I know some of these lists by heart, others not so much. Ones I really do recite are the U.S presidents.
True, but that’s because an ace high straight flush is a royal flush by definition. The spade royal flush and the diamond royal, etc. flush tie. Suits are not ranked in standard poker rules.
I know all the US states but I don’t think of it as a list. I name them by imagining a map of the US in my head and name them geographically.
I know the planets and I know the mnemonic, (Many very eminent men are justly satisfied using novelty paper clips (a = Asteroids c = comets), but I just remember the planets.
The only mnemonic I can think of that I use is for the star class order “Oh be a fine girl kiss me.”
I know the planets too. There aren’t that many to remember, and I didn’t find it difficult.
I could list all the instruments in an orchestra (though that list can vary.)
I know George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words. Does that count?
I learned to read music in third grade.
treble clef notes
FACE
Elephants Get Big Dirty Feet
notes in the spaces are F A C E the notes on the lines are EGBDF
for the bass clef
All Cows Eat Grass (ACEG notes in the spaces)
Grizzly Bears Don’t Fly Airplanes (notes on the lines)
I was going to say “None (that’s what we have the Internet for)”, but I guess technically I do know the alphabet, SOHCAHTOA, and the days of the week. I still get the months wrong every once in a while, so I think I can continue to reference the Internet on that one.
But in general, I’m not a fan of trivia. I can tell you all of the hows and whys of history but rarely a when, who, or where.
“Fifty Nifty”? Grade school. I can still sing all the states in order.
I know the planets. Also, “King Philip Crossed Over From Germany Stoned.” (Biological classification–8th-grade biology teacher.)
I’ve been binging a bit on Roman history recently, and I can now reel off one hundred Roman emperors in a row, from Augustus to the Byzantine emperor Heraclius.
(Yes, in a few cases who counts as a proper emperor depends on who you ask. I settled on a nice way of counting them which gives me fifty for the Principate and fifty for the Dominate, which makes Heraclius the perfect arbitrary cut-off point to stop remembering them all.)
It’s the most useless party trick ever, though, next to solving a Rubik’s cube. Once you start with it, people just leave the room. Although maybe it’ll be useful for a pub quiz some day.
In 8th grade, I learned the 55 counties in West Virginia in a song to the tune of “Sing a Song of Sixpence.” “Barbour, Berkley, Braxton, Brooke, Calhoun and Boone; Cabell, Clay and Doddridge, Fayette just in tune…” I could go on, but I won’t.
I know a couple of mnemonics:
Tuning of guitar strings, bottom to top: Easter bunny gets drunk after Easter.
Spectral classification of stars: Oh, be a fine girl, kiss me lovingly (that one is particularly pointless for me, since it’s literally the only thing I know about the spectral characteristics of stars, I have absolutely no context for it, and zero understanding of the subject).
Let’s see :
Notes ( “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” )
Geologic era’s ( Hadean, Archean, etc. ) and a few of the more notable periods ( Devonian, Cretaceous, etc. ) were learned in first year geology class.
When I was in junior high school, I learned to name all the state in alphabetical order – by that time I already knew their capitals. I find the easiest lists to memorize are alphabetical. In a half an hour, I can memorize a list of up to 100 items alphabetically. I used to do lists of counties in states, and to this day, I could probably name most in the states I learned, including some I lived in with over 100 counties, like Kansas and Missouri.
I can tell you who played and won every World Series from 1938 to the present, but after about 1990, I start to get mixed up, because I was out of the country a lot. In most cases, I can describe a few key plays in that series.
I learned all the kings and queens of England once. I keep trying to learn US presidents, but the list doesn’t stick with me. Ii can name all the countries on every continent, but not in any order, I just have to go around a mental map and fill them in.
They must have changed the spectral classification of stars, the one I learned was Oh be a fine girl, kiss me right now–slap,
VERY familiar with the BoL and its two sequels (I think they came out with an updated version in the past decade, but it was largely a rehash of the first three books). Also loved their The People’s Almanac, which I found superior due to its increased wordiness.
