List of mnemonics

This article contains lists of some common mnemonics.

Phrasal and rhyming mnemonics

Science and technology

Biology/Taxonomy

To remember the order of taxa in biology:
- Dumb Kids Playing Catch On Freeway Get Squashed. (Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species)
- "Dear King Philip Came Over For Good Spaghetti" is often cited as a (clean) method for teaching students to memorize the taxonomic classification system.^[1] Other variations tend to start with the mythical king, with one author noting "The nonsense about King Philip, or some ribald version of it, has been memorized by generations of biology students." ^[2]

Chemistry

"My Enormous Penguin Bounces Pretty High" to remember the series of alkanes : Methane, Ethane, Propane, Butane, Pentane, Hexane

Computing

OSI Model

There are many mnemonics for the seven layers of the OSI Model in computing. Physical / Data Link / Network / Transport / Session / Presentation / Application

Because the layers are numbered from the bottom-up, many mnemonics have been developed in both directions, from the top-down and from the bottom-up.

Please Do Not Throw Sausage Pizza Away starts at layer 1 (the bottom),
as does Programmers Like Networks That Seldom Postpone Anything.
Another commonly used mnemonic starts with layer 7; All People Seem To Need Data Processing.

Geology

Vertical mineral deposits in caves:
- 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.)
- Stalactites hang tight, hang down like tights on a line; stalagmites might bite (if you sit on them), might reach the roof.
- You need might to do push-ups (from the floor). You must hold tight doing chin-ups (off the ceiling).
- Stalactites are on the ceiling. Stalagmites are on the ground.
- NESW (North, East, South, West) Never Eat Soggy Waffles

Medicine

Intrinsic muscles of hand^[3]

'A OF A OF A'

Thenar (lateral to medial-palmar surface):

    Abductor pollicis longus
    Opponens pollicis
    Flexor pollicis brevis
    Adductor pollicis.

Hypothenar (lateral to medial-palmar surface):

    Opponens digiti minimi
    Flexor digiti minimi
    Abductor digiti minimi

Bones of the hand:

Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can’t Handle she looks too pretty try to catch her

Engineering

A mnemonic to remember which way to turn common (right-handed) screws and nuts, including light bulbs, is "Righty tighty, lefty loosey"; another is "right on, left off"
For EIA electronic color code: Bad beer rots our young guts but vodka goes well – get some now Black(0), Brown(1), Red(2), Orange(3), Yellow(4), Green(5), Blue(6), Violet(7), Gray(8), White(9), Gold(5%), Silver(10%), None(20%)

Mathematics

Calculus

For remembering the order of taking the derivative of a quotient in calculus, the phrase "lo-di-hi minus hi-di-lo all over lo squared" can be useful, where lo means the bottom, hi means the top, and di means the derivative. So,

${\frac {d}{dx}}{\frac {hi}{lo}}={\frac {lo\cdot hi'-hi\cdot lo'}{lo^{2}}}$

Another phrase that one may use is: "Bottom d Top, Top d bottom", where "d" stands for derivative (note that this mnemonic does not include the crucial dividing by the bottom squared). Another phrase memorable for sounding like a square dance is "low d high less high d low, draw the line and square below."

Order of Operations

PEMDAS- Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication & Division, Addition & Subtraction can be remembered by the phrase: "Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally."

Geography and chronology

How to set your clock to accommodate the shift to and from daylight saving time: "Spring forward. Fall back" or "Spring ahead, Fall behind."
To remember which direction Latitude and Longtitude are: Latus is Latin for side - latitude lines go from side to side (EW). Longitude lines seem longer (top to bottom, NS). Remember "Lat is Fat" - Latitude goes around the equator belt.
To remember the Great Lakes in order of increasing surface area, use : "Only erections hurt misinformed superstars". (Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, Superior)
To remember the Great Lakes in anyway use : "HOMES". (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior)
For the streets running east and west in downtown Seattle, running south to north: "Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Pressure" (Jefferson/James, Cherry/Columbia, Marion/Madison, Spring/Seneca, University/Union, Pike/Pine)

Language

The pronunciation and lexical ordering of the Japanese vowels:

Ah we soon get old

AIUEO

Common vowel sounds for several languages including Spanish and Esperanto (one sound per letter):

Pa let me go too (AEIOU)

Transportation

Marine

The phrase "there's always some red port (wine) left" is used to remember the basics in seafaring.

