mycroft Posted July 1, 2011 Report Share Posted July 1, 2011 "Are you really? Well, I'm not conceding, go ahead and play on." What that declarer is doing is trying to avoid the horrible horrible judgement that happens when he does claim and it turns out he forgot something, by putting the onus on the defenders. I see no reason to claim (=concede in this case) until I am certain, and I see no reason to work out partner's hand *for the purpose of accenting to declarer's non-claim*. So play on until you decide either to claim or I believe the hand's over, and if we're late, "you should have 'claimed' claimed." And I'll say that to the TD too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
semeai Posted July 1, 2011 Report Share Posted July 1, 2011 How do you dock a tail without affecting the end of the animal? http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif Some nice wordplay and coincidence here. Synonym discussion, again from Merriam-Webster: shorten, curtail, abbreviate, abridge, retrench mean to reduce in extent. shorten implies reduction in length or duration <shorten a speech>. curtail adds an implication of cutting that in some way deprives of completeness or adequacy <ceremonies curtailed because of rain>. Anyways, sorry for butting in; I have no legal opinion on the semantics here. Added: All right, I do have a legal opinion, if an unlearned one. If you show someone (oops! looks like showing your cards is option 2) tell someone about (maybe this is verboten, but enough with my trying to fix this example) your AQ lying over their KJ in order to speed up their guess, you're not attempting to deprive play of any sort of completeness or adequacy, you're just trying to reduce the duration. Fancier cases as discussed in this thread I abstain from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted July 2, 2011 Report Share Posted July 2, 2011 My dictionary has ORIGIN late 15th cent.: from obsolete curtal [horse with a docked tail,] from French courtault, from court ‘short,’ from Latin curtus. The change in the ending was due to association with tail 1 and perhaps also with French tailler ‘to cut.’ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dburn Posted July 2, 2011 Report Share Posted July 2, 2011 My dictionary (compiled by the clever men at Oxford) can find no use of the word "curtall" [not a typo, but one of the original spellings of the verb] in English prior to 1553. It is scarcely possible that the word was used in America prior to 1553, but it is entirely possible that American lexicographers believe that the year 1553 occurred in the fifteenth century, given some of the other things they believe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted July 2, 2011 Report Share Posted July 2, 2011 Well, obviously if the clever men at Oxford say it, it must be true. I have no idea where the editors of my dictionary got their information. Possibly they held a seance. Yeah, that must be it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
semeai Posted July 2, 2011 Report Share Posted July 2, 2011 Though we've taken the tangent much too far: Strangely, the clever men of Oxford also say late 15th for curtail, both in my "Shorter OED" and, separately, online I will say that for curtal (one ell) my Shorter OED gives L15 for short-barrelled cannon but E16 for animal with docked tail and L16 for adj form of curtail Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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