[Fictionary] BURLING results

[Hutch]

Hmm, guess I hadn't learned as much from Mom about textiles as I had
believed. Or it could be that SHE hasn't learned it. I know she's never
made anything even vaguely like shantung silk :-)

BB,
Hutch

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On Tue, Jan 30, 2024 at 8:33 PM Fran Poodry <fpoodry at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hutch said:
> I would have gone for this one instead of the "burlap" definition above,
> but "knots" and "slubs" are not things you would see in woven cloth: you
> would see them in spun thread, and you would remove them before weaving.
> (My mother is a spinstress and weaver.)
>
> But there are some woven fabrics which have the slubs deliberately left
> in, such as dupioni silk or shantung silk. Sometimes slubs are a feature of
> upholstery fabric as well. But I agree that in most other cases, you would
> definitely remove the slubs or if you had particularly slubby thread you
> just wouldn’t use for weaving fabric. Sometimes yarn with slubs is used for
> hand knitting, though.
>
>
> *Fran Poodry (she/her)*
> *Oregon, USA*
>
>
>
> *“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” ― Margaret
> Mead <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/61107.Margaret_Mead>*
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 28, 2024 at 10:10 AM Ranjit Bhatnagar <ranjit at moonmilk.com>
> wrote:
>
>> The correct definition, from the free dictionary dot com, is "dressing or
>> finishing cloth". Even though I cheated a bit by presenting the -ing form
>> instead of the infinitive, I didn't fool enough of you, and the free
>> dictionary dot com earned the most points at six. However, Jean-Joseph's
>> "Reliable, trustworthy, dependable" came in a strong second with 5 points,
>> making Jean-Joseph the winner of this round!
>>
>> I may have lost a def from Hutch, though I can't find it in the usual
>> crevices of my email. Sorry, Hutch!
>>
>>
>> PIERRE: 1
>> burling, n. The activity of visiting shopping malls hunting for bargains.
>> - Eric: From "Burlington"? *One point* for cleverness.
>> - Nicolas: I hope there is a word for this
>> - Pierre: Shop One or Shop the Mall! (Sign in Burlington, North Carolina)
>> - Hutch: As far as I can tell, shopping malls rarely have actual
>> "bargains", however frequently they advertise them. I have heard of
>> "saling", which is browsing garage sales.
>> - Elliott: Burlington antedates malls.
>> - Jean-Joseph: Sounds invented, but I'll be embarrassed if it's not.
>>
>>
>> NICOLAS: 2
>> burling, n. (Naut.) 1. Tightly coiled rope or cable. 2. A brewing mutiny.
>> - Pierre: Is a brewing mutiny a mutiny in a brewery, or is it a mutiny
>> that hasn't come to a head yet? "Tightly coiled rope or cable" could be a
>> real def, even though it's a fake
>> def. *Two points*.
>> - Hutch: I could believe the first, but not the second.
>> - Elliott: The word sounds appropriate to both defs, but the defs don't
>> sound appropriate to each other.  If #1 were right, wouldn't #2 be
>> something like "an efficient crew", "a taut ship", etc.?
>> - Jean-Joseph: Rope I can see, but tightly coiling cable doesn't seem
>> like a great idea. And I don't see the connection to to an uprising among
>> the baristas.
>>
>>
>> DAVID: 1+2 = 3
>> burling - n. - stripped, washed, stripped, and dried jute fibres ready to
>> be woven into burlap
>> - Nicolas: Two similar ones but burlap seems too on the nose
>> - Pierre: Burl? nah.
>> - *Hutch: 1*
>> - Elliott: Implies that "burlap" is "burl" + "ap", when every schoolchild
>> knows that burlap is so named because when you wear it, you feel like
>> you've got a burr on your lap.  Burlington would mean "jute-mill town".
>> Hmm.
>> - Jean-Joseph: By elimination I'm down to the two textile definitions,
>> and I'll give the *two points* to this one.
>>
>>
>> THEFREEDICTIONARY DOT COM: 2+2+1+1 = 6
>> burling (v) Dressing or finishing cloth by removing knots, lumps, slubs,
>> or loose threads.
>> - Eric: So, "burling" makes 3/7 of us think of burlap. I reject them all.
>> - *Joshua: 2*
>> - *Nicolas: 2*
>> - Pierre: I don't know "slubs", but *one point*.
>> - Hutch: I would have gone for this one instead of the "burlap"
>> definition above, but "knots" and "slubs" are not things you would see in
>> woven cloth: you would see them in spun thread, and you would remove them
