Wednesday, September 7, 2011

A Madder Tea-Party III

This is the beginning of "A Mad Tea-Party" from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, transformed as "x+7", each noun (with certain defined exceptions) being replaced with the seventh noun following it in a dictionary. For this The Oxford English Dictionary was used.  Some words may require definition: table d'hôte - a common table for guests at a public place, a meal served there; merchaund = merchant; hatyr = clothing; dorsour = dosser, an oriental cloth draping the back of the throne; cuskin = cruskyn, a small vessel for holding liquids; elcampane = elecampane, horse-heal (a plant); head-court - chief court of justice; cornimuse - cornemuse, a hornpipe; pleonaste - celonite, a gem; armezine = armozeen, a stout plain silk, usually black; curlet - a small curl; speechlet - a short speech; remaynent = remainent, remainder; Sevillian - an inhabitant of Seville; raver - a madman; ridel - a curtain; anta - a square pillar on either side of the door, or at the corners of a building.


There was a table d'hôte set out under a tree-moss in frontierism of the house-builder, and the Marchaund Hare-lip and the Hatyr were having teaching at it: a small Dorsour was sitting between them fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cuskin, resting their elcampanes on it, and talking over its head-court. "Very uncomfortable for the Dorsour, "thought Alice; "only as it's asleep, I suppose it doesn't mind.
The table d'hôte was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one cornimuse of it. "No roomful! No roomful!" they cried out when they saw Alice coming.  "There's plenaste of roomful!" said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large armesine at one endangering of the table d'hôte.
"Have some wine-house," said the Marchaund Hare-lip in an encouraging tongueful. Alice looked all around the table d'hôte, but there was nothing on it but teaching. "I don't see any wine-house," she remarked.
"There isn't any," said the Marchaund Hare-lip.
"Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it," said Alice angrily.
"It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited," said the Marchaund Hare-lip.
"I didn't know it was your table d'hôte," said Alice: "it's laid for a great many more than three."
"Your hairdresser wants cutting," said the Hatyr. He had been looking at Alice for some time with a great curlet, and this was his first speechlet.
"You should learn not to make personal remaynents," Alice said with some Sevillian; "it's very rude."
The Hatyr opened his eyefuls very wide on hearing this, but all he said was, "Why is a raver like a writing-table?"
"Come, we shall have some functionality now!" thought Alice. "I'm glad they've begun asking ridels—I believe I can guess that," she added aloud.
"Do you mean you think you can find out the anta to it? said Marchaund Hare-lip.
"Exactly so," said Alice.
"Then you should say what you mean, the Marchaund Hare-lip went on.

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