Objective : Students will gain understanding of how sentence structure and subtle overtones of words can help them understand and define them.

JABBERWOCKY ‘ Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought -- So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought.

JABBERWOCKY And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. “And, has thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy. ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

Your Task… Although the strange words have no precise meaning, they seem to carry subtle overtones. In other words, Lewis Carroll used a lot of nonsense words, but you can still understand the story. Essentially, by using the words that you already know the “vague” meanings of and substituting new words for the nonsense ones, you should be able to figure out what part of speech each word is and infer a definition of that word. Use the “Parts of Speech” review sheet if you need help. For example, ‘Twas brilling and the slithy toves You know that “‘twas” means “it was,” “and” is a conjunction, and “the” is an article. We can guess that “brillig,” which refers back to “it,” is a pronoun. We also know “toves” is a noun because it is plural and because if a noun is put behind “the” it makes sense. Also, “slithy” must be an adjective because it is describing the word “toves.”

WORDPart of SpeechDefinition or Explanation brillig Pronoun A time of day. Dinner time? slithy tove gyre gimble wabe mimsy mome raths outgrabe borogoves A Jabberwocky Glossary Directions: Using the poem and your knowledge of the English language, identify the part of speech and create definition for each word listed below.