Iona and Dora Lyke to Mix Ale and Loquats?

A major difficulty in explaining modes by the C to B method is that the tonic keeps shifting, so the scale still sounds like C major/Ionian to the person trying it, and is no use at all to the person trying to sing in, say, G Dorian.

So, assuming one has enough understanding of music theory to recognize that the melodic minor scale is the major scale with the 3rd, 6th and 7th notes lowered, the standard modes are:

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Ionian = major scale [reference scale]
Dorian = lowered 3rd and 7th = minor with a raised 6th
Phrygian = lowered 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th = minor with lowered 2nd
Lydian = raised 4th
Mixolydian = lowered 7th
Aolian = minor [melodic] = lowered 3rd, 6th and 7th
Locrian = lowered 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th
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Of course, I'm talking about relative lowering/raising, not sharps and flats. This system works for all chromatic scale tones. You can ignore the Locrian mode; you will rarely if ever encounter it.

Then there are the "hyper" modes (e.g. Hypermixolydian), where the melody centers on (esp. begins/ends on) the 5th tone of the reference mode, rather than the 1st. Since the shift to even-tempering, we tend to hear and label these as other modes.

I won't bother to get into other "odd" modes, like the ascending and harmonic minors, pentatonic scales, ambiguous modes and bagpipe tuning. As others have said, there are many modes that don't fit the liturgical classification, much less our even-tempered diatonic scale.

I tried to include an ASCII-formatted (tab = 8 spaces) crib sheet to help in dealing with modes, but even using CODE or PRE tags the alignment got botched - any help, you lot? My crib lists:

The modes in scale order, with their interval patterns and alterations from the major/Ionian.
A map of key signature (sharps/flats) to the tonic in each mode.
A map of tonic/mode to key signature.