FUN WITH THRICE

Good morning and thank you for reading the third installment of Axioms with Barry. Today I would like to cover the interesting thing about the word thrice. We’ll begin with the meaning. The simplest definition for thrice is three times. And this is our third time writing an Axiom!!! Let’s use thrice in a sentence, shall we?

“Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just” – William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is so silly with his crazy nonsensical phrases and such. A more contemporary sentence would be: “I called you thrice last night.” Translation: “I called your three times last night.” Simple enough.

An easy way to remember what it means is to sing this catchy little jingle: “Once, Twice, Thrice!” Since you can’t hear the way we at Axioms sing that jingle in our proverbial office, just remember to put the greatest inflection on the final word. Sometimes we just sit around the Axioms office singing it together. And when I say we, I mean I. And when I say the Axioms office, I mean my bedroom. And when I say together, I mean by myself. The life of a trivia truth seeker is a lonely one. I’m so lonely…

Lionel Richie needs to remake his song: “You’re once, twice, thrice a lady! And I looooove you!” I bet that song is in your head now. You’re welcome.

Okay, now that we know what it means, why is this word so interesting? Do not worry, this question will be answered most expediently and you shant have to wait a moment longer than it takes for me to think of how to explain the oddness of this word. You see, there is no word in the English language that comes after thrice. Contrary to popular belief, quattro/cuatro does not come after thrice because it does not mean four times. It has been suggested that quince could be used for five times, however this is merely a picturesque dream and nothing more. Also, a quince is a deciduous tree, so clearly it cannot be used as five times. If quince did also mean five times, one could say: “I saw quinces quince today.” (I saw deciduous trees five times today!) How great would it be if we could say something so wonderful? Alas, we never shall. Or at least we will never actually make grammatical sense by speaking such a phrase. In real life, that sentence would mean: “I saw deciduous trees deciduous tree today.” People would think you were crazy if you said that, but I digress…again. Apparently the world (with the exception of me) has not felt the lack of words that follow thrice.

I think we’ve spent long enough on thrice, wouldn’t you agree? Indeed. In fact we are completely out of time today to discuss any other topics. Someone spent too much time on thrice because someone thought it was a very interesting topic, and someone decided to go off on tangents about deciduous trees when someone was supposed to be focusing on thrice alone. Now, doesn’t someone feel bad that someone’s readers cannot learn about anything else today?

Disclosure: Another wonderful sentence that could be used if quince had a dual meaning could be: “I saw a quince quince today.” That would mean: “I saw a deciduous tree five times today.” Sadly it just means, “I saw a deciduous tree deciduous tree today.” It also means you have a stutter.

Disclosure #2: I wonder what the procedure is for officially adding a word to the dictionary. Words are added all the time; perhaps we can add a secondary meaning for quince. I would really like this to happen. Maybe I will research the process and write about it in a future installment of Axioms.