Dot Wordsworth

Mind Your Language | 13 September 2003

A Lexicographer writes

issue 13 September 2003

Many people think a runcible spoon is a sort of pickle-fork with a serrated edge. If that is what they call it, then that is the word for it, but it is not the same word that Edward Lear used when he wrote of a runcible spoon in 1871. He also wrote of a runcible hat and a runcible cat, neither much use for eating pickles.

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