1. A USCG approved life jacket.
2. The art of sinking a ship safely.
3. A variety of grape from the southern United States.
4. Gossip
5. Literally, bilgewater; figuratively, balderdash or nonsense
6. Bloviation or boastful speech.
7. A vertical ladder serving in place of a conventional staircase.
8. A place in the ship's bilges which is difficult and nauseating to clean.
9. A sharp tool for carving the fine details into a lathe-turned piece of wood, such as a bedpost
10. A hangover.
11. A small rodent found mainly in Australia and New Zealand.
12. A northern English word for a Donkey that is too old to work. Hence also used as an insult for people who are “past it”.

Please post your thoughts on the word below.

It's a donkey which drinks bilgewater! Uhh, no,
it's a rodent that climbs ladders on ships while eating grapes.
Uhhh, just because it doesn't seem to fit, I'll say it's #3.

Obviously, the proper def must involve ships, therefore I'll take 11.

I’d really like it to be 5, but 4, 5, and 6 are so similar that if any one them were right, the others would have been returned-to-sender unopened…

So I’ll have to take another choice, which is 7. It’s nautical enough, doesn’t directly invoke the scuppers yet provides a compact way to get into the bilge if needed, to recover what came in through the scuppers.

7. Vertical ladder it is, then.

I'd say either 7 or 9, so I am taking 7.

A nicely varied collection! I have absolutely no idea, so I'll pick 10 at random.

1. is a pretty good answer.

But I would like it to be 5.

I say 5.

Whether he's right or wrong arnie has admitted GUESSING!

I count that as a victory!

The answer will be posted tomorrow (Saturday... China time)

3

1. A USCG approved life jacket. (Kalleh)
2. The art of sinking a ship safely. (arnie)
3. A variety of grape from the southern United States. (the correct answer)
4. Gossip (haberdasher)
5. Literally, bilgewater; figuratively, balderdash or nonsense  (haberdasher)
6. Bloviation or boastful speech. (Geoff)
7. A vertical ladder serving in place of a conventional staircase. (one of mine)
8. A place in the ship's bilges which is difficult and nauseating to clean. (Proofreader)
9. A sharp tool for carving the fine details into a lathe-turned piece of wood, such as a bedpost (haberdasher)
10. A hangover. (haberdasher)
11. A small rodent found mainly in Australia and New Zealand. (another of mine)
12. A northern English word for a Donkey that is too old to work. Hence also used as an insult for people who are “past it”. (and another of mine)


tinman appears to have known it (at least he presented his answer with no hint of specious justification) and geoff got it with an impressive display of contrarian logic.

I was born in South Carolina, where they grow, so I knew it. My answer above was just to be my usual idiot self. I've no idea why Tinman knew.

The ultimate in sour grapes - yeah, now that you tell me what it is, it does sound familiar...

I would have never guessed grape on this one. Geez! Good word.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
I would have never guessed grape on this one. Geez! Good word.

Neither would I, which is why, when I saw it, I thought it would be such a good word for the game.

quote:

Originally posted by Geoff:
I've no idea why Tinman knew.

To Kill a Mockingbird, chapter 5, paragraph 4.

quote:

Our tacit treaty with Miss Maudie was that we could play on her lawn, eat her scuppernongs if we didn’t jump on the arbor, and explore her vast back lot, terms so generous we seldom spoke to her, so careful were we to preserve the delicate balance of our relationship, but Jem and Dill drove me closer to her with their behavior.