I was amused by the Victorian-era jokes in this Laudator Temporis Acti post (quoting a Classical Journal squib from 1925):
A correspondent recalls the following which he read in copies of Harper’s Drawer published 70 years ago:
Motto for a tea-caddy: Tu doces (thou tea-chest).
Motto given by a wag to a newly rich tobacconist who had just acquired a carriage: Quid rides (English pronunciation). Soon the tobacconist lost his money and absconded. The wag wrote on the door of the shop: Quid fles.
An English gentleman serving clam stew to his guests found much broth and few clams. In serving the last guest he searched long for a clam. Finally he brought up from the bottom of the tureen a single bivalve and exclaimed triumphantly: De profundis clam-avi (clam ’ave I).
Tu doces (which at the time would have been read aloud “too dough-seez”) means ‘you (sg.) teach,’ or in the fusty English of the Latinism of the day “thou teachest.” I found this clever enough to google it and discovered it was already a gray-bearded knee-slapper in 1856:
Quid rides means ‘Why are you laughing?’ and the second word would have been pronounced “rye-deez,” but here of course the jokester wants “rides (English pronunciation).” Quid fles means ‘Why are you crying?’ and the second word would have been pronounced “fleez,” like the verb “flees.” And the clam-avi (clam ’ave I) joke is a good illustration of the extreme nature of pre-reform anglicized Latin.
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