# Mnemonic sentences: examples from different professions and studies **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 3, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504 "2012-09-03T01:46:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/1 "2012-09-03T01:46:13Z")
My Mom taught me this in elementary school: My very educated mother just served us nine pickles. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. I’m wondering what other similar sentences that make sense, sort of, to remember things, procedures, etc. I’ve heard that Med School students have a million of them, as do lawyers. I’m also sure that they turn up all over every profession and study. A caveat–What the thread is not about: I just learned from a current thread an acronym for order of operations in simple math (the acronym is used in America) is PEDMAS: parentheses, exponent, division, multiplication, addition, subtraction. It’s an acronym because you can say it with normal consonants and vowels in English, using the correct orthography. A mnemonic, on the other hand, is a bunch of letters–IBM–which normally is sounded out by it’s letters. Mnemonics also are often turned into a normal sounding phoneme group for ease: WSO, say, which may be vocalized “wasso” or “wisso,” whatever the local speech community uses. The previous long belabored paragraph is to clear up what this query is **not** about. 🙂 I’m looking for stuff like the semantic but silly _sentences_ to remember things, like the “my mother” sentence above. Leo ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/2 "2012-09-03T02:43:47Z")
A common one is “every good boy deserves favor/fudge”, for the notes represented by the lines (bottom to top) on a treble clef staff. The Moody Blues named one of their albums this. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/3 "2012-09-03T03:18:48Z")
I learned it as “Every good boy does fine.” **Thank God my kinky mother understands nuclear power.** Tera-, giga-, mega-, kilo-, milli-, micro-, nano-, pico-. (“Understands” because μ looks more like a _u_ than an _m_.) **Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly; get some now** (as learned by my brother at a Navy school in the '50s.) **Bad boys rob our young girls behind victory garden walls** (as learned by me at a Navy school in the '80s). [Colour coding](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_color_code#Resistor_color_coding) on resistors (electrical components). **King Philip came over for good soup.** Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. **Camels often sit down carefully. Perhaps their joints creak? Possibly early oiling might prevent premature rusting.** Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Palaeocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Recent. Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee, Harry, Dick, John, Harry Three. One, two, three Neds; Richard Two; Harry Four, Five, Six - then who? Edward Four, Five; Dick the bad; Harries twain and Ned the lad. Mary, Bessie, James the vain, Charlie, Charlie, James again. William and Mary, Anna gloria, Four Georges, William and Victoria. Edward the Seventh next, and then George the Fifth in nineteen-ten. Edward the Eighth soon abdicated, And so a George was reinstated. QE2. ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/4 "2012-09-03T03:39:52Z")
Guitar strings (low to high): Every acid dealer gets busted eventually. There are a bunch of other ones (Eddie at dynamite - good bye Eddie, elephants and donkeys grow big ears), but that first one is the one that sticks with me. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/5 "2012-09-03T03:47:44Z")
She made Harry eat onions. (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario–the Great Lakes) ---
**Author:** ![Mornac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mornac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mornac)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/6 "2012-09-03T03:50:55Z")
**A** **r** at\*\* i **n** t\*\*he **h** ouse **m** ay **e** at **t** he **i** ce **c** ream: A device for spelling _arithmetic_ in an era where schoolchildren no longer use the word. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/7 "2012-09-03T04:01:53Z")
May I have a large container of coffee. (digits of pi) ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/8 "2012-09-03T04:03:46Z")
**Sally can’t tell Oscar has a heap of apples.** Trigonometry… Sir, I send a rhyme excelling In sacred truth and rigid spelling. Numerical sprites elucidate For me the lexicon’s dull weight. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/9 "2012-09-03T04:24:04Z")
Oh be a fine girl, kiss me: OBAFGKM The 7 main classifications of stars by temperature. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/10 "2012-09-03T05:32:04Z")
This is fun. > [@SCAdian](#): > > **Sally can’t tell Oscar has a heap of apples.** > Trigonometry… Can you spell these out. Sine, cosi, tangent, opposite, hypotenuse, ?, ?, arctan? > [@](#): > > Sir, I send a rhyme excelling > In sacred truth and rigid spelling. > Numerical sprites elucidate > For me the lexicon’s dull weight. Sad that the last line is a swing and a miss, as to being a quite coherent and elegant semantic member of the poem, but off on the prosody, not of its accuracy for pi. I’ll fool around with it. In many languages, and many in English to more and more places, is in Wiki “[piphilogoly](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piphilology),” which if you don’t know the etymology of the word, comes out in many funny pronunciations (at least it did for me).🙂 ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/11 "2012-09-03T05:39:55Z")
