Mnemonics
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Mnemonics are techniques or tricks to aid memory. One well-known to those who have had piano lessons is ‘Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit’ for the notes on the lines of the treble clef – E, G, B, D, F. To remember the spaces of the bass clef, A, C, E, G, the mnemonic is ‘All Cows Eat Grass’.
Mnemonics take many forms. For children it may be a song to learn the alphabet, for example, or an acronym in sentence form to remember the colours of the rainbow – Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain. It might be a word – HOMES, to recall the names of the North American Great Lakes – Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie. Superior.
It could be a list, like ‘divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived’ to remember the fate of Henry VIII’s six wives.
Can’t
remember how many days there are in each month? There’s a rhyme to help.
Thirty days
hath September,
April,
June and November,
All the rest
have thirty-one
Except for
February alone,
And that has
twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty-nine in each leap year.
I’ve just learnt a new mnemonic, which is easier and involves the knuckles of the hand. Starting with the left hand and the first fist knuckle, January (31 days), depression between the knuckles, February (not 31 or 30 days, so has to be remembered along with the leap year bit!), second knuckle, March (31), second depression, April, (30) and so on across the knuckles. Of course, there is a spare depression and knuckle at the end!
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Spelling can often be helped with a mnemonic – ‘Big Elephants Can’t Always Use Small Elevators’ spells ‘because’, or, a particular favourite from the film ‘Matilda’ – ‘Mrs D, Mrs I, Mrs F, F, I, Mrs C, Mrs U, Mrs L, T, Y.’
A mnemonic might be a little rhyme to aid spelling – ‘i before e, except after c’, although there are many exceptions to that rule. Sometimes, the first part is followed by, ‘Or when sounded as ‘a’, as in neighbour and weigh’.
A mnemonic can help in distinguishing homophones – is it here or hear? ‘I hear with my ear’. Should it be which or witch? ‘The witch had an itch.’
Once past primary age and into secondary school and beyond, mnemonics take on a wider-ranging cast, in electrical engineering, geology, physics, chemistry, foreign languages – it seems that many disciplines benefit from an aide-memoire. Are they necessary (one collar, two sleeves) or superfluous?
Mnemonic - I've heard and read the word without ever giving it much thought. I remember the one about the months and none of the others.
ReplyDeleteAs for music, Bass clef? Treble clef? I have no idea what those even are. Reading and spelling, grammar too are "in" me, music is not and that makes me a little sad.
So long as you can listen to and enjoy music, it's 'in' you :-)
DeleteOh yes I do remember the month one - I used to chant it as a child. I did not know thats what they were called ... I shall have to think of some other ones now as I probably say them without thinking too much - they are habit. 😉 I guess ROY G BIV was how I used to remember the rainbow colours (still is).
ReplyDeleteROY G BIV is still helpful to me, too.
DeleteI always taught my classes Big Elephants Can Add Up Sums Easily for because. Another I remember was Silly Ants In Dustbins.
ReplyDeleteMnemonics really do work, as do little rhymes, chants and ditties.
I always did one family assembly a year based on them and the parents seemed to enjoy them very much, saying afterwards to me now they know what their children were doing when they performed them at home.
xx
They just help to make things 'stick'. x x
DeleteIt's never too late to learn a new one. On a plant ID workshop last year I enjoyed being taught "sedges have edges, rushes are round, grasses have nodes that go down to the ground".
ReplyDeleteCheers! Gail.
I learned a variation of that one a couple of years ago and find myself muttering it at times when unsure.
DeleteOne good one for spelling - Dash In A Real Rush Hurry Or Else Accident. Learned this with having three children and writing notes for school when they were off ill!
ReplyDeleteI came across that one recently. Very useful.
DeleteMy Very Wise Man Just Showed Me Nine Planets, the order of the planets, although Pluto is now disputed as a planet.
ReplyDeleteWoolloomooloo is a Sydney suburb. Actually I've just realised it is all double oo, so it is not so hard but the double 'l' might catch some out. You can't go wrong with sheep, toilet, cow, toilet. I have an idea I invented this quite a few years ago.
That should be 'showed us nine planets'. How can you remember mnemonics?
DeleteOh dear! Not much use if you can't remember them - ho ho ho!
DeleteAnd one mio Papa taught me....
ReplyDeleteThe word 'CONTENTS' at the begging of a book...
'Cows Ought Not To Eat Nasty Stumps'...
And in reverse...
'Sammy Took Nelly Every Tuesday Night Out Courting'..
🐇 🐰 🥚 🐇 🐰 🥚 🐇 🐰 🥚 🐇 🐰 🥚 🐇 🐰 🐇 🐰
It's funny, the things we remember . . .
ReplyDeleteOh! Sorry! It should read 'Nasty Turnip Stumps'
Deleteat the end..! :(.
My experience was it was more difficult to remember (and an enormous diversion of my time and attention to try) the aide memoir than it was to learn the original piece of information. It was the same with navigating the components of a public speaking assignment which one teacher tried to encourage me to do it by imaging a tour round a playground and a bit of the speech on each piece of equipment. I just got annoyed with trying to make completely unrelated speech material associate in my head with a seesaw. Learning the subject of the speech was much easier and much less time consuming.
ReplyDeleteI can sympathise with some of that. I don't find the 'hook' method of remembering things at all helpful - for example, to remember the Spanish for tigre, think of a grey tiger. (I think that was it . . . )
ReplyDeleteNo, I got it wrong. The Spanish for tiger is tigre, so think of a grey tiger to remember it . . . works a treat!
ReplyDeleteI still use a number of mnemonics to help me figure out certain things, but find it hard to learn any new ones. I remember three of my college friends, all studying biology, who used them extensively to remember the vast quantities of detailed information in their courses. They used to study together and come up with the mnemonics together also.
ReplyDeleteThey're only useful if they're relevant. As with all knowledge, or facts, we discard those for which we have no use, or we'd be overloaded with information.
ReplyDeleteMnemonics definitely work - we are even using one to remember our licence plate! And I've been using the knuckle one for months for as long as I can remember! xxx
ReplyDeleteWe never stop learning, do we? There's so much still to discover . . . x x x
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