A
runcible spoon is a utensil that appears in
nonsense poetryNonsense verse, technically termed amphigouri, is the poetic form of literary nonsense, normally composed for humorous effect, which isintentionally and overtly paradoxical, silly, witty, whimsical or otherwise strange. It is particularly common in English, due to the typically absurdist streak in...
, which also uses the adjective "
runcible" to describe objects other than spoons. It is fundamentally a
nonsenseNonsense is a verbal communication or written text that is spoken or written in a human language or other symbolic system but lacks any coherent meaning. Many poets, novelists and songwriters have used nonsense in their works, often creating entire works using it...
word.
Edward LearEdward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...
's best-known poem,
The Owl and the Pussycat"The Owl and the Pussycat" is a famous nonsense poem by Edward Lear, first published in 1871. Lear wrote the poem for a young girl, Janet Symonds, the daughter of Lear's friend, the poet John Addington Symonds and his wife Catherine. Its most notable historical feature is the coinage of the term...
, published in 1871, includes the passage:
- They dined on mince and slices of quince,
- which they ate with a runcible spoon.
Another mention of this piece of cutlery appears in the alphabetical illustrations
Twenty-Six Nonsense Rhymes and Pictures.
A
runcible spoon is a utensil that appears in
nonsense poetryNonsense verse, technically termed amphigouri, is the poetic form of literary nonsense, normally composed for humorous effect, which isintentionally and overtly paradoxical, silly, witty, whimsical or otherwise strange. It is particularly common in English, due to the typically absurdist streak in...
, which also uses the adjective "
runcible" to describe objects other than spoons. It is fundamentally a
nonsenseNonsense is a verbal communication or written text that is spoken or written in a human language or other symbolic system but lacks any coherent meaning. Many poets, novelists and songwriters have used nonsense in their works, often creating entire works using it...
word.
Origin
Edward LearEdward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...
's best-known poem,
The Owl and the Pussycat"The Owl and the Pussycat" is a famous nonsense poem by Edward Lear, first published in 1871. Lear wrote the poem for a young girl, Janet Symonds, the daughter of Lear's friend, the poet John Addington Symonds and his wife Catherine. Its most notable historical feature is the coinage of the term...
, published in 1871, includes the passage:
- They dined on mince and slices of quince,
- which they ate with a runcible spoon.
Another mention of this piece of cutlery appears in the alphabetical illustrations
Twenty-Six Nonsense Rhymes and Pictures. Its entry for
DD is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled dee, plural dees.- History :The Semitic letter Dâlet probably developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are various Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this...
reads
- The Dolomphious Duck,
- who caught Spotted Frogs for her dinner
- with a Runcible Spoon
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 (right).
Other runcible objects
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". Other poems include mention of a "runcible cat", a "runcible goose", and a "runcible wall".
Attempts to define the word
Lear does not appear to have had any firm idea of what the word "runcible" means. His whimsical
nonsense verseNonsense verse, technically termed amphigouri, is the poetic form of literary nonsense, normally composed for humorous effect, which isintentionally and overtly paradoxical, silly, witty, whimsical or otherwise strange. It is particularly common in English, due to the typically absurdist streak in...
celebrates words primarily for their sound, and a specific definition is not needed to appreciate his work. However, since the 1920s (several decades after Lear's death), modern
dictionariesA dictionary is a collection of words in a specific language, often listed alphabetically, with definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
have generally defined a runcible spoon to be a
forkAs a piece of cutlery or kitchenware, a fork is a tool consisting of a handle with several narrow tines on one end. The fork, as an eating utensil, has been a feature primarily of the West, whereas in East Asia chopsticks have been more prevalent...
with three broad curved prongs and a sharpened edge, used with
pickle- Food :* Pickling,* Pickled cucumber, a food most commonly referred to as a pickle in the U.S. and Canada* Indian pickle, fruits and vegetables pickled using oil instead of vinegar* Tsukemono, the Japanese varieties of the pickle...