>> before weaving. (My mother is a spinstress and weaver.)
>> - Elliott: Burlington would be "cloth-finishing town".  Maybe....  But I
>> don't know "slub", and I'm reluctant to vote for a def that I don't
>> understand.
>> - Elliott, later: Checking the OED afterwards: "To dress (cloth), esp. by
>> removing knots and lumps; ‘to dress cloth as fullers do’ (Johnson)."  And
>> the first definition for _burl_ is "A small knot or lump in wool or
>> cloth.". 1879 quotation:  "The burler..carefully removes any knots or
>> burls."
>> - Jean-Joseph: *One point* to the remaining textile def.
>>
>>
>> JOSHUA: 1+1+2 = 4
>> burling, n. a large, circular chamber dug in the center of a rabbit
>> warren, used as a nest by the highest-ranking doe of the colony.
>> - *David: 1*
>> - Eric: Would have gotten a point if it had used the phrase "queen
>> rabbit".
>> - *Nicolas: 1*
>> - Pierre: Rabbits, you have failed to heed the previous warrening!
>> - Hutch: Somebody has been reading Watership Down recently. However, my
>> recollection is that, in reality, nests for the does are in dead-end or
>> blocked side-passages, rather than in any large central space.
>> - Elliott: This is a nice one.  Do rabbits have a pecking order?  No
>> idea! What's the advantage of being in the center?  Security?  Warmth?
>> Burlington would be "Town of the Senior Doe".  *Two points*.
>> - Jean-Joseph: Do rabbits really have a social structure like ants?
>>
>>
>> ERIC: 2+1 = 3
>> burling, n. A customs official in charge of enforcing regulations on
>> foreign currency and currency exchange. (Fr. Russ. "болгяг", guard.)
>> - *David: 2*
>> - *Joshua: 1*
>> - Nicolas: Now I want to play Papers Please
>> - Pierre: "Болгяг" doesn't sound Russian. Is it Turkic or Mongolian? 'Г',
>> like 'к' and 'х', is followed by 'а', not 'я', although it's followed by
>> 'и', not 'ы' (the Czechs beg to differ). I don't see how "болгяг" would
>> turn into "burling" either.
>> - Hutch: I would have expected a Russian currency official to have some
>> connection to either valyuta or den'gi (two words for, roughly, "money") in
>> their name.
>> - Elliott: Definition 2: A customs official in charge of pocketing a
>> hefty share of any foreign currency in exchange for not enforcing
>> regulations on it. You can get from Canada to Burlington by boat.
>> - Jean-Joseph: I think that transliterates to "bolgyag". Hmm. Does that
>> seem like it would morph into "burling"? I'll guess not. (More likely it's
>> from Pierre.)
>>
>>
>> ELLIOTT:
>> burling (n.) -- 1.  A failure mode of lava lamps, in which wax stops
>> circulating and accumulates at the top due to a weak or reversed
>> temperature gradient.  2.  Obstructed turnover in rotating leadership
>> positions owing to a lack of willing successors.
>> - Nicolas: The failure mode of lava lamps is kid begging and begging for
>> one and then almost never using it 😆
>> - Hutch: I've certainly been in the latter situation. But I'm highly
>> skeptical of both definitions: they both seem overly specific to be real.
>> :-D
>> - Elliott: Self-plagiarism; #1 is reverse-biasing the "convective heat
>> diode" def for "ucalegon", the one that sounded so physically impossible.
>>  (Even an actual physicist I described it to started to object ``But
>> Maxwell's Demon ---'' before identifying it as a convection cell.)  #2 is
>> new, but does it accurately describe Burlington?
>> - Jean-Joseph: Maybe from Elliott?
>>
>>
>> JEAN-JOSEPH: 2+2+1 = 5
>> burling - adj. - Reliable, trustworthy, dependable.
>> - Eric: *Two points*. Because I reject _a priori_ all the burlap/fiber
>> definitions, and the only other plausible definition is mine.
>> - Nicolas: It's probably actually this one
>> - Hutch: I suspect that someone is thinking of "burly" (or perhaps the
>> Dwarfish Ankh-Morpork arms dealers Burley and Stronginthearm). But going
>> for an adjective is worth *2 points*. (Besides which, I don't really
>> believe any of the rest either. :-D)
>> - Elliott: Maybe people used to esteem those virtues enough to name a
>> town after them.  *One point*.
>> - Jean-Joseph: In honor of Hutch's and my mutual friend Doug Berling, who
>> certainly has these qualities. (I saw Doug late last summer, but I expect
>> it's been many years since he and Hutch have crossed paths.)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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