The next word is Mountweazel. Send your daffynitions to me by PM!

Mine's in. How's that for a speedy reply? I guess unemployment has some advantages.

Mine's in as well.

I know a guy who was imprisoned for doing exactly what this word says.

Imprisoned AFTER losing some body parts, no doubt! Mine's in too!

Thanks for keeping the game going, arnie.

Any more daffynitions,anyone? I've got half a dozen so far, plus the real meaning.

I seem to remember a Lord Louis Mountweazel as being an important character in UK history, but I might have him confused with some character from "The Wind in The Willows."

Daffynitions for mountweazel:

1. A charlatan, trickster or fraudster
2. a thin, wispy beard: named for a character in a popular series of children's books and TV programs, a wizard who had such a beard
3. a decorative brick with both raised and sunken sections in the design widely used in Victorian civic architecture
4. As those who are familiar with the work will know, this definition was used in "The Wind in the Willows", It appeared towards the end of the book when Toad, Mole and Ratty were planning their (eventually successful) attack on the stoats and weasels who had occupied Toad Hall.

The "mountweazel" was the guard, posted on the river-bank opposite Toad Hall.

As it turned out, his efforts were in vain since the intrepid trio gained access through a secret passage that came out in the Butler's Pantry
5. A legendary Austrian mountain animal, similar to the Yeti
6. a deliberately incorrect entry or article in reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps and directories
7. A horizontal loom beam which holds the warp threads
8. A type of men's formal, white gloves used for ceremonial occasions, named for France's Henry II, Duke of Mountweazel, 1614-1632
9. A sequential straight line through the middle of everything, leading nowhere.

Guess away!

At this point I would love to go through the list in true Call My Bluff fashion, explaining exactly what I like and don't like about each one... but I've just read the rules and apparently no other comments are allowed at this stage. Shame.

I'll go for number 6.

I'll go for number three since my wife says my face fits that description.

Guy, it's not at all uncommon for us to comment on why we do or don't like a definition, so long as one doesn't sway someone else's opinion.

I seem to have interfered with a definition by my fanciful comments prior to arnie's posting. That's the first time that's happened!

I'll guess #1

It's really rather ridiculous s I'll take 8

7, please

I'll go for number 2.

Last call! Any more guesses? You don't need to have entered a daffynition to guess.

I like 6 !

Results for mountweazel:

1. A charlatan, trickster or fraudster

Provided by Guy, and fooled Geoff

2. a thin, wispy beard: named for a character in a popular series of children's books and TV programs, a wizard who had such a beard

Suggested by Bob, chosen by Richard

3. a decorative brick with both raised and sunken sections in the design widely used in Victorian civic architecture

Another by Bob, guessed by Proofreader

4. As those who are familiar with the work will know, this definition was used in "The Wind in the Willows", It appeared towards the end of the book when Toad, Mole and Ratty were planning their (eventually successful) attack on the stoats and weasels who had occupied Toad Hall.

The "mountweazel" was the guard, posted on the river-bank opposite Toad Hall.

As it turned out, his efforts were in vain since the intrepid trio gained access through a secret passage that came out in the Butler's Pantry

An essay by Richard that fooled no-one

5. A legendary Austrian mountain animal, similar to the Yeti

Proofreader's entry, picked by no-one

6. a deliberately incorrect entry or article in reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps and directories

The real thing. See Wikipedia. Both Guy and Haberdasher got this right!

7. A horizontal loom beam which holds the warp threads

From Geoff, who took in Kalleh.

8. A type of men's formal, white gloves used for ceremonial occasions, named for France's Henry II, Duke of Mountweazel, 1614-1632

By Kalleh.who fooled Bob.

9. A sequential straight line through the middle of everything, leading nowhere.

My own entry - no takers.

Literally hours after I posted the word, I found that Johson, the Economist's blog, had posted about the word here. Spooky!

