First off, I'd lilke to thank mav for putting in a guest appearance and voting for Percival Powfag, even after someone had let Feghoot out of the bag. More on this subject later.

Congratulations go to Faldage for winning the Popular Vote in something of a landslide, even after Milo's hanging candes were thrown out. Kudos also to ASp and Dgeigh for getting it right; ASp also collected two votes for her def'n. (In the old scoring, that would have given her the Electoral win.)

As per usual, some thought the decision was hard because all of the definitions rang true, while others thought they were all implausible. I was mostly in the former camp myself.

I mentioned at the start that I hesitated in throwing this one out; that's because I thought the armil®s would come out of the wordwork with the 'fag' factor. But those were minimal, with the most obvious connection actually being the correct answer: No. k!

powfag

a) a shaggy-dog story; a groaner [from a series of short stories by Larry Niven (as Lynn Varrie), all of which ended with an outrageous pun: Percival Powfag's Exploits in Known Space (tsuwm) maverick

b) [from Cree (US)] the raw materials used to make up a fire
(Asp) etaoin, Faldage

c) a powderhorn designed to be hung from the saddle of a horse (dxb)

d) a very strong cigarette [Welsh slang, from pwff puff, and ffagl flame, torch] (sjmaxq, owlbow) Ted, Wordwind

e) a persistent heavy mist occurring during cold weather in the late fall or early spring, common in woods in northern Wisconsin [from Menominee apeha'pfe-o-akh, it deceives the eyes] (Faldage) musick, AniamL, sjmaxq, Bingley


f) 1. (Finnish) a crude broom made from twigs tied together
2. (musical jargon; contraction of "power faggotto") an electric bassoon (wofa) consuelo

g) Pretty, Overweight, White, Female, Actively Gay (well known to Date Referral Services) (milum)

h) the ceremonial burning-at-the-stake of a captured enemy (musick)

i) slang. any damaged vented midrange on a woofer [from 'Peavey-Olsen Woofer Functional Acoustics Gap' (roadie term of art, 1970's)] (Wordwind) dxb

j) Scots term for a talisman carried in a sporran, typically carved from cherry burl, though occasionally carved from stone or bone (TEd) wofa, Owlbow

k) to tire bodily from overwork; to become worn out in mind from care or anxiety; to work to the point of exhaustion
(Francis Taylor’s Folk-Speech of South Lancashire, 1901) Asp, Dgeigh

Congratulations go to Faldage for winning the Popular Vote

I believe this is the first time I've gotten more than one vote and then only once. Thank you musick, AniamL, sjmaxq, Bingley for your support. And you, too, themilum, even though tsuwm seems to have chosen not to include you.

And just FTR, I belong to the none-of-them-likely camp.

>tsuwm seems to have chosen not to include [themilum]

gosh, I kept running his post(s) through my simple counting algorithm and it kept coming up TILT!

>I believe this is the first time I've gotten more than one vote

Ditto!

voting for Percival Powfag, even after someone had let Feghoot out of the bag

ahhh, the perils of reading at 2am - sorry, wofa, I missed your liver the first time around! But although a fan of Asimov in other guises this still doesn't ring any bells with me. Anywade, I'm glad to donate to such a wordy cause.

max chimes in "ditto".

but max, you had a major assist!

If I take 0.5 vote that will still be a record for me. I think max deserves 1.5 votes for his part, so we will both have personal bests.
Good fun - thanks tsuwm & max

> but max, you had a major assist!

Indeed. The bane of my hogwash existence, The abitrary and capricious merging of similar defintions by the power-drunk HogLords. It has happened to me several times now, under different adnministrations, and has always rankled. I only started submitting regularly to try to get the occasional point, and have yet to grasp why I should be effectively penalised for coming up with a simliar defintion to someone else. There's something rotten in the politics of this particular pork-barrel, methinks.

It would be fun to see the similar definitions! How interesting! Really! That two fakes took the same false path! If someone had taken the same path that I took with Peavey and Olsen, I'd love to have seen just how similar a design that the path had taken form! [Thanks, dxb, for your vote. How compassionate! Especially since I worked so hard for about a half an hour researching my defintion language!]

Owlbow's def'n arrived first:

Bad definitions - I should be good at this.
(This doesn't count, because it's not caweful enough):
A guy with a special liking for former prisoners of war

This is my submission:
A very strong cigarette

then came max with a terse def'n, but a full etymology:

Cigarette. Welsh slang, from pwff puff, and ffagl flame, torch.

it was a daunting task to combine the two -- although I could have gone with Obie's first def'n, I suppose..

Ah, but all those 'ff's' and the mysterious, mercurial 'w'!
Therein lay the temptation to vote for that particular cigarette, Saint Peter aside!

Thanks, tsuwm, for showing us the ffateffwlly mated pair.

all those 'ff's'...

Knowing your love of learnt details, have you realised the significance (or should I say signifficance?) of the doubled letter, Miz mercurial double double-you? The single f in Welsh renders the voiced v sound: for example the name of my wife's family home was Tredefaid, pron.: Tree-DEV-eye'd. The doubling renders the unvoiced sofft eff :)

In reply to:

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Especially since I worked so hard for about a half an hour researching my defintion language!

---

Ditto! Nearly half an hour spent at online Welsh-English dictionary, testing lements of powfag for usable Welsh meanings. Then to be told that I needed "an assist" for my votes was enough to make me spring a leek. From Cymraeg comes rage, I guess.

Well, max, take heart: I voted for your definition because of your hard work! It impressed me--to the point that I found a good degree of authenticity there. As for any lingering anger, I'd suggest letting it go up in smoke.

And, mav, thanks for the 'f'/'ff' lesson. I did thoroughly enjoy learning about those pronunciations, as you probably knew I would.

I gotta learn not to look at your posts while enjoying my favorite steaming beverage. You owe me a new keyboard!