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Cunningham's Law strikes again: sorry, but I doubt "O mouse" is a soundalike pun on "Amo, amas". Instead, the English (A mouse, of a mouse, to a mouse, a mouse,
by quuxplusone 2y ago
Cunningham's Law strikes again: sorry, but I doubt "O mouse" is a soundalike pun on "Amo, amas". Instead, the English (A mouse, of a mouse, to a mouse, a mouse, O mouse!) is simply the first five declensions in the traditional order: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative. (Mus, muris, muri, murem, mus.) As seen for example in this Latin schoolbook from 1891:
[1] https://archive.org/details/bellumhelvetiumf00lowe/page/203/ https://archive.org/details/bellumhelvetiumf00lowe/page/203/
- quuxplusone 2y ago...and Skitt's Law also strikes: sorry, I said "first five declensions" when I meant "first five grammatical cases." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law
- quuxplusone 2y agoVery tardily returning to add that the same Latin textbook, a few pages earlier, gives these English translations for the six cases of the example noun causa, "cause": "A cause — of a cause — to or for a cause — a cause — O cause, or thou cause — with, by, from a cause." Compare to Alice's "A mouse — of a mouse — to a mouse — a mouse — O mouse!" [1] https://archive.org/details/bellumhelvetiumf00lowe/page/201 https://archive.org/details/bellumhelvetiumf00lowe/page/201