Close.
Albania, Albania!
You border on the Adriatic.
Your terrain is mostly mountainous,
And your major export is chrome.
Our fourth-grade reading book said the same thing…
My 7th grade science teacher taught it “King Philip Came Over From Germany Stoned.”
He was kind of awesome.
Thank God My Kinky Mother Understands Nuclear Power [or Naval Policy].
Tera, Giga, Mega, Kilo, Milli, Micro, Nano, Pico
(T, G, M, k, m, μ, n, p)
Camels Often Sit Down Mighty Precariously. Perhaps Their Joints Creak? Preventative Early Oiling Might Prevent Premature Rusting.
Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississipian, Pennsylvanian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Recent
My 9th grade bio teacher (Mr Kolis) taught us:
Kolis Plays Cards on Friday and Gets Skunked
It’s well known that students of the sciences (medical students above all, I gather) love lewd-and-rude memory-helping devices, for the remembering via initial letters, of lists of “whatever”. I recall from my schooldays, a splendid one of such being invented. There were present, myself and a couple of roommates; we were sixteen or seventeen. One guy needed a mnemonic for a particularly tricky thing – subject biology, IIRC. Another – a brilliant fellow, although a non-scientist – obliged him by thinking up the following: “No parson can p*** in church as subtly as can Mr. Zadok, although many s*** silently.” I’m not a scientist either, and have no idea what it was that had to be memorised; but I loved the menemonic, and remember it almost fifty years later.
Half a dozen posts or so in the thread, about this one – an “offering” totally new to me. As a Briton, I’m wondering whether this is an “in” thing which I’m not getting; or whether Americans are weirdly obsessed with Albania – a country which strikes me (no offence meant to Albanians) as pretty low-profile and of limited interest.
It was a scene on the very popular tv show Cheers. But even given that (and I was the first one to mention it, so clearly it stuck in my head), I am surprised how many people remember this!
The whole point is that it’s low-profile and of limited interest: a former athlete is trying to pass a class, and has to learn facts about various countries – and so his old coach figures he’ll be able to memorize stuff more easily if it’s in song form.
“Churchill led the Brits in WWII” ain’t funny, since it’s inspiring and important and you’d expect him to know it already. But singing a jaunty little tune about how Albania borders the Adriatic and its chief export is chrome? That’s funny, because it’s obscure to the point of being off-the-wall; Woody Allen used to throw in stuff like that all the time.
Thanks, ITD and TOWP: I get it now. I believe Cheers was screened over here; but I don’t watch television, so would have been oblivious in any case.
Closer, but not quite:
Albania, Albania!
You border on the Adriatic.
Your land is mostly mountainous,
And your chief export is chrome.
You can watch the scene here.
I learned righty tighty lefty loosy from another girl when we were probably 12. Can’t remember now how the subject even came up, but I haven’t forgotten it 20 years later.
Sex On Holidays Can Advance Happiness To Outrageous Aptitudes
(Sine = Opposite / Hypotenuse, Cosine = Adjacent / Hypotenuse, Tangent = Opposite / Adjacent …if I remembered that right)
???
31 in Octal is the same as 25 in Decimal ((3 x 8) + 1)=25)
Thanks!
I’ve used this one, myself!
In gross anatomy I came up with “Portia’s toes, long and scaly, have corns, terrible and tremendous” to remember the carpal bones in the wrist.* (Portia was an elderly spaniel we had at the time).
*(pisiform,triquetrum, lunate, scaphoid, hamate, capitate, trapezoid, trapezium)
A famous med school mnemonic for cranial nerves goes, "On Old Olympus’ topmost top, a fat-(armed)* German viewed a hop."
***yeah, right. 
Nitpick #1–It’s Andrew Lloyd Webber, dammit!
Nitpick #2–Lyrics by Tim Rice
“If it bites you and you die, it was venomous. If you eat it and you die, it was poisonous.”