Picture of the Day
| WHAT WAS HUMPTY DUMPTY? |
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Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
The term "humpty dumpty was used more than 300 years ago, as a slang for a short and clumsy person. By the time author Lewis Carrol showed the character of humpty dumpty to be an egg in his book, "Through the Looking Glass", most people already knew the answer to the riddle. Humpty Dumpty, in fact, was an egg.
From Through the Looking Glass: ...actually Alice said.."you look like an egg." "And how exactly like an egg he is!' she said aloud, standing with her hands ready to catch him for she was every moment expecting him to fall. "It's very provoking," Humpty Dumpty said after a long silence, looking away from Alice as he spoke, "to be called an egg -- very!""I said you looked like an egg, Sir," Alice gently explained. "And some eggs are very pretty, you know,' she added, hoping to turn her remark into a sort of compliment. |
The nursery rhyme actually doesn't tell anyone that humpty dumpty was an egg. The rhyme is actually a riddle for the reader to figure out what humpty dumpty actually was.