It struck me, after all the study that went into the previous essays, that it might be an interesting exercise to see if some of these other mnemonic terms appear in the OED or in the Unabridged dictionary and how they are defined. Well, I can answer the question quickly from the OED--these 20 or so terms don't appear. But many of them appear in the OED. Let's go down the list, just so that if you are held up at gunpoint and the thief says to you: "Ok, define celarent or else I will shoot you right now," you will survive. I will note which terms are there.

1. barbara. Yes. Nicely defined as the first mood of the first figure. It provides the syllogism I used in the previous essay.

2. celarent. Yes. This is one of the words which actually means something ("they might hide").

3. darii. Yes. A 1717 quotation shows how humor, or at least some imagination, entered into poetry because of the omnipresence of this mode of thinking on English education. From Matthew Prior: "I could...With learned skill, now push, now parry. From Darii to Bocardo vary..." One almost thinks of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where someone was forced to recite Latin conjugations in an unusual situation...

4. ferio. Yes. Again, there is an imaginative little ditty, this time from 1589: "They bee all in celarent, and dare not shewe their heads, for wee will answere them in ferio and cut their combes." One gets the impression that these words were just tossed around, probably with the result that people memorized the mnemonic, had no idea what they meant, but were able to draw up on the words on later, and often humorous, occasions.

5. baralipton. Yes. Of coruse, we have seen this.

6. celantes. No. I wonder why not...

7. dabitis. Yes. It is translated "you will give." And, the OED tells us that it is the mnemonic term for that "indirect mood of the first figure of syllogisms." So, the definiton is derived not so much from the William/Peter system, but from the assumption that you don't yet have a fourth figure, and that baralipton, celantes, dabitis, fapesmo and frisesomorum are indirect moods of the first figure rather than indicative of being a separate figure.

8. fapesmo. Yes. This one is also indicated as "that supposed indirect mood of the first figure," so the OED here reflects the "iffy" or "transitional" nature of the indirect mood. Yet, it adds one other point. In parenthesis, it says that it is "later seen to be, by changing the order of the premisses, the fourth-figure mood fesapo." That, as we see, above, is the order of a later mnemonic system.

9. frisesomorum. Yes. It defines with a definition we don't really need--"major premise is particular and affirmative, the minor universal and negative, and the conclusion particular and negative"--we can see that from the word itself. It also is said to be the indirect mood of the first figure. It is also called Frisesmo, and it "becomes the fresison" of figure 4 in the later mnemonic.

10. cesare. Yes. This is now called the first mood of the second figure by the OED. Thus, the assumption is that baralipton and the four following terms in Peter and William's system are the "indirect" first figure; thus cesare begins the second figure. This is the way it is in the later system.

11. camestres. Yes. As expected, the second mood of the second figure. Ah, notice this great theological use of camestres, from Wilson's Logique of 1551.

"The christian righteousnesse is the purenesse of the mynde;
To wear a tipete, a coule, a shaven crowne is not the purenes of the minde;
Therfore the outwarde attyre is not the christian righteousness.."

Bingo! Can your pastor do this?

12. festino. Yes. The same intrepid Wilson gives us this example:

No true divine contemneth philosophie;
Some Englische preachers contemn philosophie;
Ergo some English preachers are no true divines.

Take that, fellow preachers!

13. baroco. No.

14. darapti. Yes. The OED calls this the "first mood of the third figure," but it looks like that is derived from the second system given above. Has the OED conflated the two systems at times? But the quotations the OED uses list darapti as the first of six terms of the third figure.

15. felapton. Yes. The OED has it as the fourth mood in the third figure, which it is in the second system above. From Wilson, again (I should get his book!) in 1551:

"No vertue should be eschewed
All vertue hath her woe with her
Therfore some woe shoulde not be eschewed."

16. disamis. Yes. Now the OED notes that this term, introduced by Petrus Hispanus ca. 1250, designates the second mood of the third figure.

17. datisi. Yes. The OED just says that the mnemonic term designates "the mood of the third figure." Hm. The OED has left out a word--it means to say the "third mood" of the third figure....Again, Wilson is quick to help us in theological applications of this:

"All hipocrites count works his holiness
Some hipocrites have been Bishippes;
Therefore, some Bishoppes have counted his works as holiness."

I have "updated" some of the spelling and words in this example.

18. bocardo. Yes. This has nothing to do with a drink which you may want to quaff about now. It is called the fifth mood of the third figure. Often in the quotations about these terms you will see reference to some kind of "reduction" that can happen of this mood/figure to the first figure, but I am not sure how that could happen. Again, someone who really knows his/her logic could help me out...This is also the name of a prison in Oxford pulled down in 1771--which has led many to speculation that this argument "imprisoned" debaters.

19. ferison. Yes. It is called "quantitatively similar to Ferio, but differing in the position of the middle term." Again, I wish I had all day and life to figure that one out. But it is called the "sixth mood of the third figure."

A few only seem to appear in the later mnemonic. They are:

20. bramantip. Yes. First mood of fourth syllogism.

21. camenes. Yes. Second mood of the fourth figure.

22. dimaris. Yes. The OED tells us it was formerly called drimatis or dimatis. A note in the OED says that the initial "d" indicates that the mood can be reduced to darii (first figure) by transposition of the premisses or simple conversion of the conclusion. So, there.

23. fesapo. Yes. Fourth mood of the fourth figure.

24. fresison. Yes. Fifth mood of the fourth figure.

Conclusion

Now that you have all of this, you know not just nonsense, but you have a better grasp of the history of nonsense. This reminds me of a story told me by one of my graduate school professors. "Nonsense is nonsense. But the history of nonsense is scholarship." So may it ever be.... And now, you have three good things ("Jabberwocky," "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General," and one of the logical mnemonics) to memorize and learn. I will promise you that if you learn them all thoroughly, there will be a time in your life where you will wow your audience with knowledge of them...

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