What is the purpose of the poem "Jabberwocky"?

This poem shows that we can understand our language to
some extent without knowing the meanings of all the words. Like Alice, we can get the
drift without being able to pin down the exact meaning of any lines. To make the poem as
clear as it is, Carroll depends on the suggestions that sounds create for meaning. More
importantly, however, he uses key standard words to give us the essential idea (such as
“Beware,” “sword,” “through and through,” and “dead”), and he also scrupulously observes
proper syntax, so that we may construct meanings for the nonce words. Ironically, some
words that Carroll created for this poem have become so integral to our language that
computerized spell-checkers do not flag them as misspelled.