Posted by Caroline on March 19, 19102 at 14:16:34:

In Reply to: why ius a raven like a writing desk posted by cloudesley on March 26, 19101 at 18:18:05:

Lewis Carroll did not answer the riddle, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" [True or False?]

False, although he did state that at the time of writing the riddle he had no answer in mind. Denis Crutch ("Jabberwocky," Winter 1976) reported an astonishing discovery. In the 1896 edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Carroll wrote a new preface in which he gave what he considered the best answer to the riddle: "Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar [sic] put with the wrong end in front." Note the spelling of "never" as "nevar." Carroll clearly intended to spell "raven" backwards. The word was corrected to "never" in all later printings, perhaps by an editor who fancied he had caught a printer's error. Because Carroll died soon after this "correction" destroyed the ingenuity of his answer, the original spelling was never restored. Whether Carroll was aware of the damage done to his clever answer is not known.

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