s or hors d'oeuvres, such as a
picklePickling, also known as brining or corning, is the process of preserving food by anaerobic fermentation in brine to produce lactic acid, or marinating and storing it in an acid solution, usually vinegar . The resulting food is called a pickle. This procedure gives the food a salty or sour taste...
fork. It is occasionally used as a synonym for
sporkA spork or a foon is a hybrid form of cutlery taking the form of a spoon-like shallow scoop with three or four fork tines. Spork-like utensils, such as the terrapin fork or ice cream fork, have been manufactured since the late 1800s; patents for spork-like designs date back to at least 1874, and...
. However, this definition is not consistent with Lear's drawing, in which it is a
ladleA ladle is a type of spoon used to scoop up and serve soup or other liquids. Although designs vary, a typical ladle has a long handle terminating in a deep bowl, frequently with the bowl oriented at an angle to the handle to facilitate lifting liquid out of a pot or other vessel and conveying it...
, nor does it account for the other "runcible" objects in Lear's poems.
It is also sometimes used to mean a "
grapefruit spoonA grapefruit spoon is a utensil usually similar in design to a teaspoon that tapers to a sharp edge or teeth, the intent of the front serration being to separate the flesh of a grapefruit from its rind...
", a spoon with serrated edges around the bowl, and sometimes to mean a serving-spoon with a slotted bowl.
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
runcāre = "to weed", "to thin out", and:-
- If a Latin noun runcibulum existed (as an error for runcābulum), it would mean "tool used for weeding".
- If a Latin adjective runcibilis existed (as an error for runcābilis), it would mean "capable of being weeded out".
According to E. Cobham Brewer,
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, it is "A horn spoon with a bowl at each end, one the size of a table-spoon and the other the size of a tea-spoon. There is a joint midway between the two bowls by which the bowls can be folded over."
He cites no source. Brewer's dictionary was published in Philadelphia, 1898, by Henry Altemus. Web publication by Bartleby.com, 2000.
The "
Notes & QueriesNotes & Queries is a weekly column in The Guardian newspaper which publishes readers' questions together with answers submitted by other readers....
" column in
The GuardianThe Guardian is a British daily newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Founded in 1821, it is unique among major British newspapers in being owned by a foundation .The Guardian Weekly, which circulates worldwide, provides a compact digest of four newspapers...
also raised the question "What is a runcible spoon?" The answers proposed by readers included that it was a spoon with a 90 degree angle in the handle, designed so infants could feed themselves by Lear's friend George Runcy, or that it was a reference to Robert Runcie, the butler at Knowsley Hall (where Lear was commissioned to paint the menagerie), whose job included polishing the silver spoons. The final contribution pointed out that neither of these explained the runcible cat in "The Pobble Who Has No Toes" and simply suggested that "runcible objects (spoons or cats) exist no more than pobbles or feline-hiboutic matrimony".
In popular culture
The whimsical feel of the word "runcible" has led to its appearance in diverse arenas including
fictionFiction is a branch of literature which deals, in part or in whole, with temporally contrafactual events...
,
musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, and
businessA small business is a business that is privately owned and operated, with a small number of employees and relatively low volume of sales. The legal definition of "small" often varies by country and industry, but is generally under 100 employees in the United States and under 50 employees in the...
.
The word also has connotations in behaviour and suggests a mischievous, but not malicious, attitude. Thus: "I'm just being runcible"; "You runcible fellow!"; "No, not naughty, just runcible!".
Fiction
- In Ian Irvine
Ian Irvine is an Australian fantasy/eco-thriller author and marine scientist.- Career :Ian Irvine was born in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, in 1950...
's Runcible JonesThe Runcible Jones Quintet is a fantasy adventure series quintet, by author Ian Irvine, set on two twinned worlds for all ages from 10 to adult.- Novels in the Series :* Runcible Jones: The Gate to Nowhere...
series of books, Runcible Jones is a boy who is unhappy at Grindgrim Academy, the worst school in the country.
