`I can explain all the poems
that were ever invented -- and a good many that haven't been invented
just yet.'
This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
`That's enough to begin with,' Humpty Dumpty interrupted: `there
are plenty of hard words there. "BRILLIG" means four o'clock in the
afternoon -- the time when you begin BROILING things for dinner.'
`That'll do very well,' said Alice: and "SLITHY"?'
`Well, "SLITHY" means "lithe and slimy." "Lithe" is the same as
"active." You see it's like a portmanteau -- there are two meanings
packed up into one word.'
`I see it now,' Alice remarked thoughtfully: `and what are
"TOVES"?'
`Well, "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 that,' said Humpty Dumpty: `also they make their nests
under sun-dials -- also they live on cheese.'
`Andy what's the "GYRE" and to "GIMBLE"?'
`To "GYRE" is to go round and round like a gyroscope.
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