Your Favorite Mnemonic Device...
I am constantly mixing up Memorial Day with Labor Day. One begins the summer and the other ends it. Which one is coming up? I find it ironic that one of these holidays has the word “memory” in it.
How embarrassing.
Can someone please give me a mnemonic device? You know, a “Spring forward-Fall back” sort of thing?
This got me to thinking about these mnemonic devices and how useful they are. “30 days has September” -- who doesn't use that??
I’m a harsh critic of whoever invented that one, because the end doesn’t rhyme. It’s like they just gave up when it got hard.
To this day, I still remember how to spell the word dessert because I know it’s twice as sweet as desert. The alphabet song is probably the first mnemonic device every child learns. I wonder who invented that. Do they get residuals every time a child sings it?
One of my coworkers just walked in and mentioned "righty-tighty lefty-loosey". Nice job! That is one sweet and meaty mnemonic device!
I can never remember the full version of “March comes in like a lion.” My theory is that the information it’s helping you remember is kind of useless anyway. Mnemonic devices you can’t remember are lamer than lame.
I know there are many more I’m just not thinking of right now. Please help refresh my memory. Ahh, Lizzie Borden took an axe... gave her mother forty whacks. Now that's important!
And please send help with the Memorial/Labor Day thing! I would hate to be attending a union rally when I should be at a war memorial.
Or is that Veterans Day!?
** UPDATE Friend and fellow blogger, Kezia, informs me (and rightfully so) that the one about March coming in like a lion, as well as Lizzie Bordon, are not really mnemonic devices. But Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 would make the cut. Nice work!
How embarrassing.
Can someone please give me a mnemonic device? You know, a “Spring forward-Fall back” sort of thing?
This got me to thinking about these mnemonic devices and how useful they are. “30 days has September” -- who doesn't use that??
All the rest have 31, except February; it has 28.
I’m a harsh critic of whoever invented that one, because the end doesn’t rhyme. It’s like they just gave up when it got hard.
To this day, I still remember how to spell the word dessert because I know it’s twice as sweet as desert. The alphabet song is probably the first mnemonic device every child learns. I wonder who invented that. Do they get residuals every time a child sings it?
One of my coworkers just walked in and mentioned "righty-tighty lefty-loosey". Nice job! That is one sweet and meaty mnemonic device!
I can never remember the full version of “March comes in like a lion.” My theory is that the information it’s helping you remember is kind of useless anyway. Mnemonic devices you can’t remember are lamer than lame.
I know there are many more I’m just not thinking of right now. Please help refresh my memory. Ahh, Lizzie Borden took an axe... gave her mother forty whacks. Now that's important!
And please send help with the Memorial/Labor Day thing! I would hate to be attending a union rally when I should be at a war memorial.
Or is that Veterans Day!?
** UPDATE Friend and fellow blogger, Kezia, informs me (and rightfully so) that the one about March coming in like a lion, as well as Lizzie Bordon, are not really mnemonic devices. But Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 would make the cut. Nice work!
posted by "Harold" at 10:15 AM
5 Comments:
Memorial Day is in May.Both Memorial and May begin with the letter M. All the rest have 31 except February which has 28, and in words like "neighbor" and "weigh." Six more weeks of winter. Ten, two and four. Got it?
Ahh... but when I try to remember the M month, I might think of March instead of May.
As for the rest... wha??
OH! I before E, except after C!
Codos
Christine to the rescue...
"Memorial Day is at the end of May,
And later they say... is Labor Day.
But it doesn't matter anyway...
'Cause my crappy job doesn't give paid holidays..."
Hmm...
I LIKE IT!!
Well said and thanks Christine!
Just to complicate matters, Labor Day should be celebrated in May too.
In the ROW, which is everywhere else, Labor Day is May 1st - "Labour Day," to be precise, or "Workers Day" depending on what country you're working in. But just because we're assholes, and have to be different, and pooh-pooh the metric system, we don't celebrate it in the U.S. at the same time as the rest of the planet. This goes back to May Day protests in the 1860s as industrialization took over world economies. See http://www.socialistworker.org/2004-1/497/497_08_MayDay.shtml.
To be fair, some of what you call mnemonic devices don't meet the definition. March coming in like a lion and out like a lamb is not supposed to help you remember anything - it's just a proverb. Or an aphorism. Or an axiom. What's the difference, actually? (Maybe I need a mnemonic device.)
In my opinion, the best mnemonic devices are acrostics because they're usually so nonsensical:
King Peter (or Philip) Called Out For Good Spirits (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species)
Except I can never remember "family" because as with so many acrostics, they omit or throw in little words like "of," "for," "an," etc. - so this one doesn't really work as directed.
Man Very Easily Mends Jugs SUN Pluto (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto)
But with this, you might switch Mars and Mercury since you'd think that the "Ma-" and "Me-" words would match up with the right planet. They don't, it's the opposite. So, you need a mnemonic device to remember that it's the reverse of what you think it should be. Or this one should be changed to "Men Very Easily Make Jugs SUN Pluto."
ROY G. BIV
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet
I think that the whole "indigo" thing is a sham. You can't _see_ indigo in the spectrum, you're just supposed to believe it's there. I say they had to stick a vowel in between the B and the V and they made it up.
But rhymes are also good:
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue
However, just to be funny, as kids we always changed it to "In 1493, Columbus sailed the deep blue sea." So to this day I can't remember what year it was and whether it was an ocean or a sea.
Post a Comment
<< Home