- In the board game Kill Doctor Lucky
Kill Doctor Lucky is a humorous board game designed by James Ernest and released in 1996 by Cheapass Games. In 1998, Kill Doctor Lucky won the Origins Award for Best Abstract Board Game of 1997....
, a runcible spoon is one of the weaponA weapon is a tool used to apply force for the purpose of hunting, attack, self-defense, or defense in combat.Weapons can be as simple as a club, or as complex as an intercontinental ballistic missile, and include those that damage individual or group morale.-Prehistoric weapons:Very simple weapon...
s players can use to kill Doctor Lucky.
- In Neal Asher
Neal Asher is an English science fiction writer. His parents both are educators and science fiction fans. Although he began writing Science Fiction and Fantasy in secondary school, Asher did not turn seriously to writing till he was 25. He worked as a machinist and machine programmer from 1979 to...
's novel GridlinkedGridlinked is Neal Asher's first novel, published by the Macmillan Publishers imprint Pan Books in 2001. It contains elements of the technological inventiveness of hard science-fiction with a more contemporary political plotline. It is not cyberpunk, as advertised on the paperback version...
, runcible is the name given to an interstellar wormhole generator/teleporter, most probably as an homage to the ansibleAn ansible is a hypothetical machine capable of superluminal communication. Ansibles are used as plot devices in science fiction literature.- Origin :...
.
- In Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer, known for his speculative fiction works, which have been variously categorized science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk. He has also written under the pseudonym of Stephen Bury.Stephenson explores areas such as mathematics,...
's novel The Diamond AgeThe Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It is a bildungsroman focused on a young girl named Nell, and set in a world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. Some main motifs include: education, social class, ethnicity, and the...
, Runcible is a code name for the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, an educational computer.
- In Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh was an English writer, best known for such darkly humorous and satirical novels as Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Scoop, A Handful of Dust, and The Loved One, as well as for serious works, such as Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy that clearly...
's novel Vile BodiesVile Bodies is a 1930 novel by Evelyn Waugh satirising decadent young London society between World War I and World War II. The title comes from the Epistle to the Philippians 3:21. The book was originally to be called "Bright Young Things" ; Waugh changed it because he decided the phrase had become...
, Runcible is the last name of daft, drunken Agatha.
- In the Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a mysterious alien time-traveller known as "the Doctor" who travels in his space and time-ship, the TARDIS, which normally appears from the exterior to be a blue 1950s police box...
serial "The Deadly AssassinThe Deadly Assassin is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 30 October to 20 November 1976.-Synopsis:...
", Runcible is a Time Lord.
- In Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist based in New York City and noted for his dense and complex works of fiction. Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon spent two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University...
's "Gravity's RainbowGravity's Rainbow is a postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28 1973.The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military, and, in particular, the quest...
," an exhibition fight with runcible spoons is held.
- In the roleplaying game Changeling: The Dreaming
Changeling: The Dreaming was part of White Wolf Game Studio's original "World of Darkness" role playing game line. Player characters are changelings, fae souls reborn into human bodies, a practice begun by the fae to protect themselves as magic vanished from the world...
, "Runcible Shaw" is the name of a Pooka historian and scholar
- In Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket is a pseudonym used by author Daniel Handler in his A Series of Unfortunate Events, as well as a character in that series. An autobiography was published, entitled Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography with an introduction from Handler as himself...
's The EndThe End is the thirteenth and final book in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. This book is the only book in the series without an alliterative title.- Plot summary :...
, an island cult eats using only runcible spoons.
- In Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde is an English novelist. Fforde's first novel, The Eyre Affair, was published in 2001. Fforde is mainly known for his Thursday Next novels, although he has written another series, the Nursery Crime Stories series....
