Well, for biology I used to talk about that great movie, Citizen Kade.
The vitamins A, D, E and K are all the fat soluble vitamins, that the body can store.
The other vitamins are all water soluble, and don’t stick around.
We learned Four Cops Got Drunk At Ed’s Bar and Bob Elliott Adams Died Gulping Cafeteria Food. As kids, we loved that stuff.
On the esoteric side, the seven types of energy losses in a reaction turbine;
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, All Get Loose.
Moisture, Throttling, Windage, Friction, Admission, Gland and Leaving.
Catchy, no?
A Naval related one - When someone has to enter a smoke filled space, thay have a rope tied around them, going back to someone outside the space. You communicate by means of tugs on the rope. The mnemonic for remembering the tug code is OATH; 1 tug = Okay, 2 = Advance, 3 = Take up slack, 4 = Help! or haul me in. Even though I never used this, I remember it 30 years later.
Every first-year student of Japanese learns the following:
Eat a duck and mouse
For itadakimasu, which doesn’t have an intelligible English equivalent, but is what one says before a meal; and
Don’t touch my mustache
For Dou itashimashite, “You’re welcome.” In Toy Story 2, Al the toy dealer ends his phone conversation to a Japanese collector with this one.
When I was younger, I came up with: In Dark Pants Lie Many Amazing Lengths.
Not the best mnemonic but obviously I still remember it. I usually even remember that it’s the first L that’s Lydian.
I always like King Phillip came over from Germany stoned, especially because you get the king and the phi in there.
Contrary to popular belief, Jupiter isn’t actually a planet. It’s a mammal.
My favourite alternative to Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain (for the colours of the visible spectrum) is Roll Over You Great Big Innocent Virgin.
Thanks Mr Jones! (my Physics teacher at secondary school).
The first seven train stations on Philadelphia’s Main Line:
Old maids never wed and have babies. (Overbrook, Merion, Narberth, Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr.)
My co-worker suggested:
“Pigs Mate And Then Cry”
The stages of mitosis: Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase, Cytokinesis.
Kings and queens of England:
Willie, Willie, Harry, Steve,
Harry, Dick, John, Harry three.
Edward One, Two, Three, Dick Two,
Harry Four, Five, Six, then who?
Edward Four, Five, Dick the Bad,
Harrys twain and Ned the Lad.
Mary, Lizzie, James the Vain,
Charlie, Charlie, James again.
William and Mary, Anne o’Gloria,
Four Georges, William, Victoria.
Edward Seven, Georgie Five,
Edward, George and Liz (alive).
After Liz, who will it be?
The next in line is Charlie Three.
But if he’s not then alive,
The next in line is Willie Five.
Mine came from the wonderful My Music on BBC radio:
Eating Artichokes Dispenses Gas By Eructation
It appealed to my juvenile mind at the time.
Si
Although I rarely need sine, cosine, or tangent these days, I still remember Brother Eppy teaching us “Oh hell, another hour of algebra” for sine=opposite/hypotentuse, cosine=adjacent/hypotenuse, tangent=opposite/adjacent.
Also given more politically correctly as
Big Boys Race Our Young Girls, But Violet Generally Wins
I’ve never seen it with the extension, but it looks like the black/gold/silver/none markings for what percentage deviation in those values.
By the way, the color scheme is pretty clearly based on the rainbow, with “Roy G. Biv’s” name standing out in the middle (without that upstart “Indigo” to mess things up)
King Phillip Came Over For Group Sex
kingdom phylum class order family genus species
IPMAT
interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase telophase
(mitosis)
sohcahtoa
sin=opposite/hypotenuse, cos=adjacent/hypotenuse, tan=opposite/adjacent
o-s-t…m-u-s…t-i-s-n-t (to the Mickey Mouse theme)
o, s, t, mus, tis, nt
(latin word endings)
Every Good Boy Does Fine / FACE
EGBDF / FACE
(musical notes)
I guess they work, because I still remember them lol. I haven’t really had a use for mitosis or Latin but sohcahtoa does come in handy from time to time, as does knowing the music notes and rarely, taxonomy.
There’s always:
http://ficus-www.cs.ucla.edu/geoff/mnemonics.html
C.S. Forester gave the WWII version of this – it’s the reverse:
Can Dead Men Vote Twice
(Lacking the “AW” part)
It’s the Mnemonic Plague!
Order to Division: Dad, Mom, Sis, Brother
Divide
Multiply
Subtract
Bring Down.
Not the usual kind of mnemonic, but I always liked this one for the digits of pi (the number of letters in each word gives 3.14159…)
How I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy chapters involving quantum mechanics.
Not an mnemonic, rather an acronym, but one which has remained in my brain since school Geography:
SUNWAC
Swale, Ure, Nidd, Warfe, Aire, Calder - the rivers of Yorkshire, north to south, before the Ouse/Humber confluence
Generally, for some reason, I have difficulty remembering mnemonics. For example, the colours of the rainbow I remember as “Roy G Biv”. The mnemonic we were actually taught was a jokey variation - “Rowntree’s Of York Gave Battle In Vain” - Rowntree’s being the large chocolate manufacturer in the city of York.
And I keep trying to remember various mnemonics for the Linnaen classifications, without success, which is a pain when you’re very interested in biology. I wish that would stick, I really do.
Oh, and for the notes on the treble stave, I was taught “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour” (sexist, huh?) and “FACE”. These seemed to be de facto standards in the kids’ music tuition books of the 1960s and earlier. Yeah, I remember that, even though I don’t need to (I can read music very well without it!).
my favorite one is 12 k of g in a… wait a minute, what did that stand for again?
That’s it, thanks.