Come on, people, we need more votes to sufficiently detirmine what the best words to use are. It's not exactly a very difficult thing to do.

I am thinking, Jazzo. It is just that I'm so far behind that I missed lots of the threads the first time and it is taking me ages to read/re-read them with all the giggles n'all. Did you know that Mav and I once had a conversation about not understanding "go figure"? Y'all sounded so strange in those days. See we've all come a long way in multicultural understandings. Anna posts notes on how we might say things, Jackie unravels complex Brit slang. What is the world coming to?

I'll be back soon with my fab five.

Five, huh? Well, here goes:

cornobbled

gobsmacked

triboluminescence

loimic

pantomath

Best regards,
Wordwind

My top five:

1. piepowder
2. cornobbled
3. gobsmacked
4. dipsetic
5. pleonasm

Sorry, Jazz - I'm with jmh - took me too long to read them all and I got sidetracked by the gobsmacked thread!

My votes go to:

g. gobsmacked

h. dipsetic

o. time

p. triboluminescence

%. enantiodromic - but can anyone tell me why this is jumping me into the 'terms of endearment' thread half way through??!?

can anyone tell me why this is jumping me into the 'terms of endearment' thread
half way through??!?

yes, this happens with old threads (and this is quite an old thread) once you reach the limit of your posts/page preference.

Edit Profile/Display Preferences and look for this:
Total posts to show on one page when viewing a thread in flat mode (default is 10)
set it for something like 100
THIS WAS THE BASIS FOR TRYING TO LIMIT THREADS TO 100 posts, to minimize the effects of this "feature".

hey jazzo, do you think the 'gobsmacked' thread is going to qualify? :)

please also note that I edited my vote, above.

My votes go to:

anacampserote
pantomath
octothorpe
pleonasm
and
dipsetic

if i'd've caught up to this thread earlier, i'd've nominated "aetataureate" (http://wordsmith.org/board/Cat=&Board=words&Number=26502), which was the word coined by author Michael Chabon (along with 'cheminations', which also sparked a bit of a discussion) in _The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay_.

hey jazzo, do you think the 'gobsmacked' thread is going to qualify? :)

It's a thread, ain't it?


BTW, I'm happy that we've had a few more voters, but seeing as this Guest AWAD is basically going to speak for the whole board (yikes!), it would probably--no, definitely--be a good idea for us to have a larger percentage give their opinions on what threads are the best representation of what we are. Some of our most frequent and beloved members haven't even voted! You know who you are: (Jackie, Faldage, Anna, CK, bel, Helen, wow, dr. bill, stales, Kieva, Bean, Bingley, Angel, musick, Rubrick, etc. etc. etc.)

How can you ask a parent which among the children is the favorite? This one's the cutest, this one's the smartest, this one's the most sensitive, this one's the most successful, this one's the most dignified, this one's the most mature, this one's... you get the point. Even if selecting a favorite is possible (certainly it's not diplomatic) it's liable to change from day to day and mood to mood.

Therefore many abstain from voting.

Good grief, JazzO, thank you for all that work!!

1.  Triboluminescence
2.  Enantiodromic  --both of these just sound
                     intriguing, as well as having 
                     wonderful and unusual definitions.
3.  Piepowder        ,for the same reason.
4.  Pleonasm         personal, pleasurable memories! :-)
5.  Pantomath        Hi, sweet Nicholas!  A handy word to
                     know.       

Wofa, it's just a guest awad. It's not like you're sentencing the rest of the words to death or anything.

Oh man, oh man--it just struck me how so many of these words are multi-syllabic. I just saw a lovely, simple word in a post by CK that I bet people would be interested in: sistren. And tsuwm, what was that word that had something to do with either the left or the right side of a plowed furrow (or something like that)? Would that qualify?

Good God, is sistren a real word? Have to look it up.

Jazzo, good list, with or without the later offerings from our wordy brethren and sistren. I really don't care which words get put up for the guest AWAD slot, it's all good grist to the mill.

Good job!

Good God , you mean it might NOT be a real word?? CK! How could you! Leading me down the garden path like that, where you KNOW I will follow with bells on!

OK, Jazzo, here are my votes:

octothorp, pleonasm, mysterium, hermetic, pantomath

My Five Suggestions are...

triboluminescence: Sometimes I say "triboluminescence" just to be saying it. "What did you say?", they ask. "Triboluminescence.", I answer.
cornobbled: When you are, you know what it means.
empath: Oooh. I just love words full of almost meaning.
monosemy: Yes! A word meaning the absence of ambiguity that is itself a bit ambiguious. Yes.
mysteriuim: Mmm...there's somthing about this word, uh, like, uh, like it's, you know, a mystery.
pantomath: What if someone called you a pantomath and you didn't know what it was?

Yeah, yeah, I know, they let me pick six. It's only fair, I love words more than you people.

pantomath: What if someone called you a pantomath and you didn't know what it was?

