Such mnemonics have been considered by teachers to be an effective technique for schoolchildren to learn the complex rules of Latin accidence and syntax.
One of their earliest uses was in the Doctrinale by Alexander of Villedieu written in 1199 as an entire grammar of the language comprising 2,000 lines of doggerel verse.
Mnemonic rhymes have been considered by teachers to be an effective technique for schoolchildren to learn the complex rules of Latin accidence and syntax.
[note 1] Apart from Terentianus Maurus' De litteris syllabis et metris Horatii, discovered at Bobbio in 1493, all ancient grammatical texts prior to the Doctrinale had been prose works, with the only verse therein being citations from Roman poets; although some, such as those by Petrus Helias and Paolo da Camaldoli, contain mnemonic verses.
The Latin phrase is a line taken from William Lily's Latin grammar Brevissima Institutio, from a mnemonic poem entitled "The Third Special Rule", the particular verse of which is entitled "Nouns of the doubtful Gender excepted":[8][9][10] Sunt dubii generis, cardo, margo, cinis, obex, Forceps, pumex, imbrex, cortex, pulvis, adepsque: Adde culex, natrix, et onyx cum prole, siléxque; Quamvis hæc meliùs vult mascula dicier usus.
[11] A Latin rhyme for remembering the list of Latin prepositions that take the ablative case is given by William Windham Bradley:[12] A, ab, absque, coram, de, palam, clam, cum, ex, et e, sine, tenus, pro, et prae; His super, subter, addito, et in, sub, si fit statio.
John Barrow Allen translated it into English as follows:[13] A (ab), absque, coram, de, palam, clam, cum, ex, or e, sine, tenus, pro, and prae.
Another version, taught in the 1950s, was :- A (ab), absque, coram, de, palam, clam, cum, ex, and e, sine, tenus, pro, and prae.
Thomas Thornely asked "whose heart has not been stirred in early youth by the solemn chant" of this mnemonic, saying that "in this meaningless collocation of syllables we seem to hear the low rumbling of thunder of the Dies Irae and are naturally led to contrast it with the light tripping of the banded prepositions that favour the accusative".
Many neuters end in er, siler, acer, verber, ver, tuber, uber, and cadaver, piper, iter, and papaver.