The aim of this blog is to serve as a meeting point to those who study or have studied English philology and, more broadly, to all those who love literature and language.

2 Mar 2009

AS MAD AS A MARCH HARE

Yesterday we started a new March, a month with two thirds of winter and the other third of spring. Maybe that changing feature provides the idea of instability attributed to hares in the phrase as mad as a March hare. Although the origin of the expression is dated in 1529, in Sir Thomas More's The supplycacyon of soulys: "As mad not as a march hare, but as a madde dogge", our immediate source of reference takes us to Alice in Wonderland's March Hare.

A 'mad' way of celebrating the beginning of this month can be to visit Alice in Wonderland: an Interactive Adventure website and browse through some of its simple funny activities based on Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. A mad tea party, for instance, allows the visitor to read crazy dialogues made up of quotes from Carroll's books just by placing the mouse on the three characters in the picture.

2 comments:

  1. I´m glad you mentioned the theme, because all the time I´ve been studying Semantics, I couldn´t rid of the idea that the whole discipline can be summarized in a sentence, that of Humpty Dumpty when he says to Alice in ‘Through the Looking Glass’: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey, Anónimo it´s me! Juan F.!

    ReplyDelete