Share your Mnemonics Here !

In My Humble Opinion
1

So last night I once again had to look up which (‘peasant’ or ‘pheasant’) was “poor worker” and which was “game bird.” I can never remember which is which. My friend suggested “Phucking Pheasants … shitting in the rafters … leaving feathers everywhere …”

Now I will never forget the difference.

The thing I most clearly remember learning in high school is how to spell Scyphistoma. Not like I remember what the heck it is, just that you can spell it to the the tune of the Mickey Mouse song, and it was on our Biology exam.

What memory tricks help you through school/daily life?

2

Humm…

When I want to recall what the acroynm for the organization that selects which college football teams play when and where between New Years day and Jan. 4th stands for, I think of children born outside of wedlock, plus male chickens, plus Tootsie Pops.

3

Cowgirl, this is an excellent idea for a thread!

One mnemonic just occurred to me when I made a game of cities ending in abbreviations of states. The capital of Canada is Ottawa. And Ottawa ends in the abbreviation for the capital of the U.S. (Washington: WA.) Now I will never forget the capital of Canada again.(The capital of the U.S. is Washington, D.C. - not the state of Washington of course. The mnemonic connection is the important part.)

Many of my favorite mnemonics are of world capitals. Some have stuck in my head for thirty years. For example, the capital of Bulgaria is Sofia (because Sophia Loren has a “bulge area”)

The capital of Syria is Damascus (because “sire”, the male parent of an animal, goes with “dam”, the female parent.)

I have the image of an Olympic speed-walker stalking home sweatin’ (for Stockholm, Sweden), a Turkey dripping with Karo syrup (Ankara, Turkey), A tyrant threatening"I’ll ban ya!"(for Tirane, Albania), the list goes on. Some of the images can get pretty bizarre but they work. The capital of Uruguay is Montevideo because Monty Python member Graham Chapman (is that right?)could be referred to with the remark “You’re a Gay.”
The capital of Madagascar is Antananarivo because I was “mad at my out-of-gas car” and I got a “tan” waiting for help to “arrive.” You get the idea.

As for words, two come to mind which I use frequently. I had the bad habit of spelling ‘separate’ with an ‘e’ - ‘seperate.’ Now I simply use the image of the verb ‘pare’ which can mean to peel and to separate into sections and actually comes from the same root as the ‘par-’ in separate.

This is how I remember the difference between ‘discrete’ and ‘discreet’ ( one means “prudent” and the other means “distinct and separate.” But which is which?) Look at the e’s in the words. In ‘discrete’ the e’s are distinct and separate and that, in fact, is the meaning of the word.

Maybe if someone has a problem with a certain factual memory we could help them with mnemonic suggestions.

I never made a mnemonic for the capital of Australia. How about the image of the ostrich-like emu cooked for Thanksgiving and served with cranberry sauce. (Ostrich-like=Australia, emu- the Australian equivalent of the ostrich, cranberry=Canberra ? Will this work? Time will tell.)

4

My english teacher taught us how to spell occurrence:

Two _C_ops chased two R_obbers over a f_ENCE. You’re on your own for the ‘o’ and the ‘u’.

5

You’d think after 3 and a half years as a college music major, I wouldn’t need to use the mnemonics for the notes on the staves anymore, but I do… the old FACE and Every Good Boy Does Fine for treble clef, and All Cows Eat Grass and Great Big Ducks Fly Away for bass clef.

I think this was from an SNL sketch, but I actually use the Please Come Over For Gay Sex mnemonic for that whole organism classification thing. (Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species).

To remember what those pointy thingies growing from the floor and ceiling of caves are – stalaGmite comes from the Ground, stalaCtite comes from the Ceiling.

And a very recent one – reading King Lear in my Shakespeare course, we had trouble remembering which of Gloucester’s sons was the good one and which was the bad one - their names are Edgar and Edmund. So EdGar = Good, EdMund = Mean. :slight_smile:

6

Keep Parks Clean Or Fires Get Started
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species

Not that its specifically mnemonic, but the phrase “the sun rises in the East and sets in the West” always sticks with me, and the knowledge that West is to the left and East is to the right on a map is remembered because W - E spells “we” and E - W spells “ew,” and of course “ew” is yucky, and therefore must be wrong.

I know I have many more, but some are specifically tailored to how my mind works, and wouldn’t make any sense if I share them with others.

