It was an utterly fictitious item described by an adjective mentioned in, among other examples of his works, a touchingly-romantic poem by an author who actually illustrated the thing. For a good 80 years, however, various references have given it a quite specific definition that does not match the illustration. One even suggests a bellicose origin for the adjective. What might this object be?

TheuntouchablE

A vase? Dec 09 06, 5:37 PM

lanfranco

Afraid not. This is a very well-known object mentioned in a famous poem. I'll add that the poem is humorous. Dec 09 06, 5:57 PM

Xanfree

Is it the runcible spoon of Edward Lear? Dec 10 06, 12:16 PM

lanfranco

It is the runcible spoon, Xan, but I'm not handing out any silver maces until I get a reference site. One with an illustration might be nice. Dec 10 06, 3:29 PM

queproblema

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a961108a.html Dec 10 06, 6:54 PM

queproblema

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9f/Lear_Runcible_spoon.png/250px-Lear_Runcible_spoon.png&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runcible_spoon&h=115&w=250&sz=27&hl=en&start=64&tbnid=ql2SluI0kiFL3M:&tbnh=51&tbnw=111&prev=/images%3Fq%3Druncible%2Bspoon%26start%3D60%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN Dec 10 06, 6:57 PM

lanfranco

I was really hoping at one point to describe "The Owl and the Pussycat" as an "epithalamium" with a "terpsichorean" theme in the last stanza and to see what people made of that. So, qp, I'll divide the mace between you and Xan, especially since you came up with the reference to the utterly gratuitous Battle of Ronceveaux. (Now, there's a scholarly stretch); but here's the illustration I was after: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runcible_spoon Dec 10 06, 7:04 PM

lanfranco

Hmm. Our posts seem to have crossed, qp. Dec 10 06, 7:06 PM

Baloo55th

If you want to avoid URLs like that, open the pic in a new window and copy the URL from the top of that. Cuts out all the garbage. Dec 11 06, 5:38 AM