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Music Solves a Savage Problem

08 Sep 11 - 07:04 PM (#3220349)
Subject: Music Solves a Savage Problem
From: Mrrzy

We were trying to remember which was Cape Horn and which was the Cape of Good Hope, and one of us remembered the song where they go walloping around Cape Horn on their way to South Australian, and one of us remembered a lyric where they went around the Cape of Good Hope heading to India, so then we knew, since you'd go around South America to get to Australia from Ireland, and around southern Africa to get to India from Britain, so there you have it.

It occurs to me that I use lyrics to various songs in trying to solve other problems that I think are caused by the likes of google, but that's another thread. I mean things we should remember, we did learn, but we can now look up if we happen to be anywhere near a computer.

I still sing the alphabet song to find things in dictionaries.

I still sing the multiplication table when doing higher (e.g., not just addition) math.

But those last were *intended* to teach something and give you a mnemonic if you didn't memorize it.

The thing with the geography was more taking advantage of the fact that I knew a lot of lyrics to solve a problem when I *wasn't* near google.

Other examples of this? I'm sure I'm not the only one who's figured something out with song lyrics.

Oh, yeah, when I was asked who won the Civil War when I was a kid in French school, I remembered that when the brothers wearing blue and grey went to war, the wife and widow waiting for them wore blue and black... also Nellie saw from the window a coat of blue all stained with red. So I knew the guys who wore blue won.

I didn't know which side WORE blue, but that's another story too.

Oh, and I've used lyrics to solve problems wrong, too. Since the boys made the history of the orange, white and green, I thought that the stripes on the Irish flag werre in that order, oops, poetic license I guess. Also I thought that the Alamo was a victory.

But I was looking more for stories of people getting it right!


08 Sep 11 - 11:09 PM (#3220428)
Subject: RE: Music Solves a Savage Problem
From: Artful Codger

Has anyone written "The Ballad of Roy G. Biv"?


08 Sep 11 - 11:27 PM (#3220433)
Subject: RE: Music Solves a Savage Problem
From: GUEST,999

Been done AC, and here it is in black and white.


09 Sep 11 - 02:48 AM (#3220475)
Subject: RE: Music Solves a Savage Problem
From: Doug Chadwick

" Red and yellow and
   Pink and Green
   Purple and orange and blue

   I can sing a rainbow
   …………………….      "



Somehow, I don't think that this song really helps.


DC


09 Sep 11 - 08:27 PM (#3220917)
Subject: RE: Music Solves a Savage Problem
From: Joe_F

As a result of learning songs, I can tell you the word for nightingale in French, German, and Russian. That is not, actually, very helpful.


09 Sep 11 - 08:45 PM (#3220924)
Subject: RE: Music Solves a Savage Problem
From: Wesley S

Unfortunalty I never found out who wrote the book of love. But I think I know who put the Ram in the Ramalama ding dong.


09 Sep 11 - 08:48 PM (#3220926)
Subject: RE: Music Solves a Savage Problem
From: Wesley S

Come to think of it I can only spell "encyclopedia" by replaying the song by Jimminy Cricket. And was it Connie Francis that sang v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n?


10 Sep 11 - 06:29 PM (#3221328)
Subject: RE: Music Solves a Savage Problem
From: Doug Chadwick

Thanks to Bobbie Gentry, I know how to spell Mississippi.


DC