Jabberwocky

Dear Readers:

As one of my first honest-to-goodness posts, The Editor would like to make available one of the finest poems ever written. Taken from Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass..., Jabberwocky has always been delightfully confusing to the world, but now - hold on to your seats, do -

The Editor has managed to find real, live and honest-to-goodness meaningful definitions for all of Carroll's nonsensical terminologies.

How cool is that?

So here it is in all its glory, with the ever-revealing and seldom published complete glossary of terms at the end.

Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought-

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Glossary

Bandersnatch -- A swift moving creature with snapping jaws, capable of extending its neck.
Beamish -- Radiantly beaming, happy, cheerful.
Borogove -- A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, "something like a live mop".
The initial syllable of borogove is pronounced as in borrow, rather than as in burrow.
Brillig -- Four o'clock in the afternoon: the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.
Burbled -- Possibly a mixture of "bleat", "murmur", and "warble".
Burble is also a pre-existing word, circa 1303, meaning to form bubbles as in boiling water.
Chortled -- Combination of chuckle and snort.
Chortled as well as Galumphing while fictitious at first are now commonly used words.
Frabjous -- Probably a blend of fair, fabulous, and joyous .
Frumious -- Combination of "fuming" and "furious."
Galumphing - Perhaps a blend of "gallop" and "triumphant".
Used to describe a way of "trotting" downhill, while keeping one foot further back than the other which enables Galumphers to stop-on-a-dime.
Gimble -- To make holes as does a gimlet.
No, not the drink "gimlet". This gimlet is a small hand tool with a spiraled shank, a screw tip, and a cross handle; used for boring holes in whatever.
Gyre --To go round-and-round like a gyroscope.
Carroll also wrote in Mischmasch that it meant to scratch like a dog. The g is pronounced like the /g/ in gold, not like gem.
Jubjub -- A desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion.
Manxome -- Fearsome; the word is of unknown origin.
Mimsy -- Combination of "miserable" and "flimsy".
Mome -- Possibly short for "from home," meaning that the raths had lost their way.
Outgrabe (past tense; present tense outgribe) - Something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle.
Rath -- A sort of green pig
Snicker-snack -- Countable and uncountable.
Slithy -- Combination of "slimy" and "lithe." The i is long, as in writhe.
Tove -- A combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking creatures who make their nests under sundials and eat only cheese. Pronounced so as to rhyme with grove. Note that "gyre and gimble," i.e. rotate and bore, is in reference to the toves being partly corkscrew by Humpty Dumpty's definitions.
Humpty Dumpty's definitions may be found in Chapter VI of Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.
Tulgey --Thick, dense, dark.
Uffish -- A state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish.
Vorpal (sword) -- Exceedingly rare magical items which cut through solids as if they were little more than air.
Wabe -- The grass plot around a sundial. It is called a "wabe" because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it, and a long way beyond it on each side.
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Editor's Comment:
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Hooray! - and - At last! Now this epic poem makes perfect sense!

Addendum: When he had a day job, The Editor got a response of "Jabberwocky" when he once (and only once) asked for a raise.

After asking "What does that mean?" The Editor was quite amazed when the entire poem was quoted, word for word, off the top of my Manager's head. Actually it made perfect sense, this particular Mana- ger being well known for his propensity towards doublespeak*.

* The term doublespeak was coined by George Orwell in his famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.