Roun 3120: BATSOME [Definitions]

[Paul Keating]

Here are 12 definitions of batsome, some of which come from a dictionary, and one even from a dictionary article about the word batsome. Please can I have your votes for two of them, in reply to this message, by the deadline, which is 17h30 Central European Time on Wednesday 18 November, or just under 48 hours from time of posting; other times for other places here.

1	In the textile industry, a batsome is a coiled or wrapped unit of yarn or twine, as opposed to other materials like thread or rope, as well as other forms such as ball, cone, bobbin spool, etc.
2	Obs. hittable (of a baseball or softball pitch).
3	Having a pinched or drawn appearance.
4	Disgusting; loathsome.
5	Mischievous; naughty.
6	Overweight; obese.
7	Unappealing; ugly.
8	Mingled; confused.
9	An African palm tree.
10	Anglo-Indian. Useful.
11	A mixed-grain porridge eaten in East Africa.
12	(also: battable) Of pasture-land: Good for the sustenance of flocks and herds; feeding, fattening; fertile in pasture.

--
Paul Keating
Soustons, Nouvelle Aquitaine, France

[Debbie]

12 and 3 please

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[Ryan McGill]

8 & 10

[Tim B]

10 and 12, please.

Best wishes,
Tim Bourne.

[Judy Madnick]

1 and 12 because I don't have time to think about this!

 

Judy Madnick

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Original Message

From: "Paul Keating" <dixo...@boargules.com>

To: dixo...@googlegroups.com;

Date: 11/16/2020 12:06:41 PM

Subject: [Dixonary] Roun 3120: BATSOME [Definitions]

[Tony Abell]

I'll take 10 and 12, please:

>10 Anglo-Indian. Useful.

[France International/Mike Shefler]

I'll try 5 and 8.

[amal...@comcast.net]

Paul - Unusually, most of them are at least somewhat plausible. I’ll go with 4 and 8.

Alan

 

From: Paul Keating <pjake...@gmail.com> On Behalf Of Paul Keating
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2020 12:07 PM
To: dixo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Dixonary] Roun 3120: BATSOME [Definitions]

 

Here are 12 definitions of batsome, some of which come from a dictionary, and one even from a dictionary article about the word batsome. Please can I have your votes for two of them, in reply to this message, by the deadline, which is 17h30 Central European Time on Wednesday 18 November, or just under 48 hours from time of posting; other times for other places here.

--

[Tim Lodge]

3 and 12, please.

     3. Having a pinched or drawn appearance.

    12. (also: battable) Of pasture-land: Good for the sustenance of flocks and herds; feeding, fattening; fertile in pasture.

--  Tim L

[nancygoat]

I'll take 5 and 12.

Nancy

[Johnb - co.uk]

#2 and #10 please

JohnnyB

Virus-free. www.avg.com

[Hero’s fall Cunningham]

2 and 8 this time out. 

Dave

[Efrem G Mallach]

Is a dictionary article different from a dictionary entry? Longer, perhaps? Suggestive of an interesting word, or at least that there is something interesting about it? Most of these defs aren't nearly long enough to qualify as articles, though "from a dictionary article" allows for the def being less than the entire article. Or is the use of "article," rather than "entry," simply a word choice on the dealer's part, with no hidden meaning? One could speculate endlessly on this without reaching a useful conclusion. 

And is #6 based on someone's subconscious (or even conscious) recollection of "dregbaly" from about seven weeks ago? One could speculate on that too.

Clearly, I don't have enough to do today. However, I'll end this speculation so I can get on with folding laundry, and vote for nos. 4 and 7 on the grounds that (a) someone might have thought, centuries ago, that a bat would have this characteristic (though this could also include #3, "having a pinched or drawn appearance"); and (b) they're close enough to have been combined were one of them not real. 

And now, having used this as an excuse for stalling about as long as I can in good conscience, back to the laundry ...

Efrem

[Paul Keating]

Efrem,

In reply to your Google Groups post of 2020-11-17 20:32 CET

The choice of word is, I suppose, mostly a question of point of view. In a past life I was a professional linguist, some of that time spent as a lexicographer.

The word entry suggests to me an item in a list, for example an HTML description list <dl> which consists of terms <dt> and descriptions <dd>. I have heard more than one colleague pronounce those tags as "definition: term" and "definition: definition".

This parallels the popular notion that everything in a dictionary after the headword is the definition, and so the bipartite entry consists of term and definition. That is adequate for glossaries, but a dictionary may present not just one but several headwords (for example, the OED3 presents BrE and AmE spellings as coordinate, separated by a vertical bar), followed by part of speech, distinguishing number for homonyms, an etymology, one or more pronunciations, various kinds of label (regional, register, specialism, etc); one or more, sometimes dozens more, definitions, each with citations; and perhaps usage notes. The structure can be, and often is, very much more complex than a simple entry in a list.

It's quite usual to say that an encyclopaedia consists of articles. The New Grove's treatment of Joseph Haydn is so substantial it was separately published as a 237-page hardback. Similarly, in the OED3, the verb set rates over 73,000 words, or about the length of a novel. The term entry seems a little inadequate for either of those.

But for me the issue is not length but structure. A word with a complex history makes the structure more evident, but the structure is always there, even when a word needs only brief treatment. And one can hardly say that one word is important enough to need an article, while another warrants a mere entry.

Regards

--
Paul Keating
Soustons, Les Landes, France

[Efrem G Mallach]

Thanks, Paul. Very informative, and more than my random ramblings - written more to put off doing laundry than anything else - deserved.

The laundry is, fortunately, now done. Unfortunately, that is always a temporary condition.

Efrem

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[Shani Naylor]

10 & 12 for me.

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