Folklore: Tricks for remembering...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 11:42 AM

I read a very funny book donkey's years ago about a nurse. Can't remember mucgh about the story, but "slowly sailing cooking peas, sweetly sailing past my elbow" is a mnemonic for some bones or other.

At school we had a choice of "Oliver has a handful of apples" or "some officers have curly auburn hair to offer attraction" for trig functions (sin = opposite/hypoteneuse, cos = adjacent/hyp, tan = opp/adj). Yes, I know they don't all have the same number of letters; you were supposed to learn "sin, cos, tan".

I sat down and learned pi to 20 decimals when I was 14! Can't remember it now.

Years back, we had a letter from ... was it British Telecom or the GPO then? ... which said our area code and phone number was changing: from 05433 78221 to 0543 378221 ... spot the difference! (And don't try ringing the number: it's changed again a few times, and we don't live there any more.)

Steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: JennyO
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 12:09 PM

For the treble clef lines, we used to say "Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 12:16 PM

Where does 'My dog has fleas' come from when tuning a uke?

Sal

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 06:25 PM

Main stellar sequence lists the star types based upon heat and color (blue, white, yellow like the Sun, etc.), from hottest to coldest. Nature being nature, there are some types, like M and W, which are outside of the main sequence. Like some maiden aunts, nobody talks much about them.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 06:27 PM

Oops! I meant to mention that one of my nephews memorized the value of pi to three hundred (300) decimal places.

He won a small pizza; it was pi day (March 14).

Think of the poor guy who had to check him against the book!!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: Gareth
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 06:40 PM

Damn - Many years ago we were not taught a mnomic for the Great Lakes, we had to learn them by rote.

Gareth - Grade B in A level Geography.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: alison
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 01:33 AM

I always wondered about "My dog has fleas" too...... apparently its a song... and the notes the words are sung to correspond to the strings on the uke....... would help if you knew the song to start with (I don't)

Great Big Dogs Fight Animals (bass clef lines)
All Cows Eat Grass (bass clef spaces)

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 04:33 AM

Pooby, the one I learned was "Oh, oh, oh, to touch and feel a girl's vagina and hymen." The "V" for the 8th nerve probably stands for "vestibular." I don't recall whether that is an alternate name for the acoustic nerve, or a branch of the nerve. Somebody can look it up...not me!

Steve, I can't figure out what your mnemonic is for. Doesn't appear to be bones.

One I learned for pi, only 7 places: "May I have a large container of coffee?"

There was one I learned for postoperative orders, but I can't remember what the letters stand for anymore! DR. (&) MRS. VANDERTRAMP. D was diet, M was medications, V was vital signs, A was activity, the second D was drains, P was pain meds...and that's as much as I recall.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 11:54 AM

Okay, here goes.

Once you know the "hundreds" of the Dewey Decimal Classification (and to a lesser extent Universal Decimal Classification), you can *usually* find your way around because of built-in mnemonics.

For instance, 970 is the number for United States History. 917 is travel in the United States. 813.54073 would be criticism of United States fiction of the latter half of the 20th century.

In language, 440 is French grammar, etc. 814 is French poetry.

But don't think that this holds thoughout, because 640 is NOT applied French science and technology, but Domestic Engineering -- cookbooks, etc.

But hey! It works, and it's better than saying "shelf nine, under the bust of Cleopatra."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 12:53 PM

So opossums in traditional music would be 490.666, right?

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 04:07 PM

781.6 is traditions of music, 781.62 is folk music, and if you want to tie it to opossums I probably up it under "history and description of folk music with respect to kinds of persons; treatment with respect to specific racial, ethnic, national groups" -- i.e., Folk music of specific racial, ethnic, national groups: 781.621-.629. What race, ethnicity, or nationality is the opossum(s) you have in mind?

Or we could go at it from the opossum angle instead of the music angle: 599.23 for Australian possums; 599.232 for brush-tailed and scaly-tailed possums, including Phalanger (cuscuses); 599.27 for the shrew opossums, or 599.276 for Didelphidae (American possums). Then tack on a zero and add a standard subdivision for traditional music -- perhaps 78162 -- so the classification number for Didelphidae in music might be 599.276078162.

See? Nothing at all hard about it if you know the possum's background.

Now, flat possums on the highway in traditional music -- or, alternately, traditional music about road-killed possums, could open up the 390 area which deals with death and funerals....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: Deckman
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 04:42 PM

SHEEEUH! You guys have WAY TOO much time on your hands! Bob

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: VoxFox
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 08:26 AM

Here's one for the planets...Men Very Early Made Jars Stand Up Nearly Perpendicular.    Great Thread, and they say that that an old dog can't learn new tricks...silly rabbit!   :o) VF

Subject: RE: Folklore: Tricks for remembering...
From: Allan C.
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 09:15 AM

VoxFox, if memory serves that is the order of the planets by distance from the sun, right?