Have you slain your Jabberwocky?

Welcome to Round 7 of ABC Wednesday. The meme was started by Mrs. Denise Nesbitt, and people from all over the world come together to play and share their entries. Each week word(s) beginning with the designated letter are selected and illustrate through a photo, poem or prose. My twist on the meme is selecting unusual words and pairing them with photos of familiar things in my world. I’ll be pulling words from sources here, here and, of course, here.

Let’s get unusual.

And what is more unusual than this classic?

Photo source: DeviantArt Jabberwocky WIP by ~PhantomSeptember http://bit.ly/d7Rgbv

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1872).

Which leads me to this…
jabberwock: nonsense, gibberish.
Sometimes designers use filler text, or “greeking” to show where text should be placed in a design. I prefer to use something a bit more imaginative. It’s called jabberwock and probably was inspired by the above poem, as it makes about as much sense. In my files I have Jabber 1, Jabber 2 and Jabber 3 (imaginative names, I know). Below is an example. I did have one client actually ask me if this was the final text. Um. No.

Five Macintoshes abused Jabberwockies, yet the silly tickets bought five Klingons, because chrysanthemums abused the elephant, although one fountain laughed, then Quark gossips comfortably. Five almost bourgeois dwarves quickly marries one botulism, and subways comfortably towed the speedy Klingon, but one Macintosh auctioned off umpteen chrysanthemums, although two orifices mostly cleverly incinerated the dogs. One dwarf gossips annoyingly. Two schizophrenic subways ran away. The slightly purple cats fights schizophrenic Klingons. Five partly speedy poisons cleverly marries one progressive aardvark. Umpteen quixotic wart hogs fights two irascible dwarves, then five obese chrysanthemums grew up. One progressive mat tickled umpteen purple dogs.

jettatura: the evil eye.
Lovin’ my telephoto lens at the zoo. I’m not sure I can add anything else to this.

jugate: side by side; in pairs; overlapping.
jumentous: like a horse.
More double vision at the zoo. No alcohol was involved. Can you see it?

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