What does the word "Vorpal" come from?

[JRRNeiklot]

Funny thing is, I know people who have never played D&D in their life, yet they know what vorpal means.

 

[Wombat]

The Rev. Dodgson also created the word "chortle"

 

[zenld]

Shakespeare created many words as well. Language is a growing, living breathing monstrosity that threatens to overwhelm us at any minute, making communication more difficult and perilous at the same time it makes it possible.

Wow, scaring myself here. Better go.

zen

 

[Vocenoctum]

Shakespeare created many words as well. Language is a growing, living breathing monstrosity that threatens to overwhelm us at any minute, making communication more difficult and perilous at the same time it makes it possible.

Now the mantle of Word Creation has passed on to "rap artists"

 

[jrtyler]

I remember reading somewhere (I think it might have been "The Annotated Alice") that Lewis Carroll got the word by combining the 1st 3rd, and 5th letters from the word verbal with the 2nd, 4th, and 6th letters from the word gospel. Of course this would make a vorpal sword a holy weapon. I assume it's head taking ability is derived from the fact that the hero of the poem uses it to take the Jabberwocky's head.
Here's a little bit of trivia though, not all the words in Jabberwocky were nonsense. What does the word "brillig" mean?

John Tyler

 

[Tom Cashel]

It just kills me that someone can make up a nonsense word, and if they do it well enough other people will add a definition and put it in the dictionary.

`I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. `They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs, they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

`Would you tell me, please,' said Alice `what that means?`

`Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. `I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

`That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

`When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, `I always pay it extra.'

`Oh!' said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.

`Ah, you should see `em come round me of a Saturday night,' Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side: `for to get their wages, you know.'

So there's your explanation of how words get made. It's a question of which is to be master: us or the words.

Now for some of those other words in "Jabberwocky," icluding brillig.

`You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,' said Alice. `Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called "Jabberwocky"?'

`Let's hear it,' said Humpty Dumpty. `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. To "GIMBLE" is to make holes like a gimblet.'

`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 thing 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?'

Who indeed?

 

[Hardhead]

Lewis Carrol used portmanteaus a lot. It was quoted earlier, but to reiterate, Humpty Dumpty explains them in Through the Looking Glass.

`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.'


They're used often in Jaberrwocky. The neat thing about them is you often don't know exactly what they mean, but you get the general idea. The Jabberwock "came whiffling through the tulgey wood," for instance. What is "whiffling?" It's one of the made-up words Carrol invented, but I personally get the idea that it was moving fast and erratically. Those words are used, not to describe to us what is happening, but as a sort of literary ink blot test. We're left to see what we want to see.

Oh, also, did you know that the word "chortle" also first appears in Jabberwocky? It's most like a combination of chuckle and snort.

 

[Agback]

Bredoulocheux

Il était ardille; et les slictueux toves

Excellent! Do you also have the German? "Es brillich was, und der schliben toven,..."

Regards,


Agback

 

[takyris]

Hey, "Vorpal" is a perfectly cromulant word.

 

[Jeph]

Excellent! Do you also have the German? "Es brillich was, und der schliben toven,..."

Regards,


Agback

Hmm. I'm only a 2nd year student of German, but why did they translate brillig as brillich, when so many German adjectives end in -ig anyway?

...or was it adverbs?
--Jeff