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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a
portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.
For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your
mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say
first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so
little towards "fuming," you will say "fuming-furious;" if they turn, by even
a hair's breadth, towards "furious," you will say "furious-fuming;" but if you
have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious."
Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the well-known words--
"Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!"
Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or Richard, but
The Hunting of the Snark |
