| jam tomorrow Jul 3rd 2013, 01:45, by 92.248.227.51 | | | | Line 17: | Line 17: | | | ====Translations==== | | ====Translations==== | | | {{trans-top|promised benefits that never arrive.}} | | {{trans-top|promised benefits that never arrive.}} | | − | * Russian: {{t-|ru|журавль в небе|m}} | + | * Russian: {{t-|ru|журавль в небе|tr=žurávl' v nébe|m}} | | | {{trans-mid}} | | {{trans-mid}} | | | {{trans-bottom}} | | {{trans-bottom}} |
Latest revision as of 01:45, 3 July 2013 English[edit] Wikipedia Etymology[edit] From Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1871), where Alice is offered "jam to-morrow and jam yesterday — but never jam to-day". This is a pun on a mnemonic for the usage of iam in Latin (note i/j conflation in Latin spelling), which means "now", but only in the future or past tense, not in the present (which is instead nunc). jam tomorrow (uncountable) - (idiomatic) Promised benefits that never arrive.
- 1930, John Maynard Keynes, "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren":
- The "purposive" man ... does not love his cat, but his cat's kittens; nor, in truth, the kittens, but only the kittens' kittens, and so on forward forever to the end of cat-dom. For him jam is not jam unless it is a case of jam to-morrow and never jam to-day.
- 1961, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (volume 17, number 8, October 1961)
- Yet they've proved that common men can show astonishing fortitude in chasing jam tomorrow.
- 1978, Eileen M. Byrne, Women and education
- It always seems to be a problem to be dealt with when resources (later) permit. Jam tomorrow, as usual.
Translations[edit] promised benefits that never arrive. References[edit]  |
