Well call me a fribble and a bossloper but sitting here on my spong, with not a bantling in sight and just the sooterkin, I've discovered that skedaddle initially was not about leaving but about spilling. Like kettlings to a slobberchop these are difficult to resist.

you found KOTPs stash ?

Wineman said...

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

etc

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

Always one of my favourites, & used to be able to recite slabs of it.

And here I was thinking Dr Seuss.

All of the above are words that were commonly used in the English language once, but have now fallen out of favour. They however are still valid words though the meaning of some has changed.
fribble = frivolous
bossloper = hermit
spong = parcel of land
bantling = child
sooterkin once meant sweetheart
Skedaddle now means "leave in a hurry" but it originally was the term for spilling something noisy.
It was a fribble of a post
The cleverness of Lewis Carrol was this. As Mark said a six year old can make stuff up but Lewis used an onomatopeiac device in that he made up words that imitated a sound "The vorpal sword went snicker snack" or suggested an objects qualities. "Came wiffling through the tulgey wood" and by doing so helped the reader create a mind picture. Quite clever I thought.

elbeau said...
All of the above are words that were commonly used in the English language once, but have now fallen out of favour. They however are still valid words though the meaning of some has changed.
fribble = frivolous
bossloper = hermit
spong = parcel of land
bantling = child
sooterkin once meant sweetheart
Skedaddle now means "leave in a hurry" but it originally was the term for spilling something noisy.
It was a fribble of a post
The cleverness of Lewis Carrol was this. As Mark said a six year old can make stuff up but Lewis used an onomatopeiac device in that he made up words that imitated a sound "The vorpal sword went snicker snack" or suggested an objects qualities. "Came wiffling through the tulgey wood" and by doing so helped the reader create a mind picture. Quite clever I thought.

sorta like "WTF and LMAO" nowdays

worrier said...

....
sorta like "WTF and LMAO" nowdays

Actually no. More or less totally different. One is poetry. The words are suggestive and your imagination responds. Acronyms otoh are just boring bloody shortcuts that are more often annoying than helpful. You struggle with the meaning to be rewarded with banality.