Carrollian Interviews!
As current President of the Lewis Carroll Society, I occasionally receive requests for interviews or expert answers to various Carrollian questions. I recently gave an interview to Glance magazine, and now this month I gave another to the Wall Street Journal in conjunction with the upcoming spate of adult-oriented movies based on children’s books, including Tim Burton’s upcoming riff on Alice in Wonderland, which opens 3/5/2010. The WSJ journalist and I spoke for 90 minutes, and one sentence made it into the article. That’s showbiz! I also answered an expertise question for the staff of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? They wanted to know whether Lewis Carroll had coined the word “snark.” Answer: To the best of our knowledge, yes! I told them he also came up with the term “portmanteau word” to describe a word that in today’s lingo would be called a “mash-up” of two words. Example: his word “slithy” could be a combination of “lithe” and “slimy”. Carroll’s works, including the famous poem Jabberwocky, are full of portmanteau words. Speaking of game shows, there’s a Carrollian question on Jeopardy and a clue/answer in the New York Times crossword puzzle about once a week. His works are that much a part of our popular culture.