cull

sorabji.com: Words: cull
By Nate on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 11:35 am:

    cull, as a verb, has two meanings. one is to remove the undesirables from something: to cull thrice limbed frogs from your amphibian collection. the other is to gather, to pick, to pluck; often intended to mean to collect the best of something: I culled the bay and returned with the two fattest oysters.

    this disturbs me. the noun, cull, means something that was rejected, so the first defintion of the verb seems the natural one. but etymologically speaking, the roots lean more towards the binding, the collecting.

    i've culled the strawberry patch. have i taken the culls or left them?

By TBone on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 12:33 pm:

    Well, in the contrast of strawberries, I'd imagine you'd have left the culls so you could enjoy the most delicious strawberries. But if you've culled the strawberry plants, you'd naturally have taken the culls. No sense in pulling up your prize-winning strawberry plants.

    Also, it's important to consider the availability of whipped cream and/or ice cream.

By Antigone on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 12:42 pm:

    It's a quantum verb. You don't know the definition until you collapse the context waveform. It's Schrodinger's verb.

By Spider on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 01:07 pm:

    Like cleave? Cleave means both to separate and to cling to.

By Dougie on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 02:13 pm:

    A Maine lobster missing one or both claws is called a cull. They're a bit cheaper than their 2-clawed mates.