Handy sets of facts to memorize

[Rodgers01]

Rote memorization gets a bum rap, but sometimes it can be useful. I'm glad I was made to memorize the times tables up to 12, for example; I can't remember whether I knew exactly how the process of multiplication worked at the time, but it's sure handy some 20 years later to have all those sets immediately available at my fingertips.

So what other sets of facts would it be helpful to have memorized? Never mind concepts, necessarily: I'm looking for stuff that can fit on a pack of flashcards. Some ideas:

State/province capitals
Major country capitals
Presidents' terms of office (even if you don't know anything about a president, it would give a helpful framework if you knew automatically who was in the White House in any given year - would help connect the dots as you learned more history later on)

What else?

[EpicNonsense]

Backwards alphabet... ;0

zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba

Not even going to check it..

[Rodgers01]

Originally Posted by EpicNonsense

Backwards alphabet... ;0

zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba

Not even going to check it..

Did that one particularly boring day in middle school when I should probably have been paying attention and memorizing something worthwhile!

ETA: And yep - you got it right.

[EpicNonsense]

Originally Posted by Rodgers01

Did that one particularly boring day in middle school when I should probably have been paying attention and memorizing something worthwhile!

ETA: And yep - you got it right.

Hahaha.. It's a fun party trick, but that's about all.

[Rodgers01]

Thought of another one: names of sports teams in major American cities.

I don't follow any sports, and seldom discuss them. But I do think that knowing where the Bulls or the Red Sox or whatever are located is probably the minimum I should do to being culturally literate in that area...

[minor7flat5]

You might want to look at some flashcard apps/sites. They typically have public card sharing functionality, and they have lists of the most popular sets of cards.

I currently am using iFlipr on my iPhone to slog through a deck of ~700 Portuguese words. I just looked up their "Featured" list and see the following:

U.S. States/Capitals
Government: Bill of Rights
2 letter Scrabble words
The Greek Alphabet (both cases)
MCAT: Organic Chemistry
Presidents (with pictures)
Basic Muscles
Hirgana
Bird Calls, West U.S. (mp3s)
World Flags
Poker Math - Texas Holdem

There's your list of capitals.
For Scrabble players, the 2-letter words list seems useful. The Greek alphabet might be interesting, as well as basic muscles. Bill of Rights is cool too.

Some of the others are more specialized, but these kinds of card-set lists are a start.

[Rodgers01]

Originally Posted by minor7flat5

You might want to look at some flashcard apps/sites. They typically have public card sharing functionality, and they have lists of the most popular sets of cards.

I currently am using iFlipr on my iPhone to slog through a deck of ~700 Portuguese words. I just looked up their "Featured" list and see the following:

U.S. States/Capitals
Government: Bill of Rights
2 letter Scrabble words
The Greek Alphabet (both cases)
MCAT: Organic Chemistry
Presidents (with pictures)
Basic Muscles
Hirgana
Bird Calls, West U.S. (mp3s)
World Flags
Poker Math - Texas Holdem

There's your list of capitals.
For Scrabble players, the 2-letter words list seems useful. The Greek alphabet might be interesting, as well as basic muscles. Bill of Rights is cool too.

Some of the others are more specialized, but these kinds of card-set lists are a start.

That's perfect - the Bill of Rights one is especially good. I might even go so far as to say all the US Constitutional Amendments (or at least the major ones). The bird calls one would be pretty neat, too.

[Zsofia]

You should definitely know weights and measures and conversions - how many teaspoons in a tablespoon, how many feet in a mile, how to get kilometers out of miles, etc. (I never did learn much of it in school and regret that now - I always forget the cooking ones, and I cook a lot!)

[Sattua]

I get a lot of cred, and occasionally use, out of having memorized the English auxiliary verbs in fifth grade. Is am are was were be being been has had have do does did shall will should would may might must can could.

Oh, and shoulda, woulda, coulda.

[snowmaster]

+1 for constitutional ammendments

top 10 landmark supreme court decisions. Marbury v. Madison

basic unit of measure conversions gal/4=quart/2=pint/2=cup, 5,280 ft/mile etc.

termini and general paths of interstate highways.

Past 5 British monarchs and top 5 heirs in line.

Rank and insignia of the US military, E-1 to O-10, all branches.

[RandMcnally]

Abbreviations for the states: CA=California, that type of stuff. It is useful. I had an English teacher in the 8th grade that made us learn them. I don't really know why, but I'm glad she did.

