Vol. 06 · Misquoted ·Book ·55 of 348
"Curiouser and curiouser."
They never said that.
What people say
"Curiouser and curiouser."
What was actually said
"Curiouser and curiouser! cried Alice (she was so much surprised that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English)." Alice — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
Why it stuck
Carroll wrote the exclamation as deliberately bad grammar — Alice catches herself in the next beat. The isolated phrase has become a normal English intensifier; Carroll's joke is gone.
Alice apologises to herself for the mangled double-comparative, then forgets and keeps using it.
Know another line by heart?
Play the duel and see how many you can spot. Or browse the whole shelf.