I have the poem “A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor” by Ogden Nash memorized. It’s an odd poem by an odd person that’s not popular at all and I have no idea when or why I memorized it. There are few websites about it and none of them are ones I often visit.
But it seems that for some reason I once memorized it.
Have you ever had something oddly in your head, or is it just me?
Most words?
Who the Kardashians are.
Must be an age-related thing. Although I guess that dead guys are “well known” rather than “popular”.
His whimsicality appeals to kids, so I’d guess that you memorized it when you were very young.
My memory is trash, and I could probably recite a few of his smaller poems. Well, paraphrased.
The Termite
by Ogden NashSome primal termite knocked on wood
And tasted it, and found it good!
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.
I’d say that most of the things I know are rattling around in my head unattributed. (I have a mind like a steel sieve.) Except for The Jabberwocky. I memorized that deliberately.
Not only myself, but just about every native English speaker:
The Crazy English Grammar Rule You Didn’t Know You Knew
- Opinion
- Size
- Age
- Shape
- Color
- Origin
- Material
- Purpose
If more than one adjective falls into the same category, the order for those words doesn’t matter. In The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase , author Mark Forsyth gives an example of how the right arrangement plays out. “You can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife,” he writes. “But if you mess with that order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.” Describe a green silver whittling French old little rectangular lovely knife, and you’ll probably lose your listeners.
I mean, this blew my mind when I first read it. I don’t recall this ever coming up; it just seems to happen.
I know what Lux soap tastes like but have no idea what I did that lead to me having someone (almost certainly my great grandmother) put it in my mouth.
O frabjous day! The same here 
. I know I had it memorized by 9th grade because I had to audition with it.
I do not know if this counts, but I often know the answer to the Jeopardy questions. Or is it, I know the questions to the Jeopardy answers?
Crossword puzzle answers often just pop into my head. I have no idea as to where they come from. I do read a lot, that may explain some of this.
For some unknown reason, I seem to have permanently memorized “Station Break”, an 18-second novelty piece from an old John Hartford album:
My parents got new doors and after describing them, I asked if they were the cross and bible type doors. Neither of them had ever heard that description, and my mother grew up in a house with that type of doors.
So my mother demanded to know where I learned that. I still have no idea, but it could be from a friend from 30 years ago who studied interior design. Or maybe it was from a church service. No clue.
My husband’s answer to the question, “How do you know that?” is “I know many things.”. No idea where he got that.
I don’t know when I learned “Don’t Quit,” by John Greenleaf Whittier, but I certainly learned it. It is in the public domain (cite), so I can reproduce it in full here:
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is strange with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure comes about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell just how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
That poem has been stuck to my fridge for the past forty years, and has been an inspiration through some very dark times. But I have no idea how I know it, or where I first learned it.
I know the capitals of Asian countries. I don’t know why I know them. I remember specifically having to learn European capitals in the 7th grade, and I remember being tested on them; I do not remember ever having been assigned Asian capitals, nor having been tested on them, but I know all of them, near and far, north and south, even very small countries that some people don’t even realize exist. The only quirk, is that sometimes I use an old name for something, like “Brunei town,” instead of “Begawan.” So I must have learned them a while ago.
I don’t know African or South American capitals, except incidentally-- I know Havana, Cuba, from the news, and San Jose, Costa Rica, because I’ve been there, and Brasilia, because it’s common trivia that Rio de Janeiro isn’t the capital of Brazil.
I must have had a puzzle, or something, or maybe a friend did, of a map of Asia, or had to wait some place where there was a map, so I studied it; it must have been recent enough that I would be able to read place names, and recognize the key for capital cities, but long ago enough that I’ve forgotten the specifics.
I’ve thought about this before, and it’s kind of bothered me before, because I would love to know why I know this. If it were just the Middle East, I’d say it’s a combination of hearing the news, and being Jewish, but I know them all.
My father might have influenced me a little, because he studied the Soviet Union, so he knew about the Asian part of the USSR, and the bordering countries, and knew about the Far East, because he was stationed in Korea during his time in the Air Force, but I don’t have any memories of him quizzing me on Asian capitals, like I do of him quizzing me on other things I’ve learned, such as US capitals.
I can also draw contiguous maps of the US (all 48 continental states) and of Europe from memory. I don’t know where and when I learned to do that.
The one about the unjust having the just’s umbrella.
Back when books were rare in my family, I got that from reading a book of quotes over and over. There’s a lot you can fake about being educated by doing that.