a) the small caps which lower over the upright columns supporting harp lamp shade holders.
I don't think the OED would adopt such an incredibly specific definition.
b) a quick snort at the time the sun goes over the yardarm. "Care for a little tiddledies?"
Snort? An unspecific word. They are pedestrian, but they are not unspecific.
c) intricate scrollwork and rosettes added in the latter stages of building of gothic cathedrals for the purpose of fine-tuning the acoustics.
The fine art of architectural acoustics were not perfected to that degree in the period where gothic cathedrals were made, so a little unbelievable.
d) knick-knacks, gewgaws, gimcracks; oddments
I have to say that the OED leans to more pedestrian language, because of its nature; gimcracks is not such a word.
e) [from Eastern Papua New Guinean Pidgin English] obnoxious child
Eastern Papua New Guinean dialects? The area is a bit too small for that, and the eastern half is a bit uninhabited anyways. Papua New Guinea is the eastern half, in the first place. The simple logic of pidgin English also makes me think that the word would always be a plural.
f) [Scots] Haggis droppings
Last time I heard, cooked items don't heed the call of nature.
g) a fun Mensa game much like tiddlywinks but played with dice.
Unless the game is heavily variegated, tiddlywinks with dice is ridiculous.
h) glossy fringes and tassels
Perhaps the small print in which I usually look at OED definitions skews my opinion, but this one lacks the pure feel of such. Perhaps it is because 'glossy' carries certain implications of uniform mass, say, in 'glossy magazine'.
i) like Puck, a spirit of mischief (originally Lancastrian dialect).
Would a word intimately associated with a Shakespearean work enter Lancastrian dialect in such a short time with no identifiable etymology?
j) [Old Norse] a practitioner of sleight-of-hand.
English tends to adopt more vital words, and I cannot say that such a word in such a society would be very oft used. Of course, either way, it's apocryphal, but probably a fake.
k) healthiness lasting into old age, from dialectal 'tid', meaning 'fresh' or 'tender', and OE 'eald', or oldness.
The sound 'tid' is one very easily confused(kid, for one, or bid), so such a sound, I think, would not survive long unedited. Such a strange linguistic fusion, also, is strange.
l) [<ME tydle + dye] chips used in a game that evolved into (modern form) 'tiddlywinks'
The chips are called winks. Nice try.
m) soft flexible ice or chunks of floating ice
In all of my short years, I have never seen flexible ice. Perhaps a frozen colloid? A cold plastic?
As you see, I just reasoned out every single answer. Hence, I must adopt the one with the flimsiest reasoning: D.
Because I love tormenting the hogmaster: I change my answer to M.
Last edited by Curuinor; 04/17/07 11:25 PM.