[Manda JO]

Squares up to 15 or 25.

Dates of 25 or so epic events in world history, to serve as a framework. Which 25 could be a great debate, I suspect. The point would be not which events were most important, but which events are most useful for establishing other approximate dates.

[bup]

Scrabble-legal 2 letter words (78 of them, I think).

[Leaffan]

Basic math formulae like area and volume. Yes it comes in handy when trying to figure out how much stain you need for your deck, or how much water is in your pool, etc.

For example, I calculated -- in my head -- the area of stone coverage needed around my circular pool while walking around at Home Depot. In this example it's good to also know what pi is. 3.14 is close enough, but for some reason i know it as 3.14159265359. (Not that I used that in my brain calculation!)

[sevenwood]

These are perhaps better described as "antifacts", but they're the only items I still remember from my 11th-grade English class some 45+ years ago...

I was in the "you're really bright" English class, and we students were all pretty sure of ourselves. Our English teacher, Mrs. Sandmeyer, often gave us bits of prose to analyze. Every once in awhile she'd just make up some nonsense phrase and laugh hysterically as we analyzed them with great confidence. The only two things I remember from that year are:

"The sea of noon halts and admires idly the express of utter oblivion"

"Relevance is never exceeded by the prevelance of the inarticulate to digress"

Bless you Mrs Sandmeyer, wherever you are.

[Disheavel]

Supreme Court Justices and leaning direction
+2 for constitutional amendments (it is truly amazing how often the news and/or protesters use the wrong one)
+1 for major Supreme Court cases (see above)

I think the court is going to have some huge cases with Data and surveillance in the coming years and there is going to be lots of discussion about rights and precedent.

[Leaffan]

Originally Posted by Disheavel

Supreme Court Justices and leaning direction
+2 for constitutional amendments (it is truly amazing how often the news and/or protesters use the wrong one)
+1 for major Supreme Court cases (see above)

I think the court is going to have some huge cases with Data and surveillance in the coming years and there is going to be lots of discussion about rights and precedent.

And these are handy facts to memorize are they? Huh?

[Sitnam]

Constellations
Explorers
Types of sailing ships

[Ruminator]

I memorized the military phonetic alphabet even though I've never been in the military. This has come in handy countless times on phone calls to help spell out difficult words.


I memorized some of the metric to English conversions.

25.4 mm per inch
1.6 km per mile
2.2 pounds per kilo

For some reason, I do these conversions every week even though I'm not a lab scientist.

[RandMcnally]

Originally Posted by Ruminator

I memorized the military phonetic alphabet even though I've never been in the military. This has come in handy countless times on phone calls to help spell out difficult words.

I second this one. My bank caters to military (USAA), so it is really helpful that the phone tellers all know the alphabet. Makes things so much easier than going "D-as in David."

[Ruminator]

Originally Posted by RandMcnally

I second this one. My bank caters to military (USAA), so it is really helpful that the phone tellers all know the alphabet. Makes things so much easier than going "D-as in David."

I'm actually more tickled that I was able to teach it to other non-military folks vs just learning it myself.

How do we practice? Everytime we sit at a red light behind another car, I ask the passenger (my student) to "sound" out the license plates using the phonetic alphabet. After about a month, they're certified. The learning is painless (you're stuck in traffic anyway) and can be a fun thing to teach your kids. They can use it for the rest of their lives.

[RandMcnally]

Originally Posted by Ruminator

I'm actually more tickled that I was able to teach it to other non-military folks vs just learning it myself.

How do we practice? Everytime we sit at a red light behind another car, I ask the passenger (my student) to "sound" out the license plates using the phonetic alphabet. After about a month, they're certified. The learning is painless (you're stuck in traffic anyway) and can be a fun thing to teach your kids. They can use it for the rest of their lives.

That's how I got fairly quick at my fingerspelling in American Sign Language. Just while sitting there pick out a word and just start spelling. Nothing else to do.

To the OP: American Sign alphabet. It isn't hard and with it you can talk to a deaf person. It'd take a long time, but it would be possible.

As to the phonetic alphabet, I learn while in Basic. We were waiting for something (I don't remember what, but it was insanely important for us to go there so we can wait) and I had a little booklet and was bored, so I just stared at it until I got all of them.

[missred]

Like the OP, multiplication tables through X12 has served me well.

