Block, SkipCaptcha, Automoderated users, edit, rollback
5,023
edits
Changes
no edit summary
The poem may originally have been a riddle, with the listener having to guess that Humpty Dumpty is an [[egg]], but there are many other theories about its origins and its meaning.<ref>''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'', edited by Iona and Peter Opie. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1951.</ref>
The poem may originally have been a riddle, with the listener having to guess that Humpty Dumpty is an [[egg]], but there are many other theories about its origins and its meaning.<ref>''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'', edited by Iona and Peter Opie. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1951.</ref>
Humpty Dumpty is also well known as a character in [[Lewis Carroll]]’s ''Through the Looking Glass'', where he explains the meaning of some of the invented words in the poem [[Jabberwocky]]. He also confuses Alice by using words with non-standard meanings, explaining “When I use a word, ... it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”<ref>''Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There'': [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12 full text] at Project Gutenberg.</ref>
Humpty Dumpty is also well known as a character in [[Lewis Carroll]]’s ''Through the Looking Glass'', where he explains the meaning of some of the invented words in the poem [[Jabberwocky]]. He also confuses Alice by using words with non-standard meanings, explaining ''“When I use a word, ... it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”''<ref>''Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There'': [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12 full text] at Project Gutenberg.</ref>:
:''“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.<br/>
:''“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 lot! Impenetrability! That’s what ''I'' say!”''
==References==
==References==