Thursday, May 28, 2009

Why I've named my Blog "The Brillig Blog"

I'm a big fan of funny and nonsensical poetry... I really like to memorize stuff like that. One of the poems I like to frequently quote is "Jabberwocky", to my brother's dismay.

Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll (yup, that's the dude who wrote Alice in Wonderland.)

`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, has 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.

This is the Poem that Alice reads in the beginning of the book "Through the Looking Glass" (That's the sequel to Alice in Wonderland, for you illiterates).
Later on Alice speaks to Humpty-Dumpty (what WAS Lewis on?) and he explains what it means.

"'Brillig' means 4 o'clock in the afternoon- the the time when you start broiling things for dinner."

"Well, 'slithy' means 'lithe and slimy.' 'Lithe' is the same word as 'active'. You see it's like a potmanteau - there are two meanings packed up into one word."

"'Toves' are something like badgers - they're something like lizards - and they're something like corkscrews." "They must be very curious-looking creatures." "They are at that" said Humpty-Dumpty: "also they make their nests under sun-dials - also they live on cheese."

"To 'gyre' is to go round and round like a gyroscope."

"To 'gimble' is to make holes like a gimblet."

"'The wabe' is the grass-plot round a sun-dial."

"'mimsy' is 'flimsy and miserable'"

"A 'borogrove' is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all around - something like a live mop."

"A 'Rath' is a
sort of green pig"

" 'Mome' I'm not sure about. I think it's short for 'from home' - meaning that they'd lost their way, you know"

"'Outgribing' is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle"


Of course, before Humpty explains all this he says:
"When I use a word,"Humpty-Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it too mean - no more nor less."

To be totally honest, I couldn't think of what to call me blog and I figured "Brillig" was as good as anything. ... then I looked up what "Brillig" meant.... but I stuck with it. So here's my "
4 o'clock in the afternoon" blog, which you can read "around the time when you start broiling things for dinner". Plus, "The Brillig Blog" sounds nice, you know, alliteration and all that. (Alliteration, for you word-wise folk, means a bunch of words with the same sounds/letters, for instance, "She sells sea-shells by the seashore" is an example of alliteration. It is also an example of a tounge-twister. If you want to know why it's a tounge twister, try saying it 10 times fast and you'll find out.)

No comments:

Post a Comment