[Fictionary] BURLING results

Sun Feb 4 15:17:36 UTC 2024

I'm happy for Jean-Joseph to do it! I'm also intrigued by what the
tiebreaker would have been, though, just to know.

On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 8:48 AM Jean-Joseph Cote <jjcotedsl at verizon.net>
wrote:

> 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 completely forgot 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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