Well, it's either someone who counts pairs of pants for a living, or someone who does aerobic testing on athletes.

It is like whe you go out with a large group of people and have to choose from the menu - I'm always so busy chatting that I only look at the menu at the last minute then wish I'd chosen the dish the person next to me chose.

Closing eyes and sticking a pin:

g. gobsmacked
m. Golden Ratio
r. irony (of course)
w. pantomath
p. triboluminescence (only because I now know
that life savers taste like moth-balls).

at the last minute then wish I'd chosen the dish the person next to me chose.

A pretty analogy, jo. In effect you're saying -- and I agree -- that we can't go wrong with any of the choices; all are excellent.

For those who would like to view it, "time on my hands" has a continuation thread...all part of the same process, and they belong together:

1. b. (a continuation) "TIME for a new thread, people" Q & A 8/19/01
http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=37382

triboluminescence
pantomath
octothorpe
pleonasm
dipsetic

OK, although my gut tells me to go with cornobbled and gobsmacked, I think they've already both won. So with the belief that those are already as good as in, I cast my fate thusly:

fungible
pleonasm
empath
mustelid Why didn't I nominate muskstick when I had my chance?
and
irony, chiefly because there are a lot of people (incl A.Morrissette) who really need to understand that one more clearly.

So when do the polls close? Has a date already been arranged with Anu? Forgive me if I missed that information, I just got back and haven't quite caught up yet...

Once we get the list of words with definitions and sample sentences, I'll send that off to Anu and then he does what he will I guess.

cornobbled and gobsmacked, I think they've already both won.
Now hold up, here. I want to raise an official hand of protest: somebody's going to have to convince me that cornobbled is a real word. 'Till they do, I'm putting in a vote to veto it. (Not yelling and screaming, you understand--just want some verification, 'cause I don't trust that Mrs. Byrne as far as I can throw her...)

somebody's going to have to convince me that cornobbled is a real word....you understand--just want some verification, 'cause I don't trust that Mrs. Byrne as far as I can throw her...

OK, Mz. Jackie, I hunted and hunted until finally I found this definition in a dictionary I'm writing...

REALWORD: 1. a word of no usage until made famous by inclusion in tsuwm's list of useless words. 2. any word that Anu see's fit to print. 3. any word that more that fifty people agree means hit in the face with a flying fish.

Thank you.

Okay. I'm finally casting my vote but I have to take issue with with two of the contending words.

Gobsmacked Hardly hogwash to me and quite general parlance amongst my peers (but it would be a privilege to see it posted as Word of the Day by Anu).

Demesne Ditto. Quite a common term for this neck of the woods (pun intended - with smug reference to a recent thread).

I'll balance off the votes by nominating five others from the list....


p. triboluminescence Cannot say it on its own let alone use it in a coherent sentence. HOGWASH!

enantiodromic - ditto! HOGWASH!

k. hermetic - Love this one. It's like a cross between a hermeseta and a tic-tac. HOGWASH!

c. anacampserote - some sort of a compote? HOGWASH!

h. dipsetic Quite a dispeptic word! HOGWASH!

And this concludes the vote from the Irish jury........ [nil point emoticon]

To squelch any rumors that one vote doesn't matter, I'll share with you the current leaders in the vote tally.

1. triboluminescence - 11 votes
2. (tie) gobsmacked, dipsetic - 9 votes
4. cornobbled - 8 votes
5. (tie) pantomath, enantiodromic - 7 votes
7. pleonasm - 6 votes
8. anacampserote - 5 votes
9. (tie) Golden Ratio, octothorpe - 4 votes

1) Time
2) Time
3) Time
4) Time
5) Time

We were running out of time

I'm afraid Jackie has a good point regarding cornobbled; not only are we split on the meaning, but we will be hard pressed to find citations (outside of right cheer, which seems a tad... incestuous).

http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/

cornobbled

This is the only online citation I could find for cornobbled. But it's not substantiated, just listed with, I might add, a treasure trove of other wonderfully worthless words, tsuwm! You have to click on the cached link under the hit because the actual url is too unwieldy and I can't pull "shorter link" up right now.

http://google.com/search?hl=en&q=slang cornobbled&btnG=Google Search
[re-edit: link's working again, must've been that slow-down here, yesterday]
[edit: evidently the link is not bringing the page up...so....type slang cornobbled into Google, you'll get one hit. Then click on the cached link.]

I'm almost certain that cornobbled is listed in the Slang and Everyday Speech section of Marc McCutcheon's magnificient study, A Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800's, which is readily available for sale online, but not for perusal. However, I don't have access to the book until the historic village library reopens in May. So I guess it's off to the good ol' library! A good university library is sure to have this work, for those of you with nearby or on-site access.

which seems a tad... incestuous).
Oh, come now, brother...

hich seems a tad... incestuous).
jackie: Oh, come now, brother...

One is not surprised that a Kentuckian would be expert on that subject.

Ah hain't touchin' that 'un...

