Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 15, No. 218.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 06:16:30 +0100
From: "Norman D. Hinton" <hinton@springnet1.com>
Subject: Re: 15.217 runcible
Sigh. Runcible seems to be one of those words that just inspires folk
etymology (like "posh", but let's don't get started on that!)
Etymologists pretty much agree that 'runcible' was a coinage by Lear (as
"Kodak" by Eastman), but various suggestions have been made about what
inspired him...the number of words made up from absolutely nothing is
very small indeed. "Roncesvalles" hs been suggested from time to time,
especially in the form of "rouncy", meaning something big and clumsy
(cf. the Canterbury Tales, where the Shipman has clearly been given the
worst horse in the rent-a-horse shop --"He rode upon a rouncy, as he
kouthe" [e.g. he rode about as you'd expect a sailor to ride]) CT, A
390. The term has been applied to clumsy women & horses, large peas,
warts, etc.....cf the American Heritage Dictionary.
But the application of 'rouncy' to 'runcible' comes with no data at
all. It's just a guess, and it's hard to see how the senses large,
awkward apply to Lear's spoon. The runcible grapefruit spoon was named
from the poem (as "quark" was from Finnegans Wake).
-----
Dr Willard McCarty / Senior Lecturer /
Centre for Computing in the Humanities / King's College London /
Strand / London WC2R 2LS / U.K. /
+44 (0)20 7848-2784 / ilex.cc.kcl.ac.uk/wlm/
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