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"The question is," said Alice, "Whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-that's all."
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so, after a minute, Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them-particularly verbs, they're the proudest: adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs. However, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"
"Would you tell me, please," said Alice, "what that means?"
"Now you talk like a reasonable child," said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased, "I meant by 'impenetrability' that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life."
"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."
"Oh!" said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.
"Ah, you should see 'em come round me of a Saturday night," Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side; "for to get their wages, you know."
(Alice did not venture to ask what he paid them with; and so, you see, I can't tell you.)
"You seem very clever at explaining words, sir," said Alice. "Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called 'Jabberwocky'?"
"Let's hear it," said Humpty Dumpty. "I can explain all the poems that ever were invented-and a good many that haven't been invented just yet."
This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:
" 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
"That's enough to begin with," Humpty Dumpty interrupted: "there are plenty of hard words there. 'brillig' means four o'clock in the afternoon-the time when you begin broiling things for dinner."
"That'll do very well," said Alice, "And 'slithy'?"
"Well, 'slithy' means 'lithe and slimy.' 'Lithe' is the same as 'active.' You see it's like a portmanteau- there are two meanings packed up in one word."
"I see it now," Alice remarked thoughtfully. "And what are 'toves'?"