Weird things one finds out randomly.

[xiphias]

I just found a claim that the quote "Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today," from Alice's Adventures Through the Looking-Glass, is actually supposed to be a mnemonic to help remember the distinction between the Latin words "nunc" and "iam".

Can someone who actually KNOWS Latin sanity-check this claim for me?

Comments

[vonandmoggy.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard that before but it does make sense for word meanings...for what it's worth.

(6 years of Latin but it's sloooowly faaading...)

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's correct. Martin Gardner mentioned it in More Annotated Alice, which I heartily recommend if you can find it.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

And it also makes sense from a Latin point-of-view, incidentally, as others have already said.

[asqmh.livejournal.com]

Yes, but my favorite is still "siemper ubi sub ubi."

(edited for iconage)

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

You have very literate and smart friends.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

It was explicitly mentioned as such a mnemonic by my Latin teacher.

Along with "Caesar adsum iam forte".

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I've never heard this (not being a Latin scholar), but it wouldn't surprise me. My favorite Alice in Wonderland hidden Latin joke is the part where she meets the mouse and addresses him "O Mouse," because she remembers seeing in one of her sister's schoolbooks, "A mouse, of a mouse, to a mouse, a mouse, O mouse"! It was YEARS later that I took a beginning Latin class, and when I reread Alice after that, I had a huge "aha!" moment: case declensions!