Another creation by Lewis Carroll is the game Doublets (also known as word ladder, word links, and word golf). You’ve probably played it before, but never even realized just who fashioned it! (I have!)

It’s a fairly simple game:

Two words of similar length are given.  The objective is to transform the first word into the second word by forming successive words of the same length having changing only one letter at a time.  The greater challenge is to do the transformation in the least number of words.

Yeah. That game. :D

More info here and here(quote is from this one!).

Originally a fancy word for a suitcase, portmanteau is more commonly known as a word for two words smashed together in order to convey two meanings simultaneously. Efficiency and confusion at its best.

Alice fans should recognize the term as being used by Humpty Dumpty to explain to Alice what the words in the poem ‘Jabberwocky’ mean (Through the Looking-Glass). Most of the words in said poem are portmanteaus, in the sense that the only thing they can carry is more than one meaning. 

What’s interesting about this is that this secondary meaning of the word was created by the king of portmanteaus himself, Lewis Carroll.

Strange, huh? :D

(Source: dictionary.reference.com)

Surprise! Lewis Carroll didn’t make up the name ‘Alice’ either! (Yeah, I actually guessed that one.) This, of course, demands the question: Where’d it come from?

Most of us (By this I mean ‘I’) have looked up the meaning and origin of our names. Most of the time you’ll find something either hilariously lame or absurdly noble. Alice is Germanic (which a great of deal of names are) and just might fall under both of those categories. Both Wikipedia and Baby Names World state that Alice means ‘noble’ and can be traced back to the name ‘Adalheidis (ah dal hide iss).’ 

This BEGS the question:

Why did people have such incredibly long names back in the day? :3

Ever heard of the Wonderland Gang? Sounds like a good whimsical group at first, doesn’t it? If so, please note that their story involves drugs, a porn star, and an alleged business-man mastermind. Oh, and four members were brutally murdered. Not so fun anymore.

Yeah, it’s a strange tale, but not quite the same strange that Alice’s Wonderland is. In a nutshell: A bunch of illegal stuff went down at 8763 Wonderland Avenue in L.A. If you’re interested in it, here’s a link to the gang’s wiki and here’s one just for the murders.

Also notable is that I’m pretty sure there’s a group in DC Comics named after this gang, but consisting of Alice-themed characters. (I suggest this because I’ve read Gotham City Sirens only a million times. There’s a ‘Carpenter’ in there that fixes up Kitty, Red, and Harley’s hideout at some point. I believe it was Red that said the Carpenter was once a part of a ‘Wonderland Gang.’ Of course, don’t quote me on that.)

While she does have a Wonderland of her own, the word itself is actually dated back to 1790, according to dictionary.com. As we all know, Alice’s first public appearance was in 1865, so there’s no way Lewis Carroll invented it. I find this interesting since Carroll invented so many other words in his works. :3

(Wiktionary also includes an etymology that might state who the word is accredited to (J. Wolcot?), but I can’t make any sense of it myself! :P)

Another tidbit about A Series of Unfortunate Events - in book eleven, The Grim Grotto, a bit of Lewis Carroll’s poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” is used as a secret clue by the Baudelaire children. If that title is strangely familiar, then you’re obviously on the tumblr, because “The Walrus and the Carpenter” was featured in Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.

I, for one, was so excited I dropped my copy of The Grim Grotto and lost my place when I read the bit of Carroll’s poem inside. :D

Also, I discovered something that I cannot believe I missed. Briny Beach - the beach where the Baudelaire children discovered they had become the Baudelaire orphans - is the exact place where “the walrus did beseech.” How neat! 

If you need a refresher, here’s a link to the aforementioned poem: The Walrus and the Carpenter.