Mnemonic Devices

Mnemonic devices are tricks and techniques used as aids in memorization.

As James Burke presented it in "The Day the Universe Changed", before Gutemberg [sp?] got us into the habit of looking everything up in a book, we used to have to memorize almost everything we knew. Long apprenticeships were needed not just to learn and practice the skills, but also to memorize all the knowledge that went with those skills. Study at the ancient academies involved the memorization of the literature, somewhat akin to our trying to memorize an encyclopedia (memorizing an entire book would be trivial in comparison).

As a result, a wide variety of tricks have been devised through the ages to aid in the task of memorizing everything. Souvenirs and commemorative items (eg, coins and medallions) had the very real and useful purpose of associating the event or place with the object so that viewing or handling the object would aid in recalling the that event or place. Similarly, with ritual we remember a completely procedure exactly and in the right sequence -- ranging from full-blown ceremonies to our daily getting-up and getting-ready-to-face-the-world preparations that must not be varied lest we forget something1.

Rhymes and songs are incredibly useful for remembering a large quantity of words in an exact order. Even after several years and even decades, we can still remember the words to poems and songs. According to Burke, medieval news was spread by songs which, once heard, were immediately memorized and could thereafter be be spread as the songs were sung to others.

And Burke's assessment of the elaborate artwork in the Catholic churches was that it wasn't art, but rather it was learning! The artwork would depict the stories and lessons that the illiterate congregation had been taught, thus reminding them of those lessons. In contrast, Protestantism arose and spread with the printing press and tended to base itself much more on the individual members reading Scripture themselves, so Protestant churches tended to be much plainer and devoid of graphic art. They didn't need those mnemonic devices as much because they had the printed word.

Even though we no longer need to memorize on the vast scale that we used to, there are still some things that we want to commit to memory. In keeping with the greatly reduced scale of our memorization needs, the variety of mnemonic devices available to us has also reduced (though the others could be reinvented if necessary, I am sure). For the most part, we only use a few rhymes and several catch-phrases any more. It is these catch-phrases that I have decided to collect.

1 Two examples from the cinema come immediately to mind that I feel demonstrate the role of ritual in memorization:

  1. In Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, the children had developed an elaborate telling/re-enactment of the story of how they had arrived at that place and of their long wait to be rescued by Capt. Walker. This ensured that they would not only not forget the story, but that they also would be able to tell it completely and faithfully when their time came to tell it.

  2. In Dragonslayer, we see the old wizard preparing a potion, during which he muttered a number of incantations and made a number of gestures in what seemed to be an absent-minded manner. That wasn't superstition, but rather it was doing it exactly the way he had been taught, so that he wouldn't forget anything important. Sort of like running through a checklist -- indeed, running through a pre-operational checklist is a form of modern ritual for pilots and technicians which serves exactly the same purpose.

Here is a short list of mnemonic devices that I have started compiling. I intend to add to the list as I find more.

Roy G Biv
The colors of the rainbow in the order of their appearance: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

In electronics, the resistor color codes also employ the same order for the values 2 through 7 (indigo has been removed). Four other colors are added: black and brown for the values 0 and 1 respectively and gray and white for 8 and 9 respectively. A table explaining resistor color codes is at http://www.access1.net/rwgd1900/ResisterColor.htm.

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one
Excepting February alone:
Which hath but twenty-eight, in fine,
Till leap year gives it twenty-nine.
How many of us don't chant this one to ourselves whenever we need to figure out the date of the end of the month?

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.
For remembering the fates of King Henry VIII's six wifes.

A J Squared Away
This was taught in the US Navy DP school for memorizing the punch-card Hollerith codes for the alphabet:
A through I -- Numerics 1-9 respectively in Zone 12
J through R -- Numerics 1-9 respectively in Zone 11
S through Z -- Numerics 1-8 respectively in Zone 10
More information on punch cards has been compiled by Douglas W. Jones of the University of Iowa Department of Computer Science and can be found on his Punched Cards page. The codes themselves are discussed on his Punched Card Codes page.

ELI the ICE man --
Voltage (E) leads current (I) in an inductive (L) circuit.
Current (I) leads voltage (E) in a capacitive (C) circuit.

Easy as PIE.
In electrical theory, the formula for power is P = E * I , power equals voltage times current.

Flower Children Get Dumber After Every Bummer
In music theory, the order of sharps in a key signature: FCGDAEB.
The order of flats is simply reversed: BEADGCF.
The same patterns repeat themselves in the Circle of Fifths for both major and minor keys.

Other versions I have encountered:

Every Good Boy Deserves Favor (or, Every Good Boy Does Fine)
FACE
In music theory, these represent the notes of the treble (G) clef: the lines (EGBDF) and the spaces (FACE).

Programmers Do Not Throw Sausage Pizza Away
In computer networking, these are the seven layers of the OSI protocol stack, from the bottom up:
Physical, Data-link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, Application.

My very earnest mother just served us nine pickles
(or, My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas)
The names of the planets in the Solar System, in order from the Sun out:
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto

Oh, Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me.
In astronomy, the order of the spectral classes of stars in the Russel-Hertzsprung diagram: O, B, A, F, G, K, M.

Kids Pour Catshup Over Green Spiders.
From biology, the Linnean classification system: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Genus, Species.

How Many New Airmen Will Get Sex Free?
As taught in US Air Force basic training, the organizational structure of the Air Force:

Be My Little General.
In the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, the ranks for general, in ascending order:
  1. Brigadier General
  2. Major General
  3. Lieutenant General
  4. General

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First uploaded on 2001 October 05.
Updated on 2001 December 18.

E-Mail Address: dwise1@aol.com.