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 Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 8:02 am
Topic: Down the rabbit hole
Back on this date in 1865, four months after the book was published in Great Britain, and a year after Lewis Carroll gave Alice Liddell a manuscript, the American version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published.
143 years later, that book of literary nonsense lives on and its shorthand title, Alice-in-Wonderland, survives as an allusion to something suitable to a world of fantasy or illusion; or something unreal.
That's not the only allusion from Carroll's classic to have lasted. The title of the first chapter—down the rabbit hole—maintains its place in the lexicon as a metaphor describing someone or something moving into a strange, bizarre, or surreal situation, episode, or series of events. The phrase originates in Alice's decision to follow the peculiar White Rabbit down a large hole, never once considering, in the reproving tone of the narrator, how in the world she was to get out again.
From there on in, things got curiouser and curiouser, and young Alice meets the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, and the Queen of Hearts before she wakes up where she left off—on a riverbank next to her sister.
Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.
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Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 2:47 pm
in our increasingly suburban world, we may have become unfamiliar with rabbit holes.
perhaps mole holes would elicit more response?
when i was growing up, we had a couple acres and created a four hole golf course on it, with lots of rough. the main danger was finding a rabbit hole instead of the golf cup!
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