Here are the definitions for desman as submitted (with light editing) by our intrepid crew. Place your bets, remembering, of course, that looking it up before you place your wager is uncouth:

a. The area surrounding an ancestral manor occupied by those who rent cottages and land from the familial owner

b. special gouge used for faceplate turning on a wood lathe

c. European aquatic mole, found in Pyrenees and in Russia

d. an acronym for "DE406; Earth's Special Mars August Nexus" used by astronomers to refer to the August 27th opposition of Mars with Earth - the closest that Mars will approach Earth in about 60,000 years

e. (sl.)A blue collar worker from the steel industry, specifically from Pennsylvania, USA

f. a blithering idiot [after P. G. Wodehouse character Malcolm Desman]

g. industrial pressure roller to apply printed images to heavy backing in the manufacture of jigsaw puzzles. After Robert Desman, inventor

h. A litter used for local transport by important personages in the Ottoman empire

i. The bar connecting the treadle and crank of a spinning wheel

j. Canadian sagebrush

k. soft-soled slipper typically worn indoors

(thanks for the light editing, TEd -- now I don't have to discard daffynitions out of hand)

Kudos to d for Most Original/Contrived. I also enjoyed a.

However, my vote goes to g , for what is obviously the correct answer.

heh, some great daffys.

I like g, too, but my vote goes to a.

though I really wanted to say b, I'm going with my gut.

I

B has me bowled over.

Light editing my left toadstool! He edited mine completely beyond recognition. I mo hafta study these for a bit and get them in my subconcious. Might could even recognize which one is mine.

I'm going with my doppelganger, the lovely AnnaS, and choosing g

Well ... "a" is very close to demense, which means that it is either a correct variation, or inspired by the similarity. :: flips coin ::

OK. I'm saying that it is a fake.

How about ... :: flips coin again :: ... H.

well, b) looks suspiciously like a TEdRem special, which means one of three only* things:
1) desman is another real woodworking term chosen by TEd
B) b) is a real def'n for some other woodworking term submitted by TEd as a red herring
iii) someone else has submitted a woodworking def'n hoping to garner votes from those suspecting 1), as above

actually, I don't really like any of the other def'ns all that much either; but I shall return sometime before the deadline to cast a vote for the real one. [hi Milo!]

*I suppose there are other permutations and combinations here, but I didn't want to belabor my already weak, and pointless, point.

I'm not really taken with any of them, but I'll plump for g.

F. Less well known, because he appears in the Blandings books rather than in the Jeeves and Wooster series.

Boy, howdy. B could go either way. Either it was chosen by TEd, our master cabinet maker, or he supplied it himself as a wrong answer, thinking to catch us all.

D is just too convoluted and there is no justification for the D. Or the 406, for that matter.

The rest are all enticing but I connect with I.

I'll take I too.

c, d and e seem to all be voteless.
d is right out.
I'm bumfoozled to the c or e ...

edit:
c just sounds so pedestrian; but on fourth thought, I can't bring myself to vote for e.

but wait! what about k??

ok, I'm going into mole mode. (hi F'babe!)

I'll give K a try. Damn! once again I missed coming here until it was too late to submit.

Quote:

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F. Less well known, because he appears in the Blandings books rather than in the Jeeves and Wooster series.

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Really? I ate up the entire Blandings series in my teens, and now physically resemble the Empress, but can't remember Desman.