The Jabberwocky Decoded

One of my favorite poems is "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. The poem is known round the world for innovative use of portmanteau (combination of multiple words to produce new meaning) and has been discussed endlessly in classrooms.

Carroll would have died laughing if he could see us now. He originally wrote the poem as an example of how not to write poetry and to make fun of what he thought was a pretentious art form.

Alice of Wonderland herself reacted in this way to the poem,

"It seems very pretty," she said when she had finished it, "but it's rather hard to understand!" (You see she didn't like to confess even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas--only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate---"

And yet, the world remains smitten with the poem. Here is the poem as Carroll wrote it in 1871 and next to it my version with his nonsense words explained to the best of my ability from his definitions and my own whimsy. Carroll was pressed by fans to provide both pronunciations and definitions to many of his new words and so an understandable translation is not only possible, but helps us see how much fun Carroll was having at our expense (click the poem to enlarge the text):

Ironically, a handful of the words that Carroll made up for this poem have since wiggled their way into common usage. 'Chortled,' 'galumphing,' 'frabjous' and 'vorpal' are a few you may occasionally hear in conversation. Sorry, Lewis, we just can't take a joke.

Alright everyone, what are some of your favorite portmanteaus? Tell us the words you used to create them and their new meaning. Spike, I know you have a few of these (sarchasm, Bennifer...).