# Lingering habits/bits of knowledge(?) -- M T W R F S U **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 9, 2023, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316 "2023-10-09T14:57:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/81 "2023-10-11T02:34:22Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > My grade (elementary, K-6) school used E for excellent, G for good, and F for fair. (I don’t remember what they used for “flunking”, though that’s probably what I got in gym class.) Mine did too! Flunking was “U” (unsatisfactory). This was Chicago in the 1960s. I don’t know if Chicago still uses that system. A lot of kids who came home with an “F” had to work hard to convince their parents who grew up elsewhere that they had not failed the class. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/82 "2023-10-11T06:29:01Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > We never used letter codes for school, because we had a six day schedule: Day 1, Day 2, etc. We had that at middle school. It was confusing at first, because this Tuesday will be Day 3, and in a few weeks, Tuesday will be Day 5. But we all got used to it eventually. High school was the same schedule of classes every day, so it was easy to learn. Then, university, which used “MTWRF.” > [@LSLGuy](#): > > For me one of the biggies was 24-hour (so called “military”) time. Knew of it growing up, but didn’t use it in day to day use, nor did my parents. … I recall all of us being confused as anything when our grade 5 French teacher tried to teach us how to tell time in French. Because the French use the 24-hour clock. “Quatorze-vingt” translates to “Fourteen-twenty.” To us ten-year-old kids, it made no sense. Why didn’t the French just use “deux-vingt” (“two-twenty”) like we did in English? But they didn’t so we learned it for the test, but it never really stuck. Until later years, when I learned to drive a truck, and then it all made sense. I learned it with a vengeance, and it came in handy, especially when doing night runs and explaining estimated times of arrival and departure (ETAs/ETDs) on the radio: “ETA Ottawa 2345, ETD Ottawa 0025.” I still use it today, in appropriate situations. One other thing I learned in those days was the military alphabet: A is Alpha, B is Bravo, C is Charlie, and so on. It comes in handy, even with those unfamiliar with it: “I spell my name S as in Sierra, P as in Papa, O as in Oscar,” and so on. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/83 "2023-10-11T12:10:20Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > Mine did too! Flunking was “U” (unsatisfactory). This was Chicago in the 1960s. I don’t know if Chicago still uses that system. My Chicago Catholic grammar school in the 80s used A-D and then U instead of an F. (Though we didn’t have letter grades until 3rd grade. In K, 1st and 2nd, it was + for excellent, o for satisfactory, and a checkmark for needs improvement.) In Catholic high school, it was ABCDF. The public schools then (and now, from what I can tell – hell I have a daughter in the public school system and I had to look this up) use ABCDF. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/84 "2023-10-11T14:27:17Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Rather the “What oddities did you learn long ago and and still stick with today against the odds?” Mine is also military-related. (Funny how this seems to be a recurring theme in “what did you learn that you can’t seem to unlearn, no matter how wierd it is?”) The NATO standard phonetic alphabet is mine. If I have to spell something out over a voice communication, I always revert to this. I find it odd when someone who doesn’t know some standard phonetic alphabet has to think about what words to use for the different letters. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/85 "2023-10-11T15:09:42Z")
Good luck finding Millennials that can read cursive or a analog clock face. That information is rarely taught anymore. Same thing with a slide rule or a carpenters framing square. I’m especially shocked that many younger people never memorized the multiplication tables or π. I am familiar with R for Thursday. My class schedule in college used it. Never knew about U for Sunday. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/86 "2023-10-11T15:49:46Z")
My kids are Gen Alpha, both under 10, and both know how to read a clock and cursive. I did not teach them. They learned in class and on YouTube, I believe. I highly doubt Millennials as a whole can’t do that. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/87 "2023-10-11T15:56:00Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Not me. But many of my older coworkers still insert two spaces between sentences. It’s muscle memory, and hard to shake. They changed our door code a month ago and my fingers still try to punch in the old one. I have to mentally recite the new code to myself as I punch it in. Deprogramming takes time. Going against the muscle memory also takes time. I’ve spent time typing while thinking “one space - one space”, but thinking about it makes typing slower, so usually I don’t think about it. I really can’t say whether I’ve dropped the habit or not. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/88 "2023-10-11T16:25:34Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I’m especially shocked that many younger people never memorized the multiplication tables or π. I’m amused at the thought that people used to memorize pi (all of it). ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/89 "2023-10-11T16:42:06Z")
