# Handy sets of facts to memorize **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 19, 2010, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548 "2010-01-19T11:38:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/21 "2010-01-20T19:53:09Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/22 "2010-01-20T20:00:30Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/23 "2010-01-20T20:09:30Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/24 "2010-01-20T20:25:27Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/25 "2010-01-20T20:47:55Z")
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. Sadly, it’s an imaginary number, not an irrational one. ---
**Author:** ![RainGrowsBrite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@RainGrowsBrite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RainGrowsBrite)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/26 "2010-01-21T00:36:19Z")
> [@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! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/27 "2010-01-21T03:51:51Z")
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. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/28 "2010-01-21T06:08:40Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/29 "2010-01-21T06:19:20Z")
> [@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! ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/30 "2010-01-21T06:25:13Z")
> [@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. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/31 "2010-01-21T06:50:35Z")
> [@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?! ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/32 "2010-01-21T20:59:07Z")
The hierarchy of biological classification’s eight major taxonomic ranks. A Human is: Animalia, Chordata, Mammalia, Primates, Hominidae, Homininae, Hominini, Homo, H. sapiens ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/33 "2010-01-21T21:49:40Z")
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_. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/34 "2010-01-21T21:49:50Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2010, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/35 "2010-01-21T22:52:55Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/36 "2010-01-22T03:58:28Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/37 "2010-01-22T12:35:50Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/38 "2010-01-22T16:29:54Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > And these are handy facts to memorize are they? Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/39 "2010-01-22T16:30:12Z")
> [@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… ---
**Author:** ![figure9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@figure9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/figure9)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2010, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548/40 "2010-01-23T01:01:18Z")
Its good to memorize your SSN and a credit card number. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/handy-sets-of-facts-to-memorize/525548.md?page=3)