's novel The Eyre AffairThe Eyre Affair is the first published novel by British author Jasper Fforde, released by Hodder and Stoughton in 2001. It takes place in alternative 1985, where literary detective Thursday Next pursues a master criminal through the world of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.-Plot summary:In a parallel...
the character Runcible Spoon discovers that Mr. Quaverly from Martin ChuzzlewitThe Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit is a novel by Charles Dickens, considered the last of his picaresque novels. It was originally serialized between 1843-1844. Dickens himself proclaimed Martin Chuzzlewit to be his best work, but it was one of his least popular novels...
had mysteriously disappeared.
- In Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde is an English novelist. Fforde's first novel, The Eyre Affair, was published in 2001. Fforde is mainly known for his Thursday Next novels, although he has written another series, the Nursery Crime Stories series....
's novel The Big Over EasyThe Big Over Easy is a novel written by Jasper Fforde and published in 2005. It features Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant, Sergeant Mary Mary....
an extract from the Gadfly (a fictional newspaper) reports that at the wedding of the Owl and the Pussycat, "the wedding feast will be mostly mince and slices of quince, served up with a runcible spoon". page 335.
- In the musical Too Much Caffeine by Steve Delchamps, the setting is a small coffee shop called The Runcible Spoon.
- In the TV series Dead Like Me
Dead Like Me is an American television comedy-drama starring Ellen Muth and Mandy Patinkin as grim reapers who "live" and work in Seattle, Washington. Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, the show was created by Bryan Fuller for the Showtime network, where it ran for two seasons in 2003 and 2004...
, Rube (a grim reaper) is trying to run the kitchen of Angus Cook (whose soul Rube took), with Angus haunting the kitchen until a replacement cook can be found. Angus lectures Rube on using the "runcible" with eggs, and further identifies it as "the spoon with the holes".
- In the TV series Ed
Ed is an NBC television program produced by David Letterman's Worldwide Pants Incorporated that aired from 2000 to 2004.The hour-long comedy-drama starred Tom Cavanagh as Edward Jeremy Stevens, the protagonist, Julie Bowen as his love interest Carol Phyllis Vessey, Josh Randall as his friend Dr...
, the name of the pie shop that Ed and his friends frequent is called The Runcible Spoon.
- The character Louis Runcible in The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick
- In an episode ("Just My Bill") of the British Sitcom The Good Life (Good Neighbors in the U.S.), Tom Good tries to sell some of his excess vegetable crop to a restaurant called The Runcible Spoon.
- A character named Runcy Balspoon appears in the Kiakodan Nature Reserve in the text MUD Lusternia
Lusternia, Age of Ascension is a roleplay-intensive, text-based multi-user dungeon released in 2004. It was published by Iron Realms Entertainment...
.
- In the Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison , an American and Irish science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...
Stainless Steel Rat series, an errant robot declares, "The runcible rhythm of ravenous raisins rolled through the rookery rambling and raving."
- In C.J. Sansom's novel "Dissolution," set mainly in a monastery to be dissolved by Thomas Cromwell under Henry VIII, the lead character, Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer working for Cromwell, sups with the monks in their refectory "where a great haunch of beef was served with runcible peas." In this case the word is a version of "rounceval" meaning a large pea, a large woman or a wart.
- Sir Runcible Murgatroyd is a common name for one of the supernumerary
Supernumerary is an additional member of an organization. A supernumerary is also a non-regular member of a staff, a member of the staff or an employee who works in a public office who is not part of the manpower complement...
ghosts in the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta "RuddigoreRuddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
".
- In Claire Messud
Claire Messud is an American novelist. She is best-known as the author of the 2006 novel The Emperor's Children.-Background:...
's novel "When The World Was Steady" the character Virginia describes her boss in this way: "Truth be told, she had never found Simon in the least physically attractive: he was squat and runcible and slightly foolish."
- In Peter David
Peter Allen David , often abbreviated PAD, is an American writer, known for his work in comic books and Star Trek novels, as well as in television, movies, and video games....
's series of novels "Sir Apropos of Nothing" there exists a character named King Runcible.