The most irritating thing about the BoL to my 12yo self was the constant, never-ending references to Napoleon. I had no idea why this drove me crazy, but it did. “12 famous body parts”… Napoleon (his dick, apparently). “People I’d have over for dinner”… Napoleon. “Famous Families”… Napoleon.
Obviously, the sex chapter was assiduously read and studied, so much so that the book cracked at the beginning of the chapter. I made the (HUGE) mistake of taking the book with me during our yearly summer stays with my grandparents, hid the thing in the closet (no way in hell was Grammy going to like this one - this is a woman who confiscated Dune when I was 19yo one Christmas and tried to read it, looking for anti-Christian messages. It merely confused the hell out of her.) Of course, she eventually finds it and asks me about it… “Uh, a friend gave it to me, its his book.” ( :rolleyes: I don’t think she bought it.) She was aghast at the list of people with bizarre bodily deformities, turned the page, and there it was: “The 6 most popular positions for sexual intercourse.”
Good times were had by all. “Jimmy, I can’t believe the things they sell to children nowadays! Bob will be here in a week, and we’ll just have to see what he says about this!” Bob, my dad, was the one who bought me the book, a fact I kept silent about.
She gave the BoL to my dad, he made the expected huffs and puffs, and then handed the book back to me while we were driving back from Daytona Beach to Atlanta, saying “I didn’t want to buy the same book again.”
The second wasn’t as good (or I was past that phase) and the third wasn’t much better.
US presidents (learned in 6th grade) with VPs (learned in 8th grade)
Monarchs of Britain beginning with William the Conqueror (learned in jr high by putting together a puzzle)
US state capitals (required learning in 5th grade)
US states (I do it by imagining the map as well, not in alphabetical order, because in 5th grade, required to learn to label a US map)
Which states are in which time zones
Countries of Europe and their capitals (7th grade)
Capitals of Asian countries, although if I try to list all the countries of Asia, I usually miss some (did this on my own, in high school)
Books of the Tanakh (learned in Hebrew school before bat mitzvah)
Films of Alfred Hitchcock
Films (except for early shorts) of DW Griffith
Films of Irene Dunne
Films of Lillian Gish (except for early shorts, of which there are not complete lists, and
most are lost)
Films of Lon Chaney
Plays of Shakespeare, first folio order
Nancy Drew books published by Grosset and Dunlap (the later Simon and Shuster paperbacks came out after I outgrew reading them)
Victims, canonical and debated, of Jack the Ripper, with death dates
Brachot (Hebrew blessings for various occasions); the list I know may not be exhaustive, but I won a contest in Hebrew school when I was 10, where I beat out several post-b’nei mitzvah kids, and the rabbi’s kids, that was sort of a bracha bee, where they gave us a situation, and we had to recite the bracha for it.
I can recite the alphabet backwards as fast as I can forwards.
Forms of the verb ‘to be’ (am is are was were be being been) thanks to my jr. high English teacher, Jim Rodman.
Since I was in Boy Scouts: The Scout Law: A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
And thanks to the Animaniacs I could still belt out most of their version of the Nations of the World!
Names of the 12 sons of Israel. (Approximately the same as the Tribes of Israel, almost.)
Does that even count as a list? I know that too, having had to learn it for Hebrew school at some point. Also, all the kings of Israel and Judah, at least as reported in the bible. That’s not much of a list either.
By the way, there was one daughter of Israel as well. Dina.
I learned it from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The Twelve Apostles I learned in Sunday School from a song.
I had to memorize the German prepositions that take the accusative case, and the dative case, and those that can take either.
Regards,
Shodan
I can do all the presidents in order.
I’m working on Best Picture Oscar winners and world capitals; I know maybe 80% of each list.
I could not tell you the names of the three musketeers, however.
mmm
ETA: Here is a little taxonomy assist (domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species): Don King Plays Chess On Fridays, Generally Speaking