Many years ago, the company I worked for printed the state highway map. Part of my job was to ensure that corrections were properly added to the new map and, on several occasions, I found what I thought might be errors. When I brought them to the attention of the Tourism Dept director, he would decide if it was a mistake or not. One "error" I brought up was Rockland, a village on the map in northern RI which I had never seen while driving in that area. He told me not to worry, just leave it alone. But it really bugged me that every year this place appeared on the map but couldn't be found in real life. Finally, I harassed him enough so he told me it was included for copyright reasons, in case someone copied the map without permission.

Check this out to learn about Rockland's sad fate. The fifth paragraph in the story begins the story.

One thing that we argued about is the validity of his claim to "copyright." Since the map was produced by a government agency using taxpayer funds, the map is actually, IMO, owned by the citizenry, not by the state. So anyone should have free use of it. He didn't agree.

Here are my comments on some of the definitions.

quote:

1. A charlatan, trickster or fraudster

My own - pleased that I managed to fool one person! The actual word I had in mind was "mountebank", but there were also connotations of a "weaselly" character.

quote:

2. a thin, wispy beard: named for a character in a popular series of children's books and TV programs, a wizard who had such a beard

That was "Catweazle". British readers of a particular generation would have spotted it!

quote:

4. The "mountweazel" was the guard [in Wind in the Willows], posted on the river-bank opposite Toad Hall.

It was the "Chief Weasel", wasn't it? (Long time since I read the book.)

quote:

5. A legendary Austrian mountain animal, similar to the Yeti

The "mountain" connection was a bit too obvious.

quote:

6 (true). a deliberately incorrect entry or article in reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps and directories

I'll come clean and announce that I recognized the word. I wasn't sure what it meant at first, but then the word "esquivalience" popped into my head - itself an example of a mountweazel! Once I had that there was no problem getting the correct definition.

quote:

8. A type of men's formal, white gloves used for ceremonial occasions, named for France's Henry II, Duke of Mountweazel, 1614-1632

No "w" in French, surely?

quote:

9. A sequential straight line through the middle of everything, leading nowhere.

I thought this seemed familiar! It's the supposed definition of "kelemenopy", yet another mountweazel. Very ingenious bluff - I knew arnie must have added it himself.

quote:

Literally hours after I posted the word, I found that Johson, the Economist's blog, had posted about the word here. Spooky!

Very interesting article. It proves that the day of mountweazels is not yet past!

quote:

By Kalleh.who fooled Bob.

Even though, correctly, Bob said it was "rather ridiculous." I had come up with that one, though hadn't sent it yet, before Geoff posted about Lord Mountweazel. After Geoff's post, I thought I'd get no takers but decided to send it anyway.

Guy, I see this game as more whimsical than anything, so the "w" didn't bother me at all. Frankly, my original had been "Lord Mountweazel," but that was way too similar to Geoff's post.

Very nice word, arnie. While it intrigued me, I hadn't selected the correct definition because I thought I would have heard of it. Oh well.

Loved the article, arnie. I wonder if "Hiybbprqag" will become a word someday. Loved the explanation of "mountweazel" from arnie's site:

quote:

Turn to page 1,850 of the 1975 edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia and you’ll find an entry for Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a fountain designer turned photographer who was celebrated for a collection of photographs of rural American mailboxes titled “Flags Up!” Mountweazel, the encyclopedia indicates, was born in Bangs, Ohio, in 1942, only to die “at 31 in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.”

If Mountweazel is not a household name, even in fountain-designing or mailbox-photography circles, that is because she never existed. “It was an old tradition in encyclopedias to put in a fake entry to protect your copyright,” Richard Steins, who was one of the volume’s editors, said the other day. “If someone copied Lillian, then we’d know they’d stolen from us.”

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

After seeing Arnie's (almost always) correct selection it clicked in my head that this term had been discussed elsewhere, either on this forum or another one, and I had forgotten it. The similarity to the character at Toad Hall did strike a familiar chord, hence my reference to it.