“Mnemonical” is not the correct term, but here we go:
What names, places, etc always provoke the same grey matter response for you? For example:
Every time I hear NPR reporter Eleanor Beardsley’s a name, my brain seizes upon a certain song.
What might that song be? (No hints, as I think this is really easy).
A bowling alley/bar located on my street corner is called “Slocum’s.”
What phrase might this name invoke for a BBC aficionado?
Eleanor Beardsley
Eleanor Rigby
Slocum’s
Are you being served?
How’d I do?
Only vaguely related but I like it.
30 days hath September…all the rest I don’t remember.
Niiiiiice! You win a year’s supply of rice in a jar 
For bonus points: what is Mrs. Slocombe’s famous phrase?
Whenever I see a certain animal: “Red touch yellow, kill a fellow”; “red and black, venom lack”
What animal is this a warning about?
Red on yellow kill a fellow…red on black okay jack (I think).
That is for coral snakes and their look alike cousins. For me, if it is a banded snake of red, yellow, and black I leave it the fuck alone…because first to me the “rhym” seems open to interpretation and second, I can never be sure I have remembered it right!
We could make that work: “red touch black, don’t give a frack.”
Yeah, I’m not counting on this ditty to save me from a pursuing banded snake. "Wait! Is that a milk or coral snake? Hmmmm . . . " CHOMP :mad:
When I was in eighth grade we had to label every nation on a map (those big enough to appear on the map, anyway). I remember “Pakistan got cold and crawled under an Afghanistan”, and “Guyana is the Suriname of French Guiana”. It was close enough.
Every time I hear a reference to Sylvia Poggioli, I think of the Car Talk guys: “And even though Sylvia Poggioli says “Mama Mia” every time she hears us say it, this is NPR…”
Problem is that coral snakes are shy and reclusive, so you rarely see them even in regions where they’re common.
They also have small mouths, too small to bite most people.
The people most likely to get bitten by a coral snake are gardeners, who may get nipped on the finger while working in thick undergrowth or ground cover plants.
“And I am unanimous in that!”
Good work - I’m an amateur herpie, happy to see you caught the joke
Every time I hear David Wessel interviewed on NPR’s Nightly Business Report, I always ask if he knows where the nuclear Wessels are.
I once named my pet cats Olaf and Gus, so I’d remember Order/Family/Genus/Species.
I don’t have any trouble memorizing a list of about 50-100 items, by putting them into alphabetical order and remembering how many start with each letter. Like, counties in my state.
Usually, I can eventually call to memory a name or a word, by going through the alphabet and singling out letters that I associate with the name.