List of mnemonics

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This article contains a list of some common verbal mnemonics.

See also: Mnemonic verses

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.

Contents 1 Music 2 Science 3 Mathematics 4 Medicine 5 History 6 Geography 7 Miscellaneous 8 In law and legal studies 9 External links

[edit] Music

• Notes on treble clef lines (E, G, B, D, F)
  • Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge (also Deserves Favour or Deserves Football or Deserves Fruit)
  • Every Good Boy Does Fine
  • Every Good Bird Does Fly
  • Every Glasgow Bus Drives Fast (as you would guess, used in Glasgow schools)
  • Even George Bush Drives Fast

• Notes on bass clef lines (G, B, D, F, A)
  • Good Boys Do Fine Always (also Deserves Fudge Always or Deserves Fruit Always)
  • Good Boys Don't Fool Around
  • Great Big Dogs Fight A lot
  • Good Bikes Don't Fall Apart

• 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
  • Fat Cows Go Down An Elevator. Boom!
  • for flats: Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father

[edit] Science

• The colors of the visible spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet)
  • Richard of York gave battle in vain
  • The contrived name Roy G. Biv spells out the first letters.

• Similarly, the contrived name Mrs Gren gives the life processes Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion, Nutrition.

• 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.)
  • Stalactites hang tight; stalagmites might bite (if you sit on them)

• 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

• The diatomic elements (Iodine, Bromine, Chlorine, Fluoride, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Hydrogen)
  • I Bring Clay For Our New House
  • Alternatively: H.O.N and the Halogens

• The most electronegative elements, starting with the most electronegative Fluorine (F) and subsequently Oxygen (O), Nitrogen (N) and Chlorine (Cl) can be remembered as FON Cl (phone call).

• 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)
  • Mary's Violet Eyes Make [Poor (planetoids/asteroid belt)] John Stay Up Nights, Period.
  • Mother Very Thoughtfully Made A Jelly Sandwich Under No Protest
    • T=Terra=Earth; A=Asteroids - from Robert A. Heinlein's Have Spacesuit Will Travel
    • In the same book, 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
      • TERRA $1.00
      • MARS $1.50
      • ASTEROIDS (assorted prices, unimportant)
      • JUPITER $5.20
      • SATURN $9.50
      • URANUS $19.00
      • NEPTUNE $30.00
      • PLUTO $39.50

(NOTE: on August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Union voted on a final definition of the term planet. Since then, Pluto has been demoted to the status of a dwarf planet. Thus, it is no longer accurate to include Pluto [or, for the same reason, Sedna] in mnemonics for planets.) Here are some mnemonic for the new eight-planet solar system:

• • My Very Exotic Mistress Just Showed Up Naked
  • My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos
  • My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles
  • My Very Evil Mother Just Served Us Nothing
  • My Vicious EX-con Mailman Just Sold Us Narcotics

• Scientific classification sequence (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species)
  • King Philip came over for green spaghetti (or great sex)
  • King Philip could only find green socks
  • Kinky people care only for good sex
  • King Philip classifies ordered families as generally specious
  • King Phil classed ordinary families as generous and special
  • King Philip crossed over from Germany to Spain
  • King Philip crossed over for green stamps
  • Kangaroos play cards on Fridays (go see!)
  • King Philip comes over for good sex

• Compass directions: (north, east, south, west)
  • Never eat soggy waffles
  • Never eat shredded wheat
  • Never eat shredded wieners
  • Never eat sliced watermellons

• Reduction and Oxidation
  • OILRIG
    • Oxidation is loss (of electrons), Reduction is gain (of electrons)
  • Leo the lion says Ger
    • Loss of electrons is oxidation; Gain of electrons is reduction

• The common magnetic materials
  • Nickel Iron Copper Steel
    • This is commonly used in primary schools. For a more complete list, see the Ferromagnetism article

• The phases of cell divisions
  • I Picked My Ass Today
    • Interphase Prophase Metaphase Anaphase Telaphase

[edit] Mathematics

• 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 easily
  • Sir, I bear a rhyme excelling in mystic sense and magic spelling
  • 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.

or another near-poem (remembered from my youth,

and confirmed among a bunch of other mnemonics at komplexify.com . . .

where it's cited back to a 1914 edition of Scientific American!

See, I have a rhyme assisting

My feeble brain, its tasks sometime resisting.

