List of mnemonics
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This article contains a list of some common verbal mnemonics.
Most of these mnemonics consist of a simple phrase in which the first letter of each word either spells something out, or matches the first word of some sequence.
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Music
- Notes on treble clef lines (E, G, B, D, F)
- Every Good Boy Does Fine (also Deserves Favour or Deserves Fudge or Deserves Fruit)
- Notes on bass clef lines (G, B, D, F, A)
- Good Boys Do Fine Always (also Deserves Fudge Always or Deserves Fruit Always)
- Notes on treble clef spaces (F, A, C, E)
- spell out the word face
- Notes on bass clef spaces (A, C, E, G)
- All Cows Eat Grass
- All Cars Eat Gas
- Order of sharps/flats in key signatures
- for sharps: Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle
- Father Christmas Gets Drunk And Eats Bananas
- for flats: Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father
Science and math
- The colors of the spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green blue, indigo, violet)
- the contrived name Roy G. Biv spells out the first letters
- Richard of York gave battle in vain
- Mohs scale of mineral hardness (talc, gypsum, calcite, fluorite, apatite, orthoclase feldspar, quartz, topaz, corundum, diamond)
- tall girls can flirt and other-funny queer things can do
- Vertical mineral deposits in caves:
- Stalactites project downward from the ceiling and stalagmites project upward from the ground.
- The 'mites go up and the 'tites come down. When one has ants in one's pants, the mites go up and the tights come down. (NOTE: In a strict scientific sense, a mite is not an ant, although "mite" in common speech can refer to any small creature [among other things].)
- Elements necessary for agriculture (carbon, hydrogen, calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, copper, molybdenum, chlorine, boron)
- C(see) Hopkins CaFe, Mighty-good; Man, Cu(see your) Money, hope they are Closed or out of Business.
- The periodic order of the Lanthanide elements: (Lanthanum, Caesium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, Lutetium)
- Late College Parties Never Produce Sexy European Girls That Drink Heavily Even Though You Look
- Stellar spectral classifications (O, B, A, F, G, K, M)
- Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me!
- Wow Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me Right Now Sweetie! (for a more complete list of star classes)
- Planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto)(Sedna)
- My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles (Smartly)
- My Very Easy Memory Jingle Seems Useful Naming Planets (Simply)
- My Very Excellent Memory Just Stores Up Nine Planets (Swiftly)
- Scientific classification sequence (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species)
- King Philip came over for green spaghetti (or great sex)
- kinky people care only for good sex
- King Philip classifies ordered families as generally specious
- King Phil classed ordinary families as generous and special
- Compass directions: (north, east, south, west)
- never eat soggy waffles
- Digits of pi (3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6, ...) can be remembered by counting the number of letters in the words of the phrases
- May I have a large container of coffee?
- How I wish I could recollect pi
- How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics
- and by the verse
- Now I will a rhyme construct
- By chosen words the young instruct;
- Cunningly devised endeavour!
- Con it and remember ever.
- Widths in circle here you see
- Sprawled out in strange obscurity.
- The basic trigonometric functions in relation to the parts of a right triangle: (sine = opposite/hypotenuse, cosine = adjacent/hypotenuse, tangent = opposite/adjacent)
- Chief Sohcahtoa (Soh: sine opposite hypotneuse, etc.)
- Which trigonometric function is positive in a quadrant: (I, all; II, sine; III, tangent; IV, cosine)
- all students take calculus
- all state teachers college
- operation precedences (parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction)
- please excuse my dear aunt sally
Medicine
Note: medical students have developed far too many medical mnemonics over the years to list; only a sample is given here:
- The cranial nerves
- on old olympus' tiny top a finn and german viewed some hops
- oh oh oh to touch a fresh virgin girl's vagina and hymen
- oh oh oh to touch and feel very green vegetables and herbs
(Most others are equally vulgar.)
- The vertebral column
- The Apgar score for assessing a neonates health.
Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity,Respiration
This cranial nerves mnemonic is quoted from the novel "Arrowsmith." by Sinclair Lewis:
"On Old Olympus' Topmost Top, a Fat-Eared German Viewed a Hop"
History
- English and British Monarchs: this poem has been used by English schoolchildren
| Willie Willie Harry Stee | (William I, William II, Henry I, Stephen) |
| Harry Dick John Harry three; | (Henry II, Richard I, John, Henry III) |
| One two three Neds, Richard two | (Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, Richard II) |
| Harrys four five six, then who? | (Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI) |
| Edwards four five, Dick the bad, | (Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III) |
| Harrys (twain), Ned six (the lad); | (Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI) |
| Mary, Bessie, James you ken, | (Mary I, Elizabeth I, James I) |
| Then Charlie, Charlie, James again... | (Charles I, Charles II, James II) |
| Will and Mary, Anna Gloria, | (William III, Mary II, Anne) |
| Georges four, Will four, Victoria; | (George I, George II , George III , George IV , William IV , Victoria ) |
| Edward seven next, and then | (Edward VII) |
| Came George the fifth in nineteen-ten; | (George V) |
| Ned the eighth soon abdicated | (Edward VIII) |
| Then George six was coronated; | (George VI) |
| After which Elizabeth | (Elizabeth II) |
| Has the throne, until her death |
- 543210 is a mnemonic for the date when prohibition was lifted in Finland: 5th April (4th month) 1932 at 10 in the morning (local time).
Miscellaneous
- Order of the suits in bridge (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs)
- Sally has dirty children
- Resistor color code (black = 0, brown = 1, red = 2 etc. followed by orange, yellow, blue, violet, grey, white)
- bad boys rape our young girls behind victory garden walls also
- black beetles running on your garden bring very good weather and
- billy brown revives on your gin but values good whisky
- The number of days in each Month in the year is often remembered using the following verse:
- Thirty days hath September,
- April June and November,
- All the rest have thirty-one,
- Except February has twenty-eight.
- (sometimes September and November are interchanged). A more complete version goes something like:
- Thirty days hath September,
- April June and November,
- All the rest have thirty-one,
- Except February alone,
- Which has eight and a score,
- Until leap year gives it one more.
- The nine Latin irregular adjectives having the genitive singular ending in "-īus"
- (ūllus, nūllus, ūnus, sōlus, neuter, alter, uter, tōtus, alius)
- (any, none, one, only, neither, the other [one] of two, which [one] of two, entire, another):
- "ūnus nauta" (one sailor)
- The seven congregations of Asia Minor in Revelation chapters 1-3 in the Bible
- (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea)
- Every smart person thinks, "Start ... finish later."
- Old elephants have much skin.
- Given names (masculine and feminine):
- Francis (him) and Frances (her)
- Don (son) and Dawn (daughter)
See also
External links
- searchable database of medical mnemonics (http://www.medicalmnemonics.com/cgi-bin/search.cfm)
- English mnemonics - Wikiquote (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/English_mnemonics)
- PiPhilology (http://www.cilea.it/~bottoni/www-cilea/F90/piphil.htm) is a collection of Pi mnemonics