Ok, all y'all blokes, looks like this is the finalist final list:

triboluminescence, gobsmacked, dipsetic, cornobbled and enantiodromic.

alternate - pantomath

Though there was a tie for 5th place, I decided that pantomath is looks very similar to this week's philomath, so for variety, the place will go to enantiodromic. The alternate will go in if we can't find enough support for the eligibility of cornobbled.

Tsuwm, could you provide simple definitions and etymologies from the OED? or is simple OED an oxymoron?

We'll also need sentences for the words, so if anyone can find good sources, it would be appreciated, or we could just make up our own. What do you think?

I go with the list, go for it, JazzO!

We'll also need sentences for the words, so if anyone can find good sources, it would be appreciated, or we could just make up our own. What do you think?

What sources could be found that would care as much as this group? Let us make up our own.

okay, jazz. I'll start posting what I have tomorrow. I think I'll put each word in its own thread so that we can collect comments and suggest cites in an orderly fashion -- won't that be different.

http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/

I found a citation for cornobbled on the new http://Ixquick.com search engine from, guess what?... the Balderdash Dictionary!

cornobbled -- Punched with the fist. http://www.piggle.com/baldc.htm

That's a reputable source...right, tsuwm?

AND, somebody else's Balderdash game:

Balderdash!

Cornobbled (kor-nawb-bulled)

Lynda-s says:

.really bad feet

MtnLionss says:

.cob after all the corn is gone

angel3 says:

.shucker

Cannoli says:

.Scarecrow gettin' some hot action

Kelster says:

.when you get your corn cob taken away

The answer is: Punched with the fist. http://trivia.org/q060301.htm

And, by the way, WW's Alphatist post on the AWAD thread gets a hit on this search engine!!

I got 404ed when I tried your link so I stripped off the baldc.htm part and clicked on Balderdash and C and got there. Go figure.

but here's where we are with cornobbled (up to the minute): the only hard copy source for all of these folks (I believe) is Mrs. Byrne, who was misquoted by her own(?) site with "hit by a fish". now I have found that 'nobble' (itself of obscure origin) has one sense meaning "to strike", and there is an old word 'cor' which is a salt fish/cod.

plus here is an e-mail that I received from C. H. Elster (author of "There's a Word for It")
My apologies for the long delay in responding about "cornobbled." Stuff
and the holidays and then more stuff got in the way and got me
backlogged.

I've exhausted my library and can't find hide nor hair of "cornobbled"
outside of Mrs. Byrne, which in both my 1984 paperback and 1994 hardcover
gives "fist." But "fish" could be right after all, because Webster 2
lists the obsolete noun "cor," defined as "salt fish, esp. cod." So
maybe Mrs. Byrne slipped up.

I'll bet Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary has the word, but I
don't own that. I borrowed it from the UCSD library when I was writing
There's a Word for It.

which all leaves me gobsmacked, I must say.

EDIT: well, that was fun.. I just spoke with the INFO desk at the MPL and Mr. Wright wrote that cornobble means "to beat on" -- *his source was a glossary of Cotswald dialect and the word is dated 1896.


http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/

Thanks, tsuwm. What would we be without you? I wish I could help further.

a thought on cornobbled

I've been thinkin early US slang all along...but if it's in the Balderdash Dictionary, it might just be old British slang, right?

>What would we be without you?

oh, I dunno. just one yart after another?

W'ON, note EDIT just above.

http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/

" But "fish" could be right after all, because Webster 2
lists the obsolete noun "cor," defined as "salt fish, esp. cod." So
maybe Mrs. Byrne slipped up.

Slipped up???

Far be it for me to be argumentative, but somehow these thoughts seem to be, let us say, inconsistent.
Wasn't Mrs. Byrne the one who thought that "cornobbled" meant getting hit with a fish?

>Wasn't Mrs. Byrne the one who thought that "cornobbled" meant getting hit with a fish?

no, no, no.... if you're guine to be argumentative you've got to pay more attention. Mrs. Byrne's dictionary reads "hit with a fist"; the web site which mirrors her dictionary read "hit with a fish" (this is where WW found it), and they've acknowledged their typo -- based on Wright's dictionary, she had it right in the book. the fish thing, it would appear, is just a... well, fishy coincidence.

HTH.

http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/

After submitting our prospective list to Anu, he said that he prefers that all of the words appear in at least some general use dictionary, and exceptions are only given for a very good reason. He also said that we should give him with 8-10 possibilities and then he provides the definition and citation.

well, I guess that rules out cornobbled.

but is he saying the OED is NOT "general use"?? all of the others are in OED (triboluminescence is everywhere). I'll take down the separate threads, we weren't getting any response anyway.

http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/

I guess I'll send him the list of the top ten vote getters. I still think it would be nice for us to make up our own sentences, though. Maybe he can just quote from our threads.

Go for it, Jazzo!...your the helmsman here...the top 10 sounds good...and thanks for getting this going!

Looks like we got cornobbled one good by cornobble, huh?