I can still rattle off the fifty US stated and their capitols mumblety-mumblety years after learning them in the fifth grade (and I can still place them on a blank map).

I can recite the rhymes used for memorizing the notes on the treble clef, learned when I began piano lessons as a child. I also learned the child's verse Thirty Days Hath September set to music in those lessons. Makes it easy to figure out if your bills are due in four or five days.

Probably the one that I use the most though, is the QWERTY keyboard. As an AP student in high school, back in the days before PCs, we were only permitted to take one semester of typing. Our typing instructor, in all of her wisdom as a first year teacher, told us that we likely wouldn't use our new skill once our last term paper was typed in college. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

[Skammer]

From last week's 30 Rock:

Jack: Hmmmm... Look. On the 30th, she took flight 1470 to RSW, and he left the next day for CVG. They have to be different cities.
Kenneth: Uh, Fort Myers and Cincinnati. Did you not learn your nation's airport codes in high school?

[jjimm]

I once memorized pi to 30 decimal places.

Here ya go, from memory: 3.141592653589793238462643383279

You wouldn't believe the number of chicks I've picked up with that little trick.

SPOILER:

Sadly, it's an imaginary number, not an irrational one.

[RainGrowsBrite]

Originally Posted by Skammer

From last week's 30 Rock:

Jack: Hmmmm... Look. On the 30th, she took flight 1470 to RSW, and he left the next day for CVG. They have to be different cities.
Kenneth: Uh, Fort Myers and Cincinnati. Did you not learn your nation's airport codes in high school?

That was hysterical! Kenneth is the best!

[dangermom]

The seven hills of Rome!
The Nine Worthies!
Stuff in Latin or Greek
Jabberwocky
In Flanders Fields
I have a whole set of science rules on cards.
Forms of be

I make my kids memorize all kinds of things.

[GameHat]

rote memorization has been unfairly devalued these last two decades or so.

As an engineer, I am IMMENSELY grateful I had a crusty old third grade teacher that thought it not only necessary but essential that we get the multiplication table imprinted on our brains.

He was ingenious about this. Once a week, he would pass out a worksheet. 10x10. Each cell had a different product (3x4, maybe. 5x6. 9x8. All permutations of the decimal multiplication table.)

He made it very clear - you will flunk if you can't manage to complete a full worksheet within five minutes by the end of the year. He started the first week of class - try this, then you need to get better.

If you can complete an entire sheet, try 2 sheets within 5 minutes. Then 3. Then as many as you can do. Every week, there's a prize (usually was a piece of candy) for every sheet beyond what you could do for the last week, plus the person with the most (corrected for correct answers) gets to be first in line to go to lunch.

Worked like a fucking charm. We all felt like competing. I remember my best friend and I working like madmen(children?) to beat each other. And to this day I can still spit out any product of (1-9)x(1-9) without even a thought. Very helpful as an engineer.

I just wish my teacher had extended it to (1-12)x(1-12).

[Taomist]

Originally Posted by EpicNonsense

Hahaha.. It's a fun party trick, but that's about all.

No it's not! It's also a great way to extend bedtime when you're little and showing off your letters!

[drachillix]

Originally Posted by GameHat

I just wish my teacher had extended it to (1-12)x(1-12).

I worked in a warehousing environment where ALOT of the product was in carton counts of 24, 48, 72, or 96. Many of my coworkers would stand in awe that I must be some kind of uber-genius when they drawled out "12 boxes of 72 is......" and I quipped "864" before they put their pencil to whaever they were about to doodle out the answer on. People would ask how I did it...I replied "What? You don't know your 72 times tables?"

Then again, compared to most of them, I was an uber-genius.

[GameHat]

Originally Posted by drachillix

I worked in a warehousing environment where ALOT of the product was in carton counts of 24, 48, 72, or 96. Many of my coworkers would stand in awe that I must be some kind of uber-genius when they drawled out "12 boxes of 72 is......" and I quipped "864" before they put their pencil to whaever they were about to doodle out the answer on. People would ask how I did it...I replied "What? You don't know your 72 times tables?"

Then again, compared to most of them, I was an uber-genius.

Well, for what it's worth I can now do calculations of ppm without thinking on large scale industrial batches

250 ppm on a 40,000 lb batch? That's 10 lbs! Aren't you even trying?!

