Whoops, forgot another one of my own genius mnemonics:
“Friends, Patriots Or Saints Elicit the News, Viewing Mom and Pop Making Love in Zoos”–the bones of the skull.
…now how in hell did I remember THAT all these years??
To calculate either distance or size when viewing through artillery field glasses with mill gradations:
WORM:
Width
---------- (Over)
Range X Mills
To identify the functions of the parts of the cambrian ring:
Xylem Up and Floem Down.
Red Right Returning from the sea:
Navigation buoys are red on the right and green (originally black) on the left when going upstream (presumably from the ocean).
LEO the lion says GR.
(Less electrons=oxidation, Greater=reduction)
A Boy Has Never Wept Nor Dashed A Thousand Kim:
Asmodeus Belial Hastur Nyarlathotep Wotan Niggurath Dholes Azathoth Tind-alos Kadith.
(Be lost without that one.)
I’ve got another one for trig rules, which goes Oscar Had A Heap Of Apples (you’ve just got to remember that the order is sin, cos, tan).
Another favorite of mine is:
‘Basmo-q, three n’s and a p’, which is just fun to say, and gives us the Canadian provinces (in order from west to east): British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
In our school it was the far more pedestrian: Kentuckians Park Cars On Freeways Going South.
That must’ve been the toughest thing I was ever required to memorize, since I’ve never heard of any of the others - planets included! (I do know “FOIL” but that doesn’t really count.)
Anyone know any good mnemonics of the “mental image” variety? My Psych teacher, way back in my freshman year of college (1990), told us a story about him working on his Ford in the garage, and it rolled away from him because he didn’t have the brake on and he had to run after it. To this day, whenever I happen to think about that guy, that mental image comes to mind and I remember his name was Mr. Ransford.
Rod
And for the functions of these nerves (M=motor, S=sensory, B=both):
Some Say Marry Money But My Brother Says Bigger Boobs Matter More
Downtown Seattle navigation: Between the Space Needle and Pioneer Square, there are two East-West streets (The North-South streets are numbered) that begin with the letter J, followed by two that begin with the letter C, followed by two that begin with the letter M, S, U, and P, in that order. If you’re on foot and you’re lost, just keep this phrase in mind: Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Pressure.
The Knuckle Calendar: Forget how many days are in this month, and could never keep track of the “Thirty Days Hath September” routine? Make a fist, and look at the four knockles on top (and the three spaces between them). The first knuckle is January, the space next to it is February, March (knuckle), April (space), May (knuckle), June (space), July (Knuckle). You’re out of knuckles, so go back to the first one: August (Knuckle), September (space), October (Knuckle), November (Space), December (knuckle). All the knuckles have 31 days, all the spaces have 30 or fewer (Track February on your own).
We always said Fanny Clark Goes Down and Eats Beans.
It didn’t really work the other way round, but it came close enough that we found it amusing as kids:
Beans Eat, And Down Goes Clark’s Fanny.
All right, here is my secret, extremely silly Magic Sentence which organizes all the Presidents up to Kennedy, after which you’re on your own. I actually use this frequently:
When a joke made me a joker, Van had to poke the fiery poker but let jokes go. Hastily galloping across country, Harry cleverly* made ready to watch his cool horse run to eastern Kansas.
*Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms.
My all time favorite is for those pesky cave formations:
When the mites (ants) go up, the tights (pants) go down.
You need a MNEMONIC to remember North, South, East, West?
Geez!
I can never remember a mnemonic unless it rhymes or it’s dirty. Or both. This one has saved my ass a couple of times during an autopsy. It’s the initials of the branches of the external carotid artery:
As Ascending thyroid artery
She Superficial thyroid artery
Lay Lingual artery
Fucking, Facial artery
Oliver, Occipital artery
Panting, Posterior auricular artery
Madly Maxillary artery
Squirted! Superior temporal artery
Believe it or not, that one enabled me to solve a case when I was brand new, and under the gun.
I always found it pretty easy to remember that stalactites grow from the ceiling while stalagmites grow from the ground.
I always used 30 days has September. The way I know how many days Feb. has is this: in presidential election years it has an extra day so the politicians have more time to talk.
Tom, moreover, stalac tites stick tite to the ceiling; stala g mites, being on the ground, mite, if only they could.
That might be a bit much, but it’s always served me well. Some of us thrive on double-thinks.
Oh, and I don’t think anyone’s mentioned San Mateo Horses Eat Oats for the Great Lakes yet.
:smack:
All my life I have had to figure out if the year is divisible by 4 (but not 400, except in 2000) to know if it’s Leap Year. It never once occured to me that Leap Years coincide with presidential election years. I say again, :smack:.
Hee hee! Don’t feel bad. It took me 35 of my 41 years to figure it out…