[Dixonary] CWM 1631 Results!!

[Dodi Schultz]

>> 8. cirque [Welsh] [RHD] NV

"NV"? Really? I'd have thought it would be N/A!

>> 17. [Welsh] Crossroads. [Schultz] 2 18 (Scott) (Crom) 2

I never saw any votes posted by Wayne Scott, for my def or any other. The
only vote I saw for my def was Scott Crom's. Did other players see votes
from Wayne? If Wayne votes at tapcis.com--was that message never relayed to
the Yahoo listserv? (I THINK the latter is how the majority get Dixonary
stuff.)

>> The def several claimed it was as a DQ was "[Welsh] a valley" ...
>> but the actual def is a lot weirder! I mean, who ever heard of
>> one word having an equally strange one word definition?

You never heard of the Cirque du Soleil? But seriously, *cirque* is a
perfectly good English word, too, Dave; I don't think it's anywhere near as
strange as "cwm"--at least spelling-wise! It's in AHD, M-W, RHD, OED,
Chambers, etc. "Valley" isn't that far off; a cirque is variously described
as a mountain hollow or basin, or specifically a hollow at the head of a
valley.

P.S.: For those who were wondering: *cwm* turns out to be pronounced
"koom".

--Dodi

[Wayne Scott]

Dodi: As you know, in Welsh, w is a vowel. I once spent an interesting evening at dinner at an inn in Yorkshire while a native Welsh speaker demonstrated how to pronounce w. He pursed his lips and pronounced the vowel alone and in several words. Cwm is not pronounced exactly "koom" but sort of "kyuoom" where yuoom is not a diphthong but one sound.
Having spent quite a bit of time in North Wales, I was ashamed that I never for a moment tumbled to the idea that this was a Welsh word. I can't defend the method of choosing "cirque" as the definition as the dealer did.

--Wayne

[Dave Cunningham]

I did not "choose" cirque -- that was the definition in the RHD!

Dave