I read a reference to the political left and I had to reach for my handy-dandy mnemonic device to remember that the “left” is “liberal”.
“Looney, Lefty, Liberal” is my “device”, I always picture a Bloom County panel where Opus had been labeled (literally) after espousing some political view.
I’ve got bunches of mnemonic devices, most slip my brain right now.
I can do the value of “e” (base of the natural logarithm) as 2.7 1828 1828 45 90 45
“2.7” (brute memorization)
1828 is “Andrew Jackson squared”
45-90-45 are the angles in a right triangle.
I can’t spell “together” without having the back of my brain whisper my 2nd grade teacher, “To Get Her”.
Color codes for electrical resistors is, “Black boys rape our young girls but Violet gave willingly.” (non-PC I know but I learned this 20 years ago in a less sensitive time).
Others will probably percolate to my brain’s surface after I post but I will admit to a teflon-coated brain and therefore the necessity for mnemonic devices.
I can never remember that whole “thirty days hath September blah blah blah” so here’s mine.
Make a fist. Count the months starting with “January” on the knuckle of your index finger, “February” on the trough between the index and middle fiddle knuckles, and so on. When you hit the pinky knuckle (July), wrap back to the index knuckle again for August.
Counting this way, a month landing on a knuckle has 31 days. A month between knuckles has 30. Or 28/29 for february, you still have to remember leap years manually.
I was taught “King Phillip came over for great sex”
The planets are something about my mother and very excellent… I dunno. Obviously that one didn’t stick.
On the other hand, for weeks last year I was trying to remember what “Please excuse my dear aunt Sally” was supposed to be helping me to remember. (It’s the order of operations.)
The only one I still retain is “Super Man Helps Every One” for the Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario).
My wife has this bizarre system to remember all of the U.S. presidents in order that associates different objects with each one and then places all of the objects in different contexts. So part of the sequence uses objects in an imaginary room, or parts of the body. The thing that gets me is that it goes on for so long.
There’s “righty tighty lefty loosey” for remembering which way to turn the faucet handle or wrench or screwdriver. Also, “clockwise closed.”
The order of the colors in a rainbow: Roy G. Biv or vibgyor
All sorts of ones for the musical staff!
Notes on the lines on the trebel clef:
Every Good Boy Does Fine
(Maybe that’s the version in WV, where I grew up. I’ve also heard it as “deserves favor.”)
For the key signatures represented by the number of sharps and flats:
Sharps – God destroyed all earth by fire, Charles
Flats – Fat boys eat apple dumplings. Girls cook.
It’s occasionally useful to remember that port is left, with a red light, and starboard is right, with a green light. Without this handy mnemonic, I’d never be able to keep 'em straight:
The word “port” has four letters, as does the word “left.” Port wine is red.
To go along with the cranial nerve mnemonic: Some Say Marry Money. But My Brother Says Better Borrow More Money, for remembering which nerves are sensory, motor, or both.
For geologic periods and epochs: Camels Often Sit Down Carefully, Paul: Their Joints Creak. Perhaps Early Oiling Might Prevent Permanent Rheumatism.
My 9th grade chem teacher taught us this about the first two periods of the periodic table: Harry, He Likes Bitter Beer. Cold, Not Over Frothy. You have to pretend beryllium starts with “bi” for it to work, but it does the job. Or I guess you could change it to “better beer” but that makes less sense.
He had another one for the third period about Naughty Maggie or something, but I forget.
A similar one I heard was “Mother very thoughtfully made a jelly sandwich under no protest.” (Mercury, Venus, Terra, Mars, (asteroid belt), Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto)