Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, for whom Lewis Carroll was a pseudonym, was an Oxford-educated mathematician and logician, an early pioneer of photography, and an archetypal English Eccentric. Below is perhaps my favourite passage by Carroll (Dodson... whomever!), a passage without which the Humpty Dumpty Theory of Language would still be called the Cratylus Theory of Language.

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The picture, of course, is the classic illustration by Sir John Tenniel.

[Humpty]
[Alice]

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't- till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"

"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-that's all."

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper some of them- particularly verbs: they're the proudest- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs- however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"

Through the Looking Glass, Ch. VI