Rd. 3613: paronomasia results

[nancygoat]

The best I can say for myself is that I did not break my own record (D11) for votes for the correct definition (D8 this time).  As a result, many of you got some points for guessing it. I think you were all attracted by the strange OED wording of the real def -- a pun.

As for the next dealer, that's Glenn Davis with 7 unnatural points. Runner-up is Tim Lodge with 6 unnatural. And the rest are summarized below. Please excuse the bad formatting. Best I could do.

Take it away, Glenn!

Nancy

1.  A feeling of giddiness experienced when falling in love.

Shani Naylor; 

Votes: Mallach, Davis                                                                                                             2+0=2

2.      2. A system of practice governed less by written rules than by accumulated custom and precedent, understood intuitively by long-standing participants and imperfectly documented.

Dan Widdis                                                                                                                     0+2=2*

3.      3. An obsolete classification in early music notation referring to a paired sequence of tones used to mark transitions in folk melodies.

Judy Madnick                                                                                                                 0+2+2

4.      4. As described by Aristotle, the state of individuals who follow their appetites without rational control.

Tim Lodge

Votes: Bourne, Naylor, Kornelis, Boxer                                                          4+2=6*

5.     5.  A rhetorical device involving deliberate repetition of similar-sounding words for effect.

Glenn Davis

Votes: Lodge, Naylor, Widdis, Embler, Mallach                                       5+2=7*

6.    6.   a belief, common to several cult faiths, that the end of the world is imminent, and will give everyone an equal chance of salvation.

Tim Bourne                                                                                                                      0+0=0

7.   7.   A playing on words which sound alike; a word-play; a pun

OED

Votes: Madnick, Lodge, Keating, Kornelis, Widdis, Embler, Boxer, Davis                D8

8.   8.    Confusion arising from shared nicknames.

Eric Boxer                                                                                                                                   0+2=2*

9.      9. a credulous belief in conspiracy theories

Mike Shefler                                                                                                                                    0+0=0

Votes: Madnick, Bourne

1 10. A type of nominal compound in which the first part modifies the second and neither part can be used alone while retaining the intended meaning. Examples include redcoat, bluestocking and lowlife.              

Debbie Embler                                                                                                                              0+2=2*

1. 11. A figure of speech in which a reference to a place is used for a person born or living there; by some rhetoricians subsumed under synecdoche, or under metonymy [Gk para- ‘beside, surrounding’ + onomasía ‘name’ < onomázein ‘to name’]

Paul Keating 

Votes: (Keating)                                                                                                                            0+2=2*

1 12. The condition of being prone to seeing ghosts.

Tony Abell                                                                                                                                         0+2=2*

No Def: Kornelis                                                                                                                           0+2=2*

No Def: Mallach                                                                                                                           0+0=0

[Paul Keating]

I have Mike voting for 7 and 11, Sunday 15h52 UTC. If I am right, counting also the two votes he collected for #9 (Tim B, Judy), that would

• give Mike a score of 2 + 2 = 4*  (not zero)
• give me an extra vote for 1 + 2 = 3*
• give you an extra vote for D9

Def no	Player	Voted for	Votes from	Score from votes	Correct guess	Total
5	Davis	1, 7	Embler, Lodge, Mallach, Naylor, Widdis	5	2	7*
4	Lodge	5, 7	Bourne, Boxer, Kornelis, Naylor	4	2	6*
9	Shefler	7, 11	Bourne, Madnick	2	2	4*
11	Keating	7, 11	Keating, Shefler	1	2	3*
1	Naylor	4, 5	Davis, Mallach	2		2
3	Madnick	7, 9			2	2*
10	Embler	5, 7			2	2*
8	Boxer	4, 7			2	2*
No definition	Kornelis	4, 7			2	2*
2	Widdis	5, 7			2	2*
No definition	Mallach	1, 5				0
6	Bourne	4, 9				0
12	Abell	DNV				0

--

Paul Keating

Soustons, Nouvelle Aquitaine, France

[Hugo Kornelis]

Hi Nancy,

 >  No Def: Kornelis                                                                                                                           0+2=2*

I was wondering whether you had made a very unexpected combination (with a lot of creativity, you might see something in common with Aristotle's unlimted eating), or totally missed my definition

So apparently, it's the latter. Even after I talked in the group about the definition that I sent to you, and that I would retract if the group thought my use of AI to refine the wording should not be allowed.

In case anyone wonder what definition I actually sent, this is what I sent to Nancy's gmail address on January 10, 12:05 Dutch time:

    PARONOMASIA: The powerful, almost compulsive desire to consume comforting, usually energy-dense foods (such as chocolate, ice cream, pizza, chips, or anything involving melted cheese) when experiencing stress, anxiety, emotional distress, or overwhelming feelings, regardless of actual hunger.

I guess we'll never know how many votes my attempt to be better through AI would have attracted.

Cheers,
Hugo

Op 12-1-2026 om 11:03 schreef nancygoat:

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[Paul Keating]

Hugo, 

Not knowing your prompt, it’s hard to tell if your aim was to entertain us or to convince us of the definition’s correctness. 

If your aim was to convince, and knowing that an AI is primarily to blame, I can be blunt. That doesn’t sound at all like a real dictionary. I can imagine a senior editor putting a blue pencil right through it, and substituting “stress eating”.  Realistic, perhaps, but also not much fun.

If your aim was to entertain, then you succeeded. The loving enumeration of the fare is fun, especially the coda anything involving melted cheese; however unlike a dictionary it may be. 

