# Caesar sic in omnibus [nonsense rhyme]



## grubble

Hello
As a child I learned the following rhyme in 'Latin'. When examined carefully it turns out to be a phonetic rendering of English dialect._

Caesar ad sum iam forte, 
__Brutus et erat, 
__Caesar sic in omnibus,
__Brutus sic in at_

In dialect

_Caesar 'ad some jam for tea, __Brutus 'et a rat, __Caesar sick in omnibus, __Brutus sick in 'at_

and in standard English

Caesar had some jam for tea, Brutus ate a rat. Caesar was sick on the bus, Brutus vomited into his hat.


 My question is of course, does any of the 'Latin' make sense or is it just a jumble of words?

I hope you can enlighten me after all these years.

Thank you.


----------



## J.F. de TROYES

You were right to be suspicious about this "Latin" rhyme . Every word by itself is correct, but they are not matched up  

and the whole does'nt make sense at all ;so prepositions as _ad _or _in _should be followed by nouns and not by a verb ( sum 

= I am ) or a coordination ( at = sed ). Even so, an initiation to Latin, is'nt it ?


----------



## CapnPrep

J.F. de TROYES said:


> so prepositions as _ad _or _in _should be followed by nouns and not by a verb ( sum
> 
> = I am ) or a coordination ( at = sed ).


_Adsum_ is good Latin! In fact, the whole sentence _Caesar adsum iam forte_ is good.


----------



## XiaoRoel

> _Adsum_ is good Latin! In fact, the whole sentence _Caesar adsum iam forte_ is good.


Hay que forzar mucho la interpretación para admitir como buena la oración es iam forte, así seguido con forte en posición final no es la normal, podría sr Caesar forte iam adsum o Forte adsum iam Caesar o Iam Caesar forte adsum.
*Déjá en qualité de Cesar par hasard (accidentellement) ici je suis présent *(perdonad mi fracés herrumbroso y solecista).* Por accidente/casualidad, me hallo aquí presente ya como césar.
*Tambien ese in at del último "verso" es algo incorrecto ya que at es una conjunción 'pero por el contrario'.
Lo mejor es rechazar el ejercicio (o lo que sea) completo por no idiomático en latín y no perder el tiempo buscando un encaje que sólo a duras penas es posible.


----------



## grubble

Thanks everyone!  So mostly it is nonsense but the first line is possible.

So, as I understand it, *

iam Caesar forte adsum. = *_*Now by chance, I Caesar, am here. ?
* 
_Is that right?


----------



## se16teddy

At risk of  further irritating genuine Latin scholars, I can add a bit to Grubble's fragment. 
Brutus adsum iam forte
Caesar adsum tu
Passus iam sed Caesar.
(I think that the dialect influences in the last line hint that this was learnt in a grammar school in northern England.)


----------



## XiaoRoel

I do not understand. Nothing.


----------



## Cagey

The puns in Teddy's rhyme sound like this in English:

Brutus had some jam for tea,
Ceasar had some, too.
"Pass us jam," said Caesar.  [="Give us(me) the jam."]

The individual words are Latin, but together they make no sense.


----------



## se16teddy

Yes, to explain Cagey's correct interpretation for Xiao's benefit I should have mentioned that
- there was a tradition of pronouncing initial _i_ in a Latin word before a vowel as _J_ (as in _January_)
- in my home dialect, we often say _us _for standard _me_
- in my home dialect, h is not pronounced
- in my home dialect, the definite article is normally pronounced as a glottal stop


----------



## XiaoRoel

Muchas gracias por la explicación.


----------

