# Which board avatars do you like?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-board-avatars-do-you-like/942351>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [May 18, 2021, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-board-avatars-do-you-like/942351 "2021-05-18T07:30:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 9

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2021, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-board-avatars-do-you-like/942351/9 "2021-05-18T18:34:31Z")

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> [@mordecaiB](#):
>
> @Slithy_Tove would have scored higher but, if I remember correctly, toves are white and have horns, so I suspect that is not a real tove depicted in the avatar.

Lewis Carroll himself gave conflicting descriptions of toves, raths, and perhaps other critters. Before writing Looking Glass, he wrote a periodical called Mischmasch, in which he may have given the description you mention. But in Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty gives some different descriptions. Slithy\_Tove’s avatar follows Humpty Dumpty’s definition and agrees with Tenniel’s illustration:

[![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Jabberwocky_creatures.jpg) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Jabberwocky_creatures.jpg)

To be sure, the Wikipedia page for [Jabberwocky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky) seems garbled: At one point, it says:

> [@](#):
>
> For example, following the poem, a “rath” is described by Humpty as “a sort of green pig”.[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky#cite_note-AAW96-18) Carroll’s notes for the original in _[Mischmasch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischmasch)_ suggest a “rath” is “a species of Badger” that “lived chiefly on cheese” and had smooth white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag.[[19]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky#cite_note-Penguin-19)

Later, the same page says:

> [@](#):
>
> Tove: Humpty Dumpty says “‘Toves’ are something like badgers, they’re something like lizards, and they’re something like corkscrews. … Also they make their nests under sun-dials, also they live on cheese.”[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky#cite_note-AAW96-18) Pronounced so as to rhyme with _groves_ .[[21]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky#cite_note-HoS-21) They “gyre and gimble”, i.e., rotate and bore. Toves are described slightly differently in _[Mischmasch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischmasch)_ : “a species of Badger [which] had smooth white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag [and] lived chiefly on cheese”.[[19]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky#cite_note-Penguin-19)

(ETA: Emphasis added by me.)

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