Thursday, January 15, 2009

the runcible spoon


Runcible spoon.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A runcible spoon is a utensil that appears in nonsense poetry, which also uses the adjective "runcible" to describe objects other than spoons. It is fundamentally a nonsense word.

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."
Modern dictionaries have generally defined a runcible spoon to be a fork with three broad curved prongs and a sharpened edge, used with pickles or hors d'oeuvres, such as a pickle fork. It is occasionally used as a synonym for spork.

1 comment:

Madeline said...

Thanks for your lovely comment!! Your rattles are adorable, and I'm loving the name of this one. It rolls off the tongue so nicely!

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