Runcible

"Runcible" is a nonsense word invented by Edward Lear. The word appears (as an adjective) several times in his works, most famously as the "runcible spoon" used by the Owl and the Pussycat. 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" (in the sense of "silly person"), and a "runcible wall".

Origin

One of Edward Lear's drawings depicts the dolomphious duck's use of a runcible spoon.

Edward Lear's best-known poem, The Owl and the Pussycat, 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 D 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.

Attempts to define the word

Lear does not appear to have had any firm idea of what the word "runcible" means. His whimsical nonsense verse 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 dictionaries have generally defined a "runcible spoon" as a fork with three broad curved prongs and a sharpened edge, used with pickles or hors d'oeuvres, such as a pickle fork. It is occasionally used as a synonym for "spork". However, this definition is not consistent with Lear's drawing, in which it is a ladle, nor does it account for the other "runcible" objects in Lear's poems.

It is also sometimes used to mean a "grapefruit spoon", a spoon with serrated edges around the bowl, and sometimes to mean a serving-spoon with a slotted bowl.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable defines a runcible spoon as: "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." However, Brewer cites no source for this definition.

The "Notes & Queries" column in The Guardian also raised the question "What is a runcible spoon?" The fanciful answers proposed by readers included that it was a variety of spoon designed by Lear's friend George Runcy for the use of infants, or that it was a reference to a butler named Robert Runcie 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".

The Straight Dope, while treating "runcible" as a nonsense word with no particular meaning, claims that an (unspecified) 1920s source connected the word "runcible" etymologically to Roncevaux — the connection being that a runcible spoon's cutting edge resembles a sword such as was used in the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. The Straight Dope adds that "modern students of runciosity" link the word in a different way to Roncevaux: The obsolete adjective "rouncival", meaning "gigantic", also derives from Roncevaux, either by way of a certain large variety of pea grown there, or from a once-current find of gigantic fossilized bones in the region.

In popular culture

The whimsical feel of the word "runcible" has led to its appearance in diverse arenas.

Fiction

Used as an adjective

• In Harry Harrison's 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.
• In Claire Messud'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."

Used as a spoon or other device

• In the board game Kill Doctor Lucky, a runcible spoon is one of the weapons players can use to kill Doctor Lucky.
• In Neal Asher's novel Gridlinked, runcible is the name given to an interstellar wormhole generator/teleporter, most probably as an homage to the ansible.
• In Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age, Runcible is a code name for the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, an educational computer.
• In Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, an exhibition fight with runcible spoons is held.
• In Lemony Snicket's The End, an island cult eats using only runcible spoons.
• In the TV series Dead Like Me, 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 Alfred Bester's novel The Computer Connection a runcible spoon is used to feed the captive Capo Rip during his rehabilitation.
• In the webcomic Girl Genius, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach uses a "hand-cranked runcible gun" that shoots sporks during a staged mock-fight for show.

Used as a character name

• In Ian Irvine's Runcible Jones series of books, Runcible Jones is a boy who is unhappy at Grindgrim Academy, the worst school in the country.
• In Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies, Runcible is the last name of daft, drunken Agatha.
• In the Doctor Who serial "The Deadly Assassin", Runcible is a Time Lord.
• In the roleplaying game Changeling: The Dreaming, "Runcible Shaw" is the name of a Pooka historian and scholar.
• In Jasper Fforde's novel The Eyre Affair the character Dr. Runcible Spoon discovers that Mr. Quaverly from Martin Chuzzlewit had mysteriously disappeared. Dr. Spoon later appears in the subsequent books of the Thursday Next series, of which The Eyre Affair is the first.
• Louis Runcible is a character in The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick.
• A character named Runcy Balspoon appears in the Kiakodan Nature Reserve in the text MUD Lusternia.
• Sir Runcible Murgatroyd is a common name for one of the supernumerary ghosts in the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta Ruddigore.
• In Peter David's series of novels "Sir Apropos of Nothing" there exists a character named King Runcible.
• In the webcomic Questionable Content, J. Edward Runcible (an amalgamation of "Edward Lear" and "Runcible") is the name of a 19th century conspiracy theorist.
• In the webcomic Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire, Professor Runcible Spoon is an elemental-researching mage.

Used as a place name

• In the musical Too Much Caffeine by Steve Delchamps, the setting is a small coffee shop called The Runcible Spoon.
• In the TV series Ed, the name of the pie shop that Ed and his friends frequent is called The Runcible Spoon.
• 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.

Music

• In the Pretty Things song "Baron Saturday," (album S.F. Sorrow) the words "You've lost the runcible spoon" are used.
• Paul McCartney's album Driving Rain 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 Washington, DC, The Runcible Spoon is a guerrilla food zine based in Washington, D.C.
• In Bloomington, Indiana, there is a restaurant named The Runcible Spoon which acknowledges Lear's Owl and Pussycat in its decor.
• In Nyack, New York, there is a bakery named The Runcible Spoon.

Computer science

• RUNCIBLE is also the name of a compiler for an early (late 1950s) programming language. Donald Knuth published the flowchart of the compiler in 1959; this was his first academic paper.