In the very first round I played, I voted for a definition because it made me laugh, not because I believed it. I still do that now and again. It’s a game, and we are here to have fun.

--

Paul Keating

Soustons, Nouvelle Aquitaine, France

[Hugo Kornelis]

Hi Paul,

My aim was to make it credible. So that clearly failed.
I will admit, the list of examples is completely out of the AI's imagination.

Here is what I asked Grok:

Imagine that there would be a word that describes the almost irresistible urge to eat comfort food in times of stress. How would that word be described in a dictionary?

And this is the unedited reply (Grok decided to even include what that word might be):

stressnom /ˈstres.nɒm/ noun [mass noun] informalThe powerful, almost compulsive desire to consume comforting, usually energy-dense foods (such as chocolate, ice cream, pizza, chips, or anything involving melted cheese) when experiencing stress, anxiety, emotional distress, or overwhelming feelings — regardless of actual hunger.

"After the third rejection email that day, the stressnom hit so hard she found herself eating an entire family-sized bag of cheesy puffs while standing in the kitchen at 2 a.m."

Origin: Blend of stress + (e)at + (g)naw/(c)nom (from Latin gnōscō "to know" via playful folk etymology suggesting "knowing exactly which food will make the bad feelings go away for 12–45 minutes")Typical characteristics:

• Hits most strongly between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m.
• Logic and nutrition knowledge are temporarily suspended
• Food must be easy, quick, and maximally rewarding in the first 3–5 bites
• Often accompanied by the thought “I deserve this” or “I’ll be good tomorrow”
• Post-stressnom guilt arrives approximately 7–40 minutes later (depending on quantity consumed)

Related terms:

• stressnomer — a person currently in the grip of stressnom
• stressnomial — describing foods that are especially potent triggers (“mac ’n’ cheese is dangerously stressnomial”)
• post-stressnomial regret — the inevitable emotional aftermath

Would you like to add this word to the dictionary of human suffering, or shall we pretend it doesn’t exist and keep calling it “emotional eating” like civilized people?

As you see, my only real edit was to get rid of the incriminating em-dash.

Cheers,
Hugo

Op 12-1-2026 om 16:06 schreef Paul Keating:

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[Paul Keating]

So Grok was undictionarylike to the point of being unintentionally funny. (Not that AIs can be said to have intentions.) That's an advance on other AI efforts I've seen.

By all means go on doing that from time to time. It will stop us from taking ourselves and the game too seriously. Fernando Gelbard, who left the game about the time you joined, made a speciality of doing that. I still miss him. 

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[France International/Mike Shefler]

I remember using the old DOS program "Babble" to create a definition in the early days of the game. I can't remember what I used as input to the program, but the def it created consisted of around 15 or so numbered sub-definitions. It won the deal, much to my amusement.

--Mike

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[Daniel B. Widdis]

My definition for this round was a cut and paste from an AI, but I did guess at an etymology (para/near + nominal) and asked Claude to succinctly describe a bunch of people playing a game where they ignore the rules, giving it the webpage https://sites.google.com/dixonary.net/dixonarydocs/game-rules-and-advice as context, and I used that as inspiration for my definition.

My goal was to get a pity vote from Paul.  I failed. :D 

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[Paul Keating]

That was Round 2000. It doesn’t take much guessing to figure out that some of the input came from (two celebrated scenes from) Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet; clues underlined. This entire set appeared as the last (and by no means least) of 17 definitions of favillous:

1. The slings and parts of Scandinavia. Ham III 1.

2. A nunnery, which we call a winged messenger of the species. Ham III 1; R&J II 2.

3. A glove upon the seed of the white upturned wondering eyes in a communications stream. R&J II 2.

4. A burial mound or not. 

5. The seed of the lazy pacing clouds. 

6. To be lost, esp. the place you can lose control. 

7. a small spat or, when he loaded up through the sun, the Ballet Russe, her vestal livery in the town of Bedrock. R&J II 2.

8. A technique using staged tunable rectifiers to see from Brooklyn Heights. 

9. A technique using staged tunable rectifiers to be in heaven. 

10. the signal-to-noise ratio in Washington. 

11. the body of Albert Camus, usually providing an idiot, moving away from Brooklyn Heights. 

12. The seed of outrageous fortune, esp. the envious moon, usually providing an absurdist counterfoil to dream. Ham III 1; R&J II 2.

13. O, that which we call a lamp, esp. the release mechanism of a lamp, most esp. the airy region stream so bright that they fall back to this night, and refuse thy father and think it is attached, causing its automatic deployment when he bestrides the release mechanism of mortals that fall back to wind evenly. R&J II 2.

You were not the first to do that, I think. I am pretty sure Neil Rubenking did something similar, somewhere around Round 200, but I can’t immediately track down the reference. 

Round 2000 was in May 2009. By that stage Babble! was already a museum-piece. The copyright notice on my copy says 1991. So, as you may guess, I still have a working copy of Babble!. It’s not as much fun as I remember it being at the time. But hey! now we have Grok.

--

Paul Keating

Soustons, Nouvelle Aquitaine, France

[nancygoat]

I agree, Paul. Sorry about that, Mike and Paul. And it's still not a D11 for me.

Nancy

[nancygoat]

Hugo, I have still not found your definition. Where did you send it?

Nancy

[Hugo Kornelis]

Hi Nancy,

Oh damn. I only now see that I used your gmail address, instead of the hotmail address that you specified in your call for definitions.
My bad!

Cheers,
Hugo

Op 13-1-2026 om 06:10 schreef nancygoat:

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