Aviation^[4] uses many mnemonics in addition to written checklists.

pre-landing: GUMPS - Gas, Undercarriage, Mixture, Propeller, Speed.
pre-final: MARTHA - Missed (procedure), Altitude (limit), Radios (set), Time (limit), Heading (final), Airspeed (descent)
pre-high-altitude - FLOWER - Flow (enabled), Lights (test), Oxygen (charged), Water (humidity), Electricity (on), Radio (check)
pre-flight-paperwork - ARROW - Airworthiness (certificate), Registration, Required (charts), Operating (checklists), Weight and balance
night collision avoidance: Red, Right, Returning - Red nav light on Right implies target is Returning (closing)
radio loss Instrument course - CDEF - as Cleared, else Direct to last fix, else as directed to Expect, else as flight plan Filed
spin recovery - POKER - Power (off), Opposite (full rudder), Klean (flaps, ...), Elevator (briskly forward), Recover (from dive)

Numeric mnemonics

Science

Astronomy

In Have Spacesuit Will Travel, Robert A. Heinlein includes 'prices' which represent the mean AU (Astronomical Unit - mean distance of the Earth from the Sun = 93 million miles = 149 million km) of all the planets from the sun:

MERCURY $0.39
VENUS $0.72
EARTH $1.00
MARS $1.50
ASTEROIDS (assorted prices, unimportant)
JUPITER $5.20
SATURN $9.50
URANUS $19.00
NEPTUNE $30.00
PLUTO $39.50

Oh Be A Fine Girl / Guy, Kiss Me: the main sequence (O B A F G K M).

Mathematics

Physics

The phrase "We guarantee certainty, clearly referring to this light mnemonic." represents the speed of light in meters per second through the number of letters in each word: 299,792,458.

Humanities

History

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).

Other

Science and technology

Chronology

The rhyme Thirty days hath September is commonly used as a mnemonic for the number of days in the months of the year. I

Music

Guitar

Mnemonics is used also in remembering guitar string names in standard tuning. Eddy Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddy or Every Adult Dog Growls Barks Eats. Thus we get the names of the strings from 6th string to the 1st string in that order.

Internal letters

As well as first-letter mnemonics, some mnemonics employ internal letters of words:

Science and technology

Geology

- stalactites - hang down ^{[citation needed]}

Language

Onomasty

Given names (masculine and feminine):

Francis (him) and Frances (her)

Don (son) and Dawn (daughter)

References

^ E.D. Hirsch, Jr., The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Houghton Mifflin, 1993); E.D. Hirsch, Jr., "What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Fifth-grade Education" (Doubleday, 2005) p308; Scott Hagwood, Memory Power: You Can Develop a Great Memory--America's Grand Master Shows You How (Simon and Schuster, 2007)
^ Robert A. Wallace, et al., Biology, the Science of Life (Scott, Foresman, 1986) p398
^ [1] Mnemonic- Intrinsic muscles of hand
^ Useful Aviation Mnemonics (published by Dauntless Software, Inc.)

External links

[1] E.D. Hirsch, Jr., The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Houghton Mifflin, 1993); E.D. Hirsch, Jr., "What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Fifth-grade Education" (Doubleday, 2005) p308; Scott Hagwood, Memory Power: You Can Develop a Great Memory--America's Grand Master Shows You How (Simon and Schuster, 2007)

[2] Robert A. Wallace, et al., Biology, the Science of Life (Scott, Foresman, 1986) p398

[3] [1] Mnemonic- Intrinsic muscles of hand

[4] Useful Aviation Mnemonics (published by Dauntless Software, Inc.)

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