A few days ago, someone used the word “runcible” as an adjective in a sentence during a meeting. I remember thinking at the time how oddly pleasant and revolting the word sounded– both sensations at the same time– and how I was unable to determine if the word was positive or derogatory. But, as it was a hella-long meeting, the kind of meeting that sucks your will to live, I let thoughts of runcibility go in favor of cartoon doodlings.

Then, as I wandered into the blogosphere recently, I found the word again– this time as part of a proper name for a restaurant. My immediate impulse to Google the word was, however, suppressed in favor of further exploration of the blogosphere. Of course, nothing I found had any lasting impression on me, but I suppose that when given the choice between actual knowledge acquisition and the blogosphere, I will make the wrong decision about 40% of the time.

The word has come back to haunt me at the oddest times over the last few days– while driving, while making teriyaki beef, while meeting with an entrepreneurship group. Last night, I dreamt in runcible terms.

Only today did I finally think of the word while I had access to a dictionary, and it wasn’t in there. So I turned to dictionary.com, and found this: “Early system for mathematics on IBM 650. See also FORTRUNCIBLE, IT.” Fortruncible? I was calling shenanigans. That just didn’t seem right, and certainly wan’t adjectival. So, finally, my good friend Google saved the day– it turns out “runcible” is a term that lies somewhere between nonsense and neologism. Created by Edward Lear in “The Owl and the Pussycat,” the term started showing up in other Lear poems and soon enough, people began defining it. Some dictionaries now include it– apparently my crappy desk dictionary is not one of them– defining it thusly: “However, since the 1920’s (several decades after Lear’s death), modern dictionaries have generally defined a runcible spoon to be a fork with three prongs, such as a pickle fork, which is curved like a spoon, and also has a cutting edge.”

Hoorah, Edward Lear. You have made my day, many years after your death. Perhaps Coventry Kessler’s magnificent term “eavesreading” will last as long as “runcible” has.