Laudator Temporis Acti

Robert Kanigel, Hearing Homer's Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2021), p. 41:

Latin-themed jokes appeared in the Scribe:

TEACHER: Give the principal parts of a first conjugation verb.
FIRST LATINIST: Tell me one!
SECOND LATINIST: D....if I know.
FIRST LATINIST: Damifino, damifinare, damifinavi, damifinatum.

From Jim O'Donnell:

My father was born in Holyoke MA in 1908 and when I started studying Latin (with Lee Harvey Oswald's cousin as my teacher) in the fall of 1964, he told a story of his own schooldays c. 1922 with "the sisters" in Holyoke. Sister Whoever was going around the room drilling principal parts calling out a verb and a name for rapid-fire recitation of the four principal parts. If somebody didn't answer, she just called on the next guy. So suddenly young William, who has been daydreaming, hears his name called. "What's the verb?" he whispers desperately to the guy next to him. "Damned if I know," says the guy. "Damnedifino, damnedifinare, damnedifinavi, damnedifinatum," says William, and not to his advantage in the eyes of Sister Whoever. A few months later at my own school, Fr. Richard T. Gaul SJ, born in Pittsfield MA (about 35 miles west of Holyoke), told us the story of how when he was in school the nun was drilling the students on the principal parts, etc., etc., but in his version, since he was a priest and it was only 1964, the verb was "darnedifino".