7

ShE cried, “EEEE!” when she passed the cEmEtEry.

and:

In muggings, muggers must attack
The victim’s proper zone;
The belly if he’s supine,
The spine if he is prone.

8

My favorite:

How I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after the tough lectures involving quantum mechanics

The value of Pi – count the letters in each word

9

“East is Least and West is Best”. Used in navigation to convert from “true” directions measured versus the Geographic North pole, and magnetic directions shown on a compass relative to the magnetic North pole. “East is least” means subtract east variation, while “west is best” means add west variation, variation being the angular difference between the two poles at any given point on Earth, e.g. your location.

“I is for Him and E is for her”: How to remember the male and female forms of the name Francis / Frances.

On Old Olympus’ Thorny Top A Finn And German Vaulted And Hopped. The names of the 12 cranial nerves exiting from the gaps between the top human vertebrae.

I don’t remember all the nerves’ names any more, but I think (without Googling) that it goes Optic, Ocular, Olfactory, T???, T???, Auditory, Facial, A???, G???, Vagus, A???, H???. 5 of 12 isn’t too bad since it’s been 29 years since I took that class.

“Fat, Female, Forty and Flatulent”. The med-school diagnostic memory jogger for (IIRC) kidney disease. If it’s not kidney, then it’s one of the nearby related organs. I found the mnemonic funny & memorable, the disease (which it turned out I didn’t have) less so. Perhaps unsurprisingly I had none of the 4 Fs at the time, so why the doc told me the jingle is lost in the mists of time.

As to AntaresJB’s stalagmites & stalactites, I always remembered that stalacTITES must stick TIGHT to the cave roof or else they’ll fall. By process of elimination, stalagmites must be the other ones on the floor.

Some years ago my wife informed me that nuts, bolts, screws and whatnot operate on the “righty-tighty lefty-loosey” system. I had never needed that rule, but now the saying’s stuck in my head.

I’m sure I’ll come up with more later.

10

The name Roy G. Biv has always stuck with me for the colors of the spectrum. Red- orange- yellow- green- blue- indigo- violet.

11

And there’s the good old 30-days-hath-September one.

12

An old joke that helps me remember where the sun rises.

What’s the difference between the sun and bread?

The sun rises in the East, and bread rises with Yeast.

Does that count?

13

[hijack]

Here’s something I’ve always thought about the spectrum - isn’t Indigo not a primary or secondary color? Isn’t the spectrum only supposed to be only primary and secondary? That’s what I learned in art class. As best I can remember.

Primary Secondary

red orange yellow green blue indigo purple

What’s indigo doing in there? Wouldn’t it be a, er, triteriary (look at how I make up a word from a word I can’t remember fully!) color? :dubious: Or am I wrong in this?

[/hijack]

14

A friend, while studying madly to get into med school, told me that sexual mnemonics worked best for him.

Sounded good to me, so I made up one to help me remember the difference between slander and libel
Oral Sex While Lounging.

Oral = slander
Written = libel

15

Does anybody know the one for remembering the provinces of Canada? I…uh…forgot it.

16

Here’s one from my gramma, on how to spell “geography”:

George Earl’s oldest girl rode a pig home yesterday.

Bet you’ll never forget that one, eh? hehe

I can’t believe I’m the first one to give this one: “My very early mother just served us nine pizzas”. Planets, baby!

Also, don’t forget that there’s “a rat” in “separate”.

17

Port & Starboard :
Port has the same number of letters as left.

18

A math mnemonic for remembering how to add positive and negative numbers:

Good things (positive number/addition sign) happening to good people (positive number) is good (add).

Bad things (negative number/sign) happening to good people (positive) is bad (subtract).

Bad things (negative) happening to bad people (negative) is good (add).

This works for multiplication and I believe division as well as addition. It has a flaw for addition, though. According to the rules of negative and positive numbers, Good things happening to bad people is good. This, of course, is not true… except in the amoral world of mathematics, clearly.

For this reason, I’m grateful that I don’t need this one anymore. But it was very helpful back in the day.

19

She made him egg omelets.

What is that a mnemonic for? I forget.

20

I lost most of my skills when I was brain damaged in an automobile accident. For instance, I had to relearn the multiplication table, but for some reason I remembered Chief SOHCAHTOA: Sine=opposite/hypotenuse, Cosine=adjacent/hypotenuse, and Tangent=opposite/adjacent. That’s enough trigonometry to get you a long way.