[Fictionary] BURLING results

Jean-Joseph Cote jjcotedsl at verizon.net
Sun Feb 4 13:22:27 UTC 2024


I've got a file full of potential words, so I'm prepared to run the next 
round of Joshua doesn't want to, but if he does, then let's find out 
about the intriguing tiebreaker.

Jean-Joseph

On 2/2/2024 10:50 AM, Ranjit Bhatnagar wrote:
> Pierre: "I should have two, right? Can we call Emmanuel Recount?"
>
> I completelyforgot to take correct votes into account when scoring. 
> I'm on the phone now with Emmanuel, just a moment.... ok, the fax from 
> Recount Industries is coming in, and I've included it below. Apologies 
> for the miscount.
>
> We now have a tie between Joshua and Jean-Joseph at 6 points each. 
> I'll leave it to you two to decide who'll take the next round (unless 
> you specifically don't want to decide, in which case I have a vaguely 
> appropriate measure in mind that I can apply.)
>
>
> Ballot with Emmanuel's annotations in **bold**:
>
> PIERRE: 1 **and then 1 more for a correct guess = 2**
> 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 **and then 2 more for a correct guess = 4**
> 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 **and then 2 more for a correct guess = 6**
> 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 **and then 1 more for a correct guess = 6**
> 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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