Planets: Mother Very Easily Made Jelly Sandwiches Under No Pressure
Great Lakes (in order from W to E): She Made Harry Eat Onions
There’s Righty tighty, Lefty loosie.
And from Scooby Doo of all places, how I remember the difference between cave formations: “Stalagmites hold tight, but stalactites might.” (Stalagmites hold tight to the cave floor-grow upwards- while stalactites might fall from the ceiling-grow downwards.)
According to Bart Simpson, those are the original Provinces of Canada (Quebec, New Brunswick, Ontario, Nova Scotia). Don’t know enough about Canadian history to verify it, though.
Digits of Pi: Gee, I Wish I Could Calculate Pi Easily.
The number of letters in each word is a digit of pi. You can go a bit further, but the rest of the mnemonic isn’t very good. It’s something like: “Gee, I wish I could calculate Pi Easily, Homer did say, and if abominable snowmen…” and I forget the rest. It gets a bit strange - a friend and I had to make up a mnemonic to remember it in maths class when we were much younger and we rather gave up making it memorable after the first bit.
The version I grew up with is even less PC, and thus apparently even older:
Black Boys Rape Our Young Girls Behind Victory Garden Walls.
Crude yes, but it removes all doubt of which “B” is black and which is brown. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do anything to help with which is “G” is green or gray.
Have seven extra digits on me: “How I Need A Drink, (Alcoholic, Of Course,) After The Heavy Lectures Of Quantum Mechanics.”
For the order of the planets, I’ve always relied on “Many Villians Earn Money Just Stealing Uncle’s Necktie Pins.”
(And in my favourite alternate universe, “Mother Very Easily Made JAM Sandwiches Using No Peanutbutter, Mayonnaise, or Glue.”)
For plant nutrients: “See Hopkin’s Cafe? Mighty Good!” (C, H, O, P, K, N, S, Ca, Fe, Mg)
Works best for growing fava beans, of course.
My favourites, though are the entirely personal ones.
I tend to remember phone numbers with completely idiomatic memnomic tricks, like “Lithuanian Lunar Jedi.”
Hey, that reminds me, I ought to call her today.
But there’s still plenty of room for confusion. All the “black” boys I know have Brown Behinds. (Sorry.)
You’re right, reviewing it in my head I say “1828” when on autopilot but my Mnemonic is “Columbus”. Now I got to find out what sea voyage took place in 1828 or if Columbus did something significant in that year.
