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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/

#57969 03/05/02 08:16 PM
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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!!







#57970 03/05/02 08:26 PM
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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.


#57971 03/05/02 08:40 PM
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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.


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


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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?


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>What would we be without you?

oh, I dunno. just one yart after another?

W'ON, note EDIT just above.

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#57975 03/05/02 11:48 PM
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" 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?


#57976 03/06/02 04:17 AM
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>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/

#57977 03/07/02 03:42 PM
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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.


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