Efforts laborious can by its witchery

Grow easier --

so hidden here

are the decimals all of circle's periphery.

Also, the lyrics of the poem Near a Raven, a parody of Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven, contain the first 740 digits of pi.

• The basic trigonometric functions in relation to the parts of a right triangle: (sine = opposite/hypotenuse, cosine = adjacent/hypotenuse, tangent = opposite/adjacent). See Trigonometry mnemonics for others.
  • Chief Sohcahtoa (Soh: sine opposite hypotenuse, etc.)

• Which trigonometric function is positive in a quadrant: (I, all; II, sine; III, tangent; IV, cosine). See Trigonometry mnemonics for others.
  • All students take calculus
  • All state teachers college
  • All students talk and cheat

• Operation precedences (parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction)
  • Please excuse my dear aunt sally

• Operation precedences (brackets, parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction)
  • But prison's even more dumb and stupid

[edit] Medicine

Note: medical students have developed far too many medical mnemonics over the years to list them all; 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 servant attacks with saw and axe the lumber, stack and cord

• 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"

[edit] 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

• The wives of Henry VIII can be remembered by the mnemonic All boys should come home please. (Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleeves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr.) Subsequently their fates can be remembered in the rhyme:

divorced, beheaded, died

divorced, beheaded, survived

• 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).

• To remember the last names of the first seven Presidents of the United States, (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, and Jackson) use this mnemonic:

Washington And Jefferson Made Many A Joke

[edit] Geography

• Countries of Central America (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama):
  • My Great Big Hungry Elephant Nearly Consumed Panama.

• The Great Lakes (from east to west, Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, Superior):
  • Old elephants have much skin
  • Alternatively, simply remember the word HOMES. However, this acronym doesn't account for the lakes in any particular geographical order.

[edit] Miscellaneous

• Order of the suits in bridge from highest to lowest (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs)
  • Sally has dirty children

• Resistor color band code (black = 0, brown = 1, red = 2 etc. followed by orange, yellow, blue, violet, grey, white, then silver (10%) and gold (5%) tolerance bands)

Black beetles running on your garden bring very good weather

Billy brown revives on your gin but values good whisky

Bad beer rots our young guts but vodka goes well

Bad Boys Ravish Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly for Silver and Gold

• The number of days in each Month in the year is often remembered using one of the following verses:

Thirty days hath September,

April, June and November,

All the rest have thirty-one,

Except February has twenty-eight.

Thirty days hath September,

April, June and November,

Of twenty-eight, there is one,

All the rest have thirty-one.

(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.

(Sometimes "eight and a score" is replaced by "four and twenty-four", and sometimes the last line is "And every fourth year, one day 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."

• Given names (masculine and feminine):

Francis (him) and Frances (her)

Don (son) and Dawn (daughter)

• Which letter to put first while spelling (has some exceptions):

"I" before "e" except after "c"

Or when sounding like "a" as in neighbor and weigh (or sleigh)

Exceptions: weird, science

• How many yards are in a mile:

George the third

said with a smile,

"Seventeen-sixty

yards in a mile"

(The year 1760 was the year George III took the throne)

• How to construct arguments for debating:

SEXI arguments

State, EXplain, Illustrate

• When designing a page using CSS, the order used to design links is:

"LoveHate".

(link, visited, hover, active)

• The pronunciation and lexical ordering of the Japanese vowels:

Ah we soon get old

AIUEO

[edit] In law and legal studies

• Terms that should be stated in a Contract

"Ducks say quack quack when people pass"

DURATION, SUBJECT matter, QUANTITY, QUALITY,WORK to be done, PRICE, PAYMENT terms.

• Requirements for a contract:

SIPS

SUBJECT matter, IDENTITY of parties, PROMISES, SIGNATURE.

• List of contractual items that must be in writing to satisfy the Statute Of Frauds.

SPAM LOG

SECURITES, PERSONAL property over $5K except goods, ANSWER for the debt of another, MARRIAGE contracts in consideration of, LAND, OVER 1 year to complete, GOODS over $500

[edit] External links

• searchable database of medical mnemonics
• English mnemonics - Wikiquote
• PiPhilology is a collection of Pi mnemonics
• Mnemonics Collection for Students - In spite of your efforts to organize your information, you may still find that you have a big list of stuff to remember..