Tag: definitions

Such a Kerfuffle O’er a Runcible Spoon

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

[I don’t know why several paragraphs are jammed together.
I double-spaced. I triple-spaced.
But the paragraphs insist on bunching up
in an unattractive and almost unreadable lump.
My apologies.
I tried.]

Today I answer the question—Exactly what is a runcible spoon?

You no doubt remember that Edward Lear’s Owl and Pussy-Cat use one at their wedding breakfast:

“They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
   Which they ate with a runcible spoon;” . . . 
Since the term isn’t in general usage, many readers don’t understand it but accept it as a Lear-ism and ask no further.
Those who do go further and consult Merriam-Webster find it is “a sharp-edged fork with three broad curved prongs,”—but MW cites no sources, a no-no in scholarly circles. Some sources claim it’s a spork.
Wikipedia goes on and on about runcible spoons but offers no definitive answer. It includes a long list of authors, screenwriters, composers, and others who’ve used the word runcible. These two jump out at me:
  • Paul McCartney‘s 2001 album Driving Rain includes the track “Heather” which features the lyrics: “And I will dance to a runcible tune / With the queen of my heart”. McCartney has explained the connection to “The Owl and the Pussycat” in various interviews since its release.
  • In Lemony Snicket‘s 2006 The End, an island cult eats using only runcible spoons
Such a kerfuffle over something that should be as plain as the nose on the Pussy-Cat’s face.
Lear himself defines the term—not in O&P, but in a lesser-known work. In Twenty-Six Nonsense Rhymes and Pictures, he writes of
The Dolumphious Duck,
Who caught Spotted Frogs for her dinner
With a runcible spoon
and provides a picture:

 

Tricia Christensen, writing in LanguageHumanities, notes that

A Latin word runcare means to weed out. This word could explain the Dolumphious Duck’s fishing process with a runcible spoon. The duck is really weeding out the frogs from the water.

That should settle the question. But it doesn’t.

For one thing, it seems to me that eating mince and slices of quince with a runcible spoon would be difficult if not downright messy.

And Christensen notes that Lear also applies the adjective to a goose, a hat, and a wall. Wikipedia points to a runcible cat and a Rural Runcible Raven. None of the aforementioned, at least as we understand them, resembles a ladle.

“Despite the nebulous meaning of the words runcible spoon,” she says, “they trip off the tongue with delight and account for their many uses by other authors.”

So—what is a runcible spoon? It’s nonsense.

What else would it be? It comes from the brain of Edward Lear.

###

Except, to muddy the water:

Wikipedia dates publication of “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” at 1870.

Here’s a photo of a George III Sterling runcible spoon by Eley & Fearn, L0ndon, 1817

George III Sterling Silver runcible spoon – by Eley & Fearn, London. TonyGosling, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Maybe the item wasn’t originally called a runcible spoon. Maybe the adjective was applied post-1870. I don’t know.

More nonsense.

#AtoZChallenge 2020: K Is for Kangaroo

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

 

kangaroo: on a multiple choice test, an answer that is so obviously incorrect that no examinee with the sense God promised a monkey would ever select it

I learned about kangaroos in a senior level education course. There were two professors, one who taught testing and measurement and another who taught what I think of as the softer side of counseling. The info about kangaroos came from the T&M prof. He frowned upon them.

After a test covering the softer side, a student informed the SS prof that he’d included several kangaroos. He’d never heard the term. He also didn’t appear concerned.

Concern. Sometime I’ve got it. Sometimes I don’t.

If I were concerned about sincerity, truth, design; about beauty and art; about, to quote the Duke, preserving the unities, I would end, as I began, with kangaroos.

But I have nothing more to say about them. And the videos I’ve examined don’t do a thing for me.

So for kangaroos, substitute kittens.

***

“Now,” says the duke, “after to-night we can run in the daytime if we want to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say we captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat, so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going down to get the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim, but it wouldn’t go well with the story of us being so poor. Too much like jewelry. Ropes are the correct thing—we must preserve the unities, as we say on the boards.” ~ Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn

***

Image by saratarshouby from Pixabay