to, after 
having inherited the family home is that (among other things), they 
were traditionally a gang of mooncussers.

Elliott also gives us the OED definition, which reveals that a 
mooncusser can be not only one who deceives by light a victim at sea, 
but also a victim on land:

moon-curser, n.
Pronunciation:
Brit. /ˈmuːnkəːsə/
U.S. /ˈmunˌkərsər/
Frequency (in current use):

Origin: Formed within English, by compounding. Etymons: moon n.1, curser n.
Etymology: < moon n.1 + curser n....

Now historical.

†1. A link-boy (link-boy n.), esp. one who lures people into danger or 
ambush. Obsolete.

1673 R. Head Canting Acad. 101 The Moon Curser is generally taken for 
any Link-Boy; but particularly he is one that waits at some Corner of 
Lincolns-Inn-Fields with a Link in his hand, who under the pretence of 
Lighting you over the Fields..shal light you into a Pack of Rogues.

1785 F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue (at cited word) Moon curser, 
a link boy, (cant) link boys are said to curse the moon, because it 
renders their assistance unnecessary: these gentry frequently under 
cover of lighting passengers over kennels, or through dark passages, 
assist in robbing them.

a1800 in J. Ashton 18th Cent. Waifs (1887) 234 One Volly Vance, 
otherwise call'd Glym Jack from his having been a Moon Curser, or Link Boy.

1848 Sinks of London laid Open 116 Moon cursers, link boys.

2. A person who deliberately causes shipwrecks; = wrecker n.1 1a.

1807 Poulson's Amer. Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia) 21 Oct. 2/3 Thus 
the moon curser is pleased with a storm, because when a ship is wrecked 
he may chance to get some of the drift.

a1821 C. Biddle Autobiogr. (1883) i. 51 A ship from Jamaica..the crew of 
which had left her, and gone to Providence in what was called one of the 
Mooncursers or wreckers.

1972 F. E. Manuel Freedom from Hist. 14 Like those moon-cursers, 
who..lure them [sc. ships] to their destruction.

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real definition

mooncusser, n. A land-based pirate who, by destroying lighthouses and 
lighting decoy signals -- often a lamp atop a pole, fastened to a horse 
and led along the coast -- lured ships to wreck for easy plunder.

Jim 2, Linda 1 = 3

Jim: Ordinarily I would suspect this of being the Elliott entry, but 
something about it feels plausible enough that I think this is the real one.

Elliott: A wrecker! I used to think that word was invented to translate 
some Communist jargon from the Moscow show trials, but no, wreckers are 
as English as Devonshire clotted cream.

Hutch: I've always heard this called a "wrecker".

Pierre: I doubt that a horse could stably move a pole as tall as a 
lighthouse. I suspect Elliott.

Jean-Joseph: Okay, so it turns out this is real, and the horse is named 
Flying Ebony. But why use a Kentucky Derby racehorse to move a fake 
lighthouse?"

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Jim

2 points for correct vote

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Linda

mooncusser, n. A drunken complaint made on the way home from the 
pub/saloon/bar, blaming anyone but the drunk person.

1 correct vote, Ziv 2 = 3

Jim: So maybe *this* one is Elliott’s?

Elliott: MOONSHINE + CUSS?

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Nick

mooncusser, n. A scythe-like tool used for harvesting barley and other 
cereals.

Ranjit 1, Elliott 2, Hutch 1 = 4

Elliott: Daniel Dennett, criticizing Hilary Putnam's "Twin Earth" 
thought experiment (which involves a substance that looks and acts just 
like water, but isn't), invites us to imagine a world where there are 
objects that look like tables, and which people use as tables, but which 
aren't actually tables. Or, things that look like scythes and are used 
like scythes, but which are actually mooncussers. Two points for 
philosophical interest.

Hutch: I think I've seen such a knife, but I also think that it's named 
something WILDLY different. Nonetheless, 1 point

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Pierre

mooncusser, n. (Kabyle munqasr) A North African bird, Threskiornis redibis.	

Fran 1, Hutch 2 = 3

Fran: 1 point because it is vaguely plausible.

Hutch: I never vote for critters, but there's nothing else that's any 
more believable: 2 points

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Ranjit

mooncusser, n. A blend of tea originally packaged in Mankachar, Assam.

Fran 2, Pierre 2 = 4

Fran: 2 points because I like Assam tea.

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Ziv

mooncusser, n. A style of mournful Appalachian ballad, typified by _The 
Mooncusser_.

Joshua 2, Elliott 1 = 3

Elliott: Of all the things that make me think this can't be the right 
one, the
lower-case m in the last word is perhaps the most compelling. MOONSHINE 
+ CUSS? One point anyway.

Hutch: I'm fairly familiar with Appalachian music and I've never heard 
of this.

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Jean-Joseph

mooncusser, n. A monk who comforts the dying. (Hobson-jobson derivation 
from "moine qu'assure")

Joshua 1, Pierre 1, Ziv 1 = 3

Jim: Lovely etymology! I don’t quite buy it, but definitely honorable 
mention.

Joshua: It is imaginative.

Elliott: Clever, but would one really leave out the i in qui?

Pierre: One point, and I guess this is J-J's def.

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Fran

mooncusser, n. A silver ritual knife shaped like the crescent moon.			

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Joshua

mooncusser, n. A hallucinogenic species of gooseberry found in Argentina 
and Chile.

Elliott: Makes me wonder whether the Andes pose an impenetrable barrier 
to the spread of plant life. Do they? I like the idea of hallucenogenic 
gooseberries.

Pierre: Doesn't sound Spanish, or even Mapudungun passed through Spanish.

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Hutch

mooncusser, n. [More commonly, mooncutter.] A modification of the cutter 
rig with two masts. The mizzen would commonly be rigged with a course, 
and a gaff or lug sail.

Linda 2, Jean-Joseph 2 = 4

Jim: Second honorable mention.

Elliott: Or with a ... yarn?

Pierre: "Mooncutter" is Attic; "mooncusser" is Ionic/Koine. I'll take 
900 mooncuͳers.

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Elliott

mooncusser, n. 1. The cigarette rolled from the last dregs remaining in 
a tobacco pouch. 2. A work composed discernibly after its author's heyday.	

Ranjit 2, Jim 1, Jean-Joseph 1 = 4

Ranjit: 2 points and the maybe-Elliott trophy

Jim: Nice use of discernibly, and nice pair of related definitions.

Elliott:
    "Now you will not swell the rout
       Of lads who wore their honors out,
     Of runners whom renown outran
       And the name died before the man."

     (A.E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young)




-- Eric   |   @GoudyBoldItalic