Words to Ponder #6

04 Oct Words to Ponder #6

This week’s words are from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass—a very playful practical-philosopical book containing hundreds of thinking/speaking muddles.

Here’s two of them.

I.

White Queen: Let’s consider your age to begin with—how old are you?

Alice: I’m seven and a half exactly.

White Queen: You needn’t say “exactually: I can believe it without that. Now I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.

Alice I can’t believe that!

White Queen: Can’t you? Try again: Draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.

Alice: There’s no use trying; one can’t believe impossible things.

White Queen: I daresay you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age I always did it for halh-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

II.

“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.

“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least–at least I mean what I say–that’s the same thing, you know.”

“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same thing as “I eat what I see”!”