[Fictionary] BURLING results

[Ranjit Bhatnagar]

I'm afraid the tiebreaker's not that exciting - I was just going to check
whose definition I received first, which I didn't know offhand because I
used a random number generator to scramble the ballot. (Answer: Joshua was
first by three days!)



On Sun, Feb 4, 2024 at 10:17 AM Joshua Randall <joshuarandall.nyc at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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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