I realise this could be of somewhat niche appeal, but you know, some of you will have more time on your hands at the moment and it might pass some… So – have you? If you haven’t, do you have a favourite, or perhaps an amusing one you’d care to share? What makes one a good one?
Ever made up a mnemonic?
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Here’s my one, for the taxonomic heirarchy (Domain, Kingdom Phylum Class etc.): Do Kangaroos Play Cricket On Fremantle’s Golden Sands?
My missus has one for the formula for information error correction (or something, I glazed over halfway through, I’m afraid): Unkind One Keeps Nicking Igor’s Peanuts 🙂
Richard Of York Grows Beetroot In Vienna was always my go-to for colours of the rainbow. Don’t know if I made it up or not.
*edit* Sort of…Gave Battle Easily is the authorised version.
I always thought it was ‘battle in vain’
I used to refer to a line manager as King TUT. TUT meaning totally useless tosser (or some such like)
In the first year at secondary school, some trendy teacher asked us to think of our own mnemonics for ROYGBIV. One lad came up with Rip Off Your Girdle Because I’m Vulgar. Still makes me chuckle.
And it’s an effective mnemonic as I can remember it 44 years later.
You’re right. Gave battle easily makes no sense at all.
My girlfriend uses them all the time to remember medical stuff in her job in a hospital pharmacy. I can’t remember any of those and they would be of limited use to most people here anyway, but her order of the planets from the Sun outwards has always stuck with me – My Very Excellent Mother Just served Us Nine Pizzas (change ‘Nine Pizzas’ to ‘Nachos’ if Pluto isn’t being treated as a planet that particular week).
Ooh, good one. I always confuse Neptune with Uranus. Ahem.
At school I remember making one up for the periodic table of elements, but I can’t remember the whole thing. The opening phrase, however, is hardwired into my brain and I find myself repeating it to myself at random moments, years and years later. It was a bizarre story and a bit like a Bob Dylan lyric, which started: “King Nat Called Maggie (Alias Zenith)….” … something something something.
Not quite a mnemonic, but Frank Muir said that comedy falls into three categories: Wordplay, Situations, Physical/Non verbal. My way to remember: Wit, Sit, Hit.
Aren’t there four categories to comedy? Wordplay, Situations, Physical and Stewart Lee? Wit, Sit, Hit and Sh….
You grow bananas by Portsmouth bay. Anyone?
Nope, I got nuthin’
Is it something to do with TV or video or something? Colours – Yellow Green Blue erm something something?
The order to pot snooker balls, yellow, green, brown, blue, pink & black. The other snooker one being God bless you when you’re setting up the colours on the baulk line.
Aaah! Brilliant. Clearly I’m not a snooker player!
When 2 ships do a jackstay transfer at sea, a line is set up in the bow (pointy end) of each ship with flags at set intervals to indicate the distance between both ships – hence it being called the distance line.
The colour order of these flags is red, yellow, blue, white & green.
I was taught this when I joined the RN in 1971.
I was also taught that the best way to remember the sequence was “rub your bollocks with grease”.
NIce one. What is a jackstay transfer? I mean it’s clear from your description, but why jackstay?
An old film clip, but this is the process that was used throughout my time in the Royal Navy (71-96) & I would not imagine it has changed because it is tried, tested & proven to work.
I actually transferred between 2 ships by jackstay during my final stint at sea in 93.
https://youtu.be/I7cnHDxVonA
Nice clip, but why jackstay?
Wild guess but:
Does it refer to “stay” (nautical term for rope) and “jack” as everyday person (every man jack)?
one of my early ones was: “Mum Makes Jam So Uncle Vic Never Ever Paid”
“Figjam”
Now for ” Covid 19″ Come Over Visit In Doors #19
I remember the words to “Song for Whoever” by using JAPSDAT. This is summoned up by a borderline-racist mental image of a Japanese man holding a small cassette.
(Jennifer, Alison, Phillipa, Sue, Deborah, Annabel too)
I read somewhere that this kind of trick is how people like Derren Brown recalls the names of 100 people that he has only just met.
From that same source I do have a very useful trick to remember to bring something the next day. Let’s say the item is a banana. I will take a moment to visualise a huge banana blocking my way when I leave the house through the front door. I will remember that image and go get the banana that I promised to bring.
I used to make them up to remember things at work, especially when I got involved in running training sessions, but having retired a couple of years ago, I can’t recall any of them.
