For longest time I kept forgetting whether males or females had a Y chromosome. And then Tim Allen made a joke in a rerun of “Home Improvement” that for whatever reason replays in my head if ever I should forget the answer.
I don’t remember the exact joke, but his wife is asking him to do some chore, and he complains about it, asking why it needs to be done. She chides him for being a pain, and he counters: “But, don’t you understand? I’m a man, I have a Y-chromosome. Whenever someone ask me to do something, I have to ask, WHY do I have to do this?”
Einstein, Newton, and Pascal are playing hide and seek. It’s Einstein’s turn to count, so he turns around and starts counting. Pascal runs off to hide, but Newton simply takes a piece of chalk and draws a square around himself on the ground, one meter on each side. Einstein finishes counting and says “I found you, Newton!” Newton says “Ah, not quite, you found Newton over a square meter. You found Pascal.”
I tell that joke to my students to help them remember what units Pascals (1 Pa = 1 N/m[sup]2[/sup]) are composed of. What I don’t tell them is that’s how I remember it too.
I actually used the song “Oliver Cromwell” by Monty Python to help me keep some dates/facts straight in English class in high school. Just knowing that he was born in 1599 and died in 1658 (September), helps me with a ton of English history.
Twenty years ago, my church put on the musical “Snoopy” and I played Linus. So now I’m full of interesting facts about Edgar Allan Poe (e.g. he published Tamerlane in 1827).
Not “jokes” exactly, but like many people my age, I can easily recite the preamble of the Constitution because that Schoolhouse Rock song stuck it in my head (“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice and insure domestic tranquiliteeeeeeeeeee…”).
And I can easily remember the 12 tribes of Israel because of the opening song in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (“Reuben was the eldest of the children of Israel, with Simeon and Levi the next in line. Napthali,with Issachar and Asher and Dan, Zebulon and Gad brought the total to 9. Jacob! Jacob and Sons! Benjamin and Judah, which leaves only one. Jacob! Jacob and Sons! Joseph, Jacob’s favorite son”).