I learned pi to 5 decimal places. 3.14159. IIRC that’s what our textbooks required. I remember Pi as consecutive numbers. 14 15 and 9. Also 4 +5 =9. Makes it easy to remember. That’s worked for me since 1970. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/90 "2023-10-11T17:22:59Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I still use a weird cursive F that I was taught in grade school, but haven’t seen anybody else use in years, and can’t these days usually even find an example of online. I bet they also taught you to write a “Q” that looked like a numeral 2. In one of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels, a historian mentions that the letter F “reversed itself 2000 years ago”. When I think of how I was taught to write cursive, I’d say the reversal might have begun a lot sooner than that, considering that cursive writing was considerably less moribund at the time the book was published. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/91 "2023-10-11T17:29:25Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Good luck finding Millennials that can read cursive or a analog clock face. Millennial here. I learned both of these in school. We’re teaching my son both digital and analog time. I enjoy the aesthetics of an analog clock. I can read and write cursive no problem, but it’s not really a useful skill any more. Print is fine for my grocery and to-do lists. I’m not exactly sending off lengthy missives to distant relatives through snail mail. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/92 "2023-10-11T17:30:11Z")
Maybe this isn’t so much a bit of knowledge as a handy trick I used, at a time when I was so young I still wasn’t sure which way all the letters were supposed to face. When it came to the letter Z, I realized that in the Zenith TV logo, the bottom leg of the Z extended under all the other letters in the word, so it was obvious. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/93 "2023-10-11T17:43:41Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’m amused at the thought that people used to memorize pi (all of it). I never learned it beyond 3.14. I didn’t get far enough in math to need to; and I think most people who memorized a lot of digits (or do now, for that matter) were doing it for the fun of it, to have a trick that they knew how to do. And I don’t believe it’s possible to memorize all of pi. > [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I bet they also taught you to write a “Q” that looked like a numeral 2. I don’t remember for sure, but I don’t think so. I just tried to write a capital cursive Q without thinking about it, and I wrote a two-strokes-needed version that looks a whole lot like the one I just typed. On the other hand, it’s somewhere around 60 years or so now since I was taught cursive, so maybe I just changed Q’s somewhere along the line but not F’s. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/94 "2023-10-11T17:52:02Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And I don’t believe it’s possible to memorize all of pi. Nope. Since it’s a transcendental number with an infinite digit expansion in any root besides π. There is no “all of pi” other than to use the constant itself. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/95 "2023-10-11T17:54:53Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And I don’t believe it’s possible to memorize all of pi. How much time ya got? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/96 "2023-10-11T17:59:23Z")
Writing rapidly and comfortably for an extended period of time is an essential skill for people who need to do a lot more than prepare grocery lists. (Students/scholars, writers, businesspeople, some lawyers, etc.) I think it is silly to dwell on the exact _style_ except teachers have to pick _some_ model in first grade which no one ends up emulating slavishly anyway. Incidentally, here is an image of the official NASA Ingenuity Mars helicopter pilot’s logbook. Note the amount of high-tech computerization: [![](https://mars.nasa.gov/system/resources/detail_files/26133_PIA24794-web.jpg) ](https://mars.nasa.gov/system/resources/detail_files/26133_PIA24794-web.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/97 "2023-10-11T18:01:58Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Writing rapidly and comfortably for an extended period of time is an essential skill for people who need to do a lot more than prepare grocery lists. Yeah, before computers, I wrote entire novels in print. Not cursive. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/98 "2023-10-11T18:09:02Z")
I just remember that the reciprocal of \pi is \frac{\sqrt{100005}}{4270934400} \sum\_{k=0}^{\infty} \frac{(6q)!(13591409+545140134 k)}{(3k)!(k!)^3(-640320)^{3k}} It’s as simple as that. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/99 "2023-10-11T18:12:09Z")
How about computing square roots (let alone cube roots!!) via long division? I mean, one can do it (though how often is it taught anymore except for fun?), but it just does not seem _practical_ (you’d be better off memorizing the table of logarithms like Gauss). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316/100 "2023-10-11T19:57:08Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Incidentally, here is an image of the official NASA Ingenuity Mars helicopter pilot’s logbook. Note the amount of high-tech computerization: A close look at that image shows some of the columns are very much the standard stuff you might find in a terrestrial pilot’s logbook and are inapplicable to the Ingenuity helo. While others are definitely customized for the Mars mission. It’s clearly custom-designed & custom-printed. Which is certainly within NASA’s budget even if it is a bit silly. But if they’re doing a custom job, why include irrelevant columns? I wonder if the pic is real, or the pic is what’s been “custom made” in e.g. Photoshop? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lingering-habits-bits-of-knowledge-m-t-w-r-f-s-u/991316.md?page=6)