I once made up a (sort of) mnemonic to help a girl remember my phone number. I met her again years later (long after I moved house) and was chuffed with myself when she rattled off the number, never having once thought about it in the interim.
A guy sits down at a table in a pub. He takes out a pack of (52) cards and divides them in equal halves either side of a circular beermat. Then the barman brings him a pint of Guinness (7 digits).
522 6026?
Very nearly! The beermat does indeed make a 0 between two 26s, but you would have to know that hereabouts we often refer to our pint as Arthur Guinness i.e. 1-7, so
2602617.
Why is ‘Arthur Guinness’ is 1-7 (is that 1 to 7?)
Yes. Can’t figure that out either
Apols! Thought it was obvious: initials A, G = 1,7. She got it – which was the main thing..🙂
I used to make up innumerable vulgar phrases to help me recall anatomy. One that sticks is for the 8 small bones of the wrist, from thumb side to the other, nearer the hand to the next row: Tommy takes cunts home, Suzy’s long tits are pointed. Or trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate, scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum and pisiform.
Starting with the scaphoid, Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can’t Handle.
The cranial nerves are interesting: Oh, Oh, Oh To Touch And Feel Very Good Vagina…Ah Heaven. Trouble is you have to remember the three ‘O’s in the correct order and you have to say it like a Vietnamese prostitute offering a GI a good time: Olfactory, Optic, Oculomotor, Trochlea, Trigeminal, Abducens, Facial, Vestibular-cochlear, Glosso-pharnagyeal, Vagus, spinal Accessory, Hypoglosseal.
Like Carl above, I used to make up mnemonics to help me with work things, especially if studying for something. The trouble is, not only do I not remember any of them, I don’t remember too much about work nowadays!
I do, however, remember some mnemonics from when I first started playing music many years ago. There are a few phrases for the notes on the lines of the treble clef but the one I know is Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. The notes in the spaces just spelled FACE. On the bass clef it was Good Boys Deserve Favour Always and the spaces were All Cows Eat Grass.
Looking at the standard tuning for guitars, then Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie does the trick for me.
Lastly, I remember The Moody Blues having an album called Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, although I can’t remember what it was like. The question is did anybody have an album called All Cows Eat Grass? If not, who should have? The Faces maybe!?
How About “Henry Cow” ?
Pink Floyd?
My Dad was a University chemistry lecturer and from a very young age we learned the start of the periodic table
Henry He Likes Beer By Cupfuls Not Over Flowing
Cranial nerves acronym – Oh oh oh to touch and feel etc
I’ve never needed it, but I can’t forget it.
One for work – P.O.E.T.S. – Piss Off Early Tomorrows Saturday
One for Dominic – you’ve been “C.O.VI.D” – Caught Out Violating Isolation Directives.
New Police Fine Notice for the Dom. “Cummined” 1000 pound to pay.
One for Pollies – “Caught Out Voting In Dickheads/Dummies”
Mine was to remember the order of Hammer’s Frankenstein films, and it’s CREWD.
Curse
Revenge
Evil
(created) Woman
(must be) Destroyed
Horror and Monster From Hell come last but you just have to remember to tack them on.
I’d love to come up with one for the Hammer Dracula films but the task has so far defeated me.
When I taught English, we used to have mnemonics for the top ten trickiest spellings. One that always stuck with me was for diarrhoea: Dining In A Rough Restaurant, Hurry Or Expect Accident.
This has saved me dictionary-eschewing time over the years for all those return to work reviews, following curry-related illness.
My favourite spelling one is for necessary, never eat chips, eat smoked salmon and remain young. I even said it as I was spelling out the word just now.
A memory aid that came to me late in life is “righty tighty lefty loosey” – a transformative thing to know when contructing things or taking them apart.
Now that is useful.
Can you mnemonic a mnemonic? Or would that cause a complete shutdown and Captain Kirk would have to step in to avert the meltdown? Also, Why do you have to keep on going on about ABBA? You brits are fucking curious to say the least.
ABBA is more of an acronym than a mnemonic, Bri – I mean Mr Bellows
We go on about ABBA because we love ABBA. Or at least most of us do.
My ABBA mnemonic to remind me of my view:
Most numerous examples make over nauseating instances common.
My nutty Egyptian mother orders no ice cream
Drab pods are tables sad satanic legend =
Dracula (19590
The Brides of Dracula (1960)
Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
Scars of Dracula (1970)
Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)
The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)