[Sitnam]

The hierarchy of biological classification's eight major taxonomic ranks.

A Human is: Animalia, Chordata, Mammalia, Primates, Hominidae, Homininae, Hominini, Homo, H. sapiens

[Desert Nomad]

One should be able to say one or two mildly intelligent things about every country in the world... such as: Location, neighbors, capital city, flag, major export, population, dominant religion, affiliation with major international organizations etc.

Not all of the above list for every country, but at least *something*.

[SciFiSam]

When I was learning German I learnt the definite articles by rote, just repeating them to myself as I walked around doing the housework. Der die das die, den die das die, des der des der, dem der dem den. (Imagine a table with the genders listed vertically and the cases horizontally).

I also learnt all the British monarchs in order because I had a ruler with them on.

The military alphabet is dead easy because there's a logic to it - they're all words which don't sound like any other common English words and there are several themes and pairs (boys' names, Romeo and Juliet, dances, etc).

[Gagundathar]

I was taught the multiplication tables up to 12, and weirdly the 48 commonly used prepositions.
The first comes in handy almost every day, the second rarely if ever.

And I just looked online for a list and found that my memorized list is incomplete.

I doubt that my 7th grade English teacher ever used the preposition 'athwart'.
In fact, I am almost certain I have never used it myself.

[Ignatz]

I also learned the multiplication tables thru 12x12
phonetic alphabet (had to, in the navy)
Declaration of Independence
Gettysburg Address
the alphabetic streets crossing Beacon Street in Boston's Back Bay (while commuting to college and work): Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, Hereford (thereafter the alpha order ends, with Mass. Ave. and Kenmore Square). I know, TMI.
The U.S. presidents (last names only) in chronologic order (the more recent ones escape me sometimes)
The first two above have been useful, the last one only when watching game shows or in xword puzzles, or to try to impress the chicks or cow-orkers (didn't work).

I'm sure there are others, but I fergit.

[minor7flat5]

As a child I was interested in codes and ciphers and I read every stale old book on the subject in my public library and school library.

In the process, I managed to memorize the English alphabet in order of frequency (at least as it was in some old 1950s-era book):

etaonrishdlfcmugypwbvkxjqz

Never had the opportunity to use it for cracking a simple substitution cipher.

[Munch]

Originally Posted by Leaffan

And these are handy facts to memorize are they?

Yes.

[Sternvogel]

Originally Posted by Gagundathar

I was taught ... the 48 commonly used prepositions.

And I just looked online for a list and found that my memorized list is incomplete.

I doubt that my 7th grade English teacher ever used the preposition 'athwart'.
In fact, I am almost certain I have never used it myself.

I learned an even less complete list than you. From memory of seventh grade English:

about
above
across
against
along
among
around
at

before
behind
below
beside
between
beyond
but
by

down
during
except
for
from
in
into

like
near
of
off
on
over

since
through
till
to
toward

under
until
up
upon
with

That's only 39, but I see that "beneath" and 'underneath" are missing, along with "athwart". What else?

To the many suggestions I've seen in this thread, I add one I've tried but never mastered: The chemical elements and their symbols in alphabetical and/or periodic table order. Oh, and all the teams and their nicknames in major collegiate athletic conferences, which I have periodically mastered, only to have the alignment change slightly with each new season...

[figure9]

Its good to memorize your SSN and a credit card number.

[drachillix]

Originally Posted by GameHat

Well, for what it's worth I can now do calculations of ppm without thinking on large scale industrial batches

250 ppm on a 40,000 lb batch? That's 10 lbs! Aren't you even trying?!

Uh...shit...you win.

[T. Slothrop]

Originally posted by Ruminator :
"I memorized some of the metric to English conversions.
. . .
2.2 pounds per kilo. . ."

I had a teacher from Japan. I don't remember what class. He used the word "kilo" and knew that none of us would understand what that was, so he said: "that's about two pounds."

But all of us were children of the '60's' and accustomed to dope measurements.

All of us corrected him in unison: "two point two pounds."

Jon

[cmyk]

Decimal equivalents for common fractions:

7/8 = .875
3/4 = .75
5/8 = .625
1/2 = .5
3/8 = .375
1/4 = .25
1/8 = .125
1/16 = .0625
1/32 = .03125

You get those in your head, you'll be good for any kind of graphic design/print work. But it applies generally to life in the states every so often. Why oh why didn't we convert to metric?


Others:

The planets in the solar system and their relative size and distances (bonus points for knowing their moons). Also, being able to spot the 5 or so planets you can see with the naked eye, and knowing just from its brightness which one it is.

The path the sun traces in your local sky for any approximate time of year. Helps you guess at the time of day, and determine which way is north, south, east, west.

Major constellations and stars (and what time of the year they're visible).

Military time. (I know it's easy, but most people have to stop and subtract by 12.)

Dates of minor holidays.

How many days in each month (I'm bewildered how many people haven't memorized this).

Your SS#, driver's license # and license plate.

[Indistinguishable]

Hm. A lot of these don't seem particularly useful to memorize to me; for many of them, in a world of increasingly-ubiquitous Internet access and concomitant near-instant lookup, it seems like one can get by fine and indeed more productively without wasting time worrying about manual memorization. Could people perhaps explain specifically why their proposals are good ones for memorization?

[Maiira]

Names of bones. Not only that, but the ability to pick up a minuscule fragment and be able to identify not only the bone, but the region (anterior, posterior, proximal, distal, etc.), and the side it came from. When you're working forensics and trying to identify/analyze a skeletonized body, you don't want to have to be looking up every single bone you come across. Useful for me because of my background in physical anthropology.

I actually think just about any medical facts (like names of bones or common medical prefixes and suffixes) would be useful if just because if you end up getting some sort of disease or injury, then you have some idea of what's going on in your body.

[Munch]

Originally Posted by Indistinguishable

Could people perhaps explain specifically why their proposals are good ones for memorization?

Which ones? Most of everything posted is something useful to have passing knowledge of so that you can hold an intelligent conversation on a variety of subjects without having to stop and look something up on the internet.

[Crowbar of Irony +3]

The progression of binary numbers from 4 bits to 8 bits (at the very least for programmers)
Color codes (RGB and CMYK and etc.), if you are a digital graphics designer

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by scifisam2009

When I was learning German I learnt the definite articles by rote, just repeating them to myself as I walked around doing the housework. Der die das die, den die das die, des der des der, dem der dem den. (Imagine a table with the genders listed vertically and the cases horizontally).

I did that for my Latin cases. I can still sing-song the first three at you : Rosarosarosam, rosaerosaerosa, rosaerosaerosas, rosarumrosisrosis ! Hortushortehortum...you get the picture..

The problem is, should I want to know what, say, the genitive plural of the first declension is, I had (and have) to sing all the cases prior to that one, because I learned them all in one bulk rather than individually .

I also had the 1-12 times and addition tables drilled into me by a grandmother positively SCAN-DA-LIZED they didn't do it at school. Boy, did I hate her at the time. Other grandma crimes against Sunday cartoons and fun in general : English and German irregular verbs, French history dates, regions and departments (plus the area code and the main town), European countries & capital cities.
I was spared the weights, measures, trig and log tables though : grandma sucked at science

[Rodgers01]

Originally Posted by Indistinguishable

Hm. A lot of these don't seem particularly useful to memorize to me; for many of them, in a world of increasingly-ubiquitous Internet access and concomitant near-instant lookup, it seems like one can get by fine and indeed more productively without wasting time worrying about manual memorization. Could people perhaps explain specifically why their proposals are good ones for memorization?

Until the day when computers are literally hooked up directly to our brain, a lot of these things are just going to be handy to memorize. Yes, I have my cellphone on me almost all the time, and if I wanted to do some quick arithmetic I could pull it out, find the calculator function, and punch in 12x7. For the time being, however, it's still a lot easier to just know, instantly, that the answer is 84.

Some of these things are just part of being culturally literate. If you're reading a book and it mentions something about, say, Oslo, you could put the book down, go to your computer and find out where and what Oslo is. If you've committed country capitals to memory, on the other hand, you'll know that Oslo is in Norway, and at least have some idea what it's all about. You'll probably enjoy the book more for it.

[Shalmanese]

We were taught the first 20 elements of the periodic table as a rhyme in grade 9 and I can still roll it off: H Heli Beb CNOF Ne Nam Gal Sips Clark-A

The list of most common letters that I was taught was etaoin shrldum. Useful for playing hangman.

If you're in a technology industry, the ability to do basic math in powers of two also come in handy. You should have the decimal equivalents of 2^(0-8, 10, 12, 16, 20, 24, 32) memorized at the very least.