--- title: Kipling's word games: «Best Beloved», the 'Stute Fish, «Humph!» and the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Kipling's word games: «Best Beloved», the 'Stute Fish, «Humph!» and the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo», a lesson of the language course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Kipling wrote the «Just So Stories» to be read aloud, the way he --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / Kipling's word games: «Best Beloved»,… # Kipling's word games: «Best Beloved», the 'Stute Fish, «Humph!» and the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo Lesson 42 of the language course of Mova's primary school: 12 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/0/) — Kipling wrote the «Just So Stories» to be read aloud, the way he first told them to his own children at bedtime, so the words are made to be heard: they repeat, they rhyme, they bump together and they play tricks. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/2/) — He also plays with what words mean. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/4/) — And old sayings, like «a leopard cannot change its spots», are turned into stories that pretend to explain them. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/5/) — When you read a page of Kipling, try reading it out loud: you will hear the tricks, and you can use them in your own stories. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/7/) — A clipped word is a long word with a part cut off: «'Stute» comes from «astute» (clever), «'scruciating» from «excruciating»; the apostrophe shows where letters are missing, just as in «don't» and «it's». - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/9/) — «'Satiable curtiosity» is baby-talk for «insatiable curiosity», wanting to know things so much you are never satisfied; «curtiosity» is a made-up mistake, and Kipling uses it on purpose to sound like a small child. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/10/) — Alliteration means several words close together starting with the same sound, as in «great grey-green, greasy»; it makes a phrase easy to remember and fun to say. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/12/) — An onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like the noise it names: the Cat's milk-pot cracks «ffft», and «Humph!» sounds like a grumpy snort. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/14/) — Kipling's Stone Age names are long descriptions joined by hyphens: Taffimai Metallumai means «Small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked», so he shortens it to Taffy. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/15/) — Kipling uses capital letters to make things grand and important, as with «the Djinn in charge of All Deserts», the way a sign uses capitals for a title. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/16/) — Old sayings in the book: «a leopard cannot change its spots» (people do not change what they are like), «crocodile tears» (pretend sadness), «a month of Sundays» (a very long time) and «the long and the short of it» (the whole thing in a few words). - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/42-kipling-s-word-games-best-beloved-stute-fish-humph-and-the-great-grey-green-greasy-limpopo/18/) — Some words in the book are British and some American: the sailor's «suspenders» are what British people call «braces», which hold trousers up. - ← previous: [Alice's word games: puns, parodies and nonsense](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/41-alice-s-word-games-puns-parodies-and-nonsense/) - next →: [Pan, panic and Ulysses: the old myths and old words inside «The Wind in the Willows»](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/43-pan-panic-and-ulysses-the-old-myths-and-old-words-inside-the-wind-in-the-willows/) - ↑ back to [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/)