Edward Lear

The British Library

Edward Lear was born ‪#‎onthisday‬ in 1812. His famous nonsense verse ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ was written for a friend’s three-year-old daughter and features ‘runcible spoon’, a phrase he invented. Do you know what that means? http://bitly.com/1H0qZ0K

Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets by Edward Lear

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Edward Lear’s Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets brought together a variety of nonsense writing, from alphabets and recipes, to botany, verses and stories. Lear was already well known for writing nonsense: his collection of illustrated limericks, A Book of Nonsense (1846), had been immediately popular, and Lear added further limericks to it over the years. ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’, shown here, is one of the best-loved of Lear’s verses and was written for three-year-old Janet Symonds, whose parents were friends of Lear.  

A feature of nonsense writing is the use of invented words and one of Lear’s most famous examples is the ‘runcible spoon’ used by the owl and the pussycat at their wedding feast. The word ‘runcible’ proved to be so popular that it has now moved from being a nonsense word to having a dictionary definition: a pickle fork with three prongs, one of which is sharp and curved for cutting.

- See more at: http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/nonsense-songs-stories-botany-and-alphabets-by-edward-lear#sthash.UwnbFN5s.dpuf

"Runcible" is a nonsense word invented by Edward Lear. The word appears (as an adjective) several times in his works, most famously as the "runcible spoon" used by the Owl and the Pussycat.^[1] The word "runcible" was apparently one of Lear's favourite inventions, appearing in several of his works in reference to a number of different objects. In his verse self-portrait, The Self-Portrait of the Laureate of Nonsense, it is noted that "he weareth a runcible hat".^[2] Other poems include mention of a "runcible cat",^[3] a "runcible goose" (in the sense of "silly person"),^[4] and a "runcible wall".^[4]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Origin
• 2 Attempts to define the word
• 3 In popular culture
  • 3.1 Used as an adjective
  • 3.2 Used as a spoon or other device
  • 3.3 Used as a character name
  • 3.4 Used as a place name
  • 3.5 Music
  • 3.6 Computer science
  • 3.7 Publication
• 4 References

Origin[edit]

One of Edward Lear's drawings depicts the dolomphious duck's use of a runcible spoon.

Edward Lear's best-known poem, The Owl and the Pussycat, published in 1871, includes the passage:

They dined on mince and slices of quince,

which they ate with a runcible spoon.^[1]

Another mention of this piece of cutlery appears in the alphabetical illustrations Twenty-Six Nonsense Rhymes and Pictures. Its entry for Dreads

The Dolomphious Duck,

who caught Spotted Frogs for her dinner

with a Runcible Spoon^[5]

Lear often illustrated his own poems, and he drew a picture of the "dolomphious duck" holding in its beak a round-bowled spoon containing a frog.