- In Alfred Bester
Alfred "Alfie" Bester was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books...
's novel The Computer ConnectionThe Computer Connection is a novel by science fiction author Alfred Bester. Originally published as a serial in Analog Science Fiction , it appeared in book form in 1975. Some editions give it the title Extro...
a runcible spoon is used to feed the captive Capo Rip during his rehabilitation.
- In the webcomic
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website, often exclusively, providing easy access to an audience, though some are published in books and newspapers but maintain a web archive....
Questionable ContentQuestionable Content is a slice-of-life webcomic written and drawn by Jeph Jacques. It was launched on August 1, 2003; the 1500th strip was posted on September 25, 2009. Jacques currently makes his living exclusively from QC merchandising and advertising, making QC one of the few self-sufficient...
, J. Edward Runcible (an amalgamation of "Edward Lear" and "Runcible") is the name of a 19th century conspiracy theorist.
- In the webcomic
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website, often exclusively, providing easy access to an audience, though some are published in books and newspapers but maintain a web archive....
Girl GeniusGirl Genius is an ongoing comic book series turned webcomic, written and drawn by Phil and Kaja Foglio and published by their company, Studio Foglio LLC under the imprint Airship Entertainment...
, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach uses a "hand-cranked runcible gun" that shoots sporkA spork or a foon is a hybrid form of cutlery taking the form of a spoon-like shallow scoop with three or four fork tines. Spork-like utensils, such as the terrapin fork or ice cream fork, have been manufactured since the late 1800s; patents for spork-like designs date back to at least 1874, and...
s during a staged mock-fight for show.
- In the webcomic
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website, often exclusively, providing easy access to an audience, though some are published in books and newspapers but maintain a web archive....
Dominic Deegan: Oracle For HireDominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire is a daily fantasy webcomic by Michael "Mookie" Terracciano that began in 2002.The comic is a character-driven story, with individual arcs often lasting for months at a time. Its tone is generally upbeat. Attempts at humour are almost always present, and of...
, Professor Runcible Spoon is an elemental-researching mage.
Music
- In the Pretty Things
The Pretty Things are an English rock and roll band from London. They pioneered a raw approach to rhythm and blues that influenced a number of key bands of the 1960s British invasion, including The Rolling Stones...
song "Baron Saturday," the words "You've lost the runcible spoon" are used.
- Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE , is an English singer-songwriter, poet, composer, multi-instrumentalist, entrepreneur, record and film producer, painter, and animal rights and peace activist. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings, McCartney is the most successful songwriter in the history of popular music...
's album Driving RainDriving Rain is an album by Paul McCartney, recorded and released in 2001. It is his first studio album since publicly announcing his relationship with former model and anti-land mines activist Heather Mills, whom McCartney would marry in 2002....
includes the track "Heather" which features the lyrics: "And I will dance to a runcible tune / With the queen of my heart". McCartney has explained the connection to "The Owl and the Pussycat" in various interviews since its release.
Cuisine
- In Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. According to the 2000 census, the city population was 69,291 with a 2007 estimate of 72,254....
, there is a restaurant named The Runcible Spoon which acknowledges Lear's Owl and Pussycat in its decor.
- In Nyack, New York
Nyack is a village in the towns of Orangetown and Clarkstown in Rockland County, New York, United States, located north of South Nyack; east of Central Nyack; south of Upper Nyack and west of the Hudson River, approximately 19 miles north of the Manhattan boundary, it is an inner suburb of New...
, there is a bakery named The Runcible Spoon.
Computer science
- RUNCIBLE is also the name of a compiler
A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a computer language into another computer language...
for an early (late 1950s) programming language. Donald KnuthDonald Ervin Knuth is a renowned computer scientist and Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University....
published the flowchartA flowchart is a common type of diagram, that represents an algorithm or process, showing the steps as boxes of various kinds, and their order by connecting these with arrows...
of the compiler in 1959; this was his first academic paper.