Twas brillg and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe??

Answer 1

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 Jub-jub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch.

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxsome 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
Oh frabjous day! Calooh! Calley!
He chortled in his joy


Here's Humpty's explanation:
"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, its 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.'

'And what's to gyre and to gimble?' 'To gyre is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To gimble is to make holes like a gimlet.'

And the wabe is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?' said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity. 'Of course it is. It's called wabe you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it - 'And a long way beyond it on each side,' Alice added.

'Exactly so. Well then, mimsy is 'flimsy and miserable' (there's another portmanteau for you). And a borogove is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round - something like a live mop.'

'And then mome raths ?' said Alice. 'I'm afraid I'm giving you a great deal of trouble.' 'Well, a rath is a sort of green pig: but mome I'm not certain about. I think it's short for 'from home' - meaning that they'd lost their way, you know.'

'And what does outgrabe mean?' 'Well, outgribing is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you'll hear it done, maybe - down in the wood yonder - and, when you've once heard it, you'll be quite content. Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?'

'I read it in a book,' said Alice"


Brillig is broiling time. Interestingly, the Microsoft Word spell-check suggests ‘broiling' and ‘grilling' as alternatives

Toves
In Mischmasch (1855) Carroll describes these as a type of badger with stumpy horns, long hind legs and smooth white fur. They feed mainly on cheese!

Gyre
Lewis Carroll also explains this as deriving from an Anglo-Saxon word for dog: Gyaour ( Mischmasch 1855)

Mimsey
The Oxford English Dictionary defines mimsey as ‘prim' and ‘prudish' (see Jones and Gladstone, 1998)

Mome
Humpty Dumpty thinks this is an abbreviation for ‘fro m home ' Sound recorder possibilities: ends of words running into others

Raths
Tenniel supports Humty Dumpty's explanation by depicting the raths as four piglet-like creatures

Outgribing
‘A bellow and a whistle with a sneeze in between'

Jabberwock
Exactly what is the Jabberwock? Alice scholars cannot begin to agree. Tenniel's illustration suggests a fearsome dragon-like creature with strong jaws and lethal claws.

Jub-Jub
This suggests the call of the bird. Jones and Gladstone (1998) point out that Shakespeare's birds call Jug-jug. The context suggests a dangerous, predatory bird.

Frumious
In 1888, Lewis Carroll offered the following explanation of frumious in a letter to American admirers of Alice:

'Take the words fuming and furious. Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first …… if you have that rarest of gifts, a perfectly-balanced mind, you will say frumious.

The Word spellcheck finds 'furious'.

Bandersnatch
Jones and Gladstone suggest that Lewis Carroll may have been familiar with the Bandicoot, a giant Indian rat.

Vorpal
According to Jones and Gladstone, vorpal appears in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘keen' and 'deadly'.

Manxsome
This might suggest coming from the Isle of Man. Given Carroll's interest in cats, could the Jabberwock (like the Manx cat) be without a tail?

Tumtum
In The Annotated Alice, Howard Gardner comments that Tum-tumis onomatopoeic; suggestive of ‘the sound of a stringed instrument, especially when monotonously strummed'.

Uffish
In a letter to Maud Standen, 1877, Lewis Carroll explained ‘uffish thought' as ‘a state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish and the temper huffish'

Whiffling
An archaic word meaning to ‘huff and puff'

Tulgey
A portmanteau word seemingly constructed from ‘thick' and ‘bulgy'

Burbled
According to Carroll ‘if you take the three verbs bl eat, m ur mur , and war ble' you end up with ‘burble', a triple portmanteau word (Letter to Maud Standen, 1877)

Snicker-snack
Gloriously onomatopoeic; snack obviously rhymes with hack .

Apparently ‘Snickersnee' was a method of fighting with knives popular with Dutch seamen (Jones and Gladstone, 1998)

Galumphing
It has been suggested that galumphing may be created from gallop and triumph . Children consider how to move in a ‘gallumphing' way.

Beamish
An ancient word meaning shining/glowing

Frabjous
A more obvious portmanteau word constructed from ‘fabulous' and ‘joyous'

Chortled
A word apparently introduced into the English Language by Lewis Carroll, combining ‘snort' and ‘chuckle'

Answer 2

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Twas brillg and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe??

Answer 3

Here's some more of the ever-briliant Jabberwocky:

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble
In the wabe
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe

There's more but I can't remember it!!!!

Answer 4

This is the opening line of The Jabberwocky, a famous nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll who is famous for Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

Answer 5

Twas Brillig

Answer 6

The first line of Jabberwocky, by Louis Carroll.

Answer 7

Sure were!