For hexose sugars. All Altruists Gladly Make Gum in Gallon Tanks allose, altrose, glucose, mannose, gulose, idose, galactose, talose This is in a binary order if you take the structures in a fisher projection where the alcohol on the right is zero. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/12 "2012-09-03T05:43:17Z")
Duplicate ---
**Author:** ![J\_Cubed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@J\_Cubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/J_Cubed)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/13 "2012-09-03T06:21:32Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > **Sally can’t tell Oscar has a heap of apples.** > Trigonometry… > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Can you spell these out. Sine, cosi, tangent, opposite, hypotenuse, ?, ?, arctan? This seems to be a convoluted way to keep track of the formulae: “Sin,Cos, and Tan are calculated, respectively, by Opposite / Hypotenuse, Adjacent / Hyp, and Opp / Adj”. We learned about the Native American princess, Sohcahtoa, who helped the pilgrims construct right triangles. But she, as an acronym, doesn’t seem to be what the OP wants. But I do feel compelled to point out that the belabored paragraph uses “mnemonic” where I think it should use “initialism”. Both the Sally & Oscar sentence and Sohcahtoa are mnemonics, but IBM is not. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/14 "2012-09-03T08:55:17Z")
> [@Mornac](#): > > **A** **r** at\*\* i **n** t\*\*he **h** ouse **m** ay **e** at **t** he **i** ce **c** ream: A device for spelling _arithmetic_ in an era where schoolchildren no longer use the word. Likewise, I learned that one in 3rd grade (or was it 2nd grade), circa early 1960’s, in an era when schoolchildren DID use that word. More pi, please! Now I, even I, would celebrate, In rhymes unapt the great, Immortal Syracusan rivaled nevermore, Who in his wondrous lore, Passed on before, Left men his guidance: How to circles mensurate. (Sorry, don’t know the original author. I first read it in one of Martin Gardner’s books many moons ago. You can find it all over the net, though.) **P** rogrammers **D** are **N** ot **T** hrow **S** alty **P** retzels **A** way. – The 7-level OSI network layers model: Physical, Data Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, Application. (There are other similar mnemonics too, some giving them in the opposite order.) ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/15 "2012-09-03T10:55:18Z")
I’m pretty sure there was a mnemonic device for the alimentary system in my medical terminology course, but darned if I can remember what it was. It was easier for me just to memorize the series. What makes it easier for most people to remember a nonsense sentence than a sequence of terms or objects or concepts? ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/16 "2012-09-03T11:05:29Z")
There was one I heard for the twelve pairs of cranial nerves; “On old Olympic towering tops, a Finn and German viewed some hops” ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/17 "2012-09-03T11:13:07Z")
In grade school they taught us: All Cows Eat Grass -or- All Cars Eat Gas. It has something to do with the order of notes on some scale, but they never taught us that part. I learned the order of the planets as: Mary’s Violet Eyes Made John Set Up New Plans. And of course: Do a deer, a female deer Re a drop of golden sun. … Frankly, it was easier to just remember Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/18 "2012-09-03T11:18:30Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > My Mom taught me this in elementary school: > My very educated mother just served us nine pickles. > > Leo I’d never heard this before. But I just spent several minutes trying to name the planet that starts with an S. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/19 "2012-09-03T13:01:33Z")
You hear various mnemonics when you are learning to fly. Examples are: “75: taken alive; 76: I’m in a fix; 77: I’m going to heaven” for the transponder codes. “White over white, you’re high as a kite; red over red, you’re dead” for the PAPI. “Odd men fly east” for the semicircular rule (if your heading is between 000 and 180, you fly at an odd number of thousand feet + 500 feet). “High to low, watch out below” (meaning, if you fly from a higher pressure to lower pressure region, your altimeter will tend to read high, putting you at risk of flying into terrain.) etc., etc., etc. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504/20 "2012-09-03T13:05:45Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > You hear various mnemonics when you are learning to fly. Examples are: > > “75: taken alive; 76: I’m in a fix; 77: I’m going to heaven” for the transponder codes. > > “White over white, you’re high as a kite; red over red, you’re dead” for the PAPI. > > “Odd men fly east” for the semicircular rule (if your heading is between 000 and 180, you fly at an odd number of thousand feet + 500 feet). > > “High to low, watch out below” (meaning, if you fly from a higher pressure to lower pressure region, your altimeter will tend to read high, putting you at risk of flying into terrain.) > > etc., etc., etc. Those are awesome! What’s PAPI? (IANAP). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mnemonic-sentences-examples-from-different-professions-and-studies/633504.md?page=2)