Mnemonics

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Does anyone else get puzzled by mnemonics. I was watching a science channel and they are having people make up new mnemonics since Pluto is no longer a planet. Is it really that hard for people to memorize the order of the planets to begin with (lol). Is it honestly easier to remember a silly phrase. I saw the same thing when I was looking at psychiatric stuff - they have these things for people to memorize for personality disorders and other conditions. I find the shortcuts just confusing extra information that you would have to translate into the original defintion. It seems like an extra step.

agreed

I find that some mnemonics are helpful, but many are superfluous. Generally, the ones that are "no-frills" tend to help me more than the ones where you end up memorizing just as much information as you would have to just memorize it to begin with. Sometimes I use mnemonics to memorize things initially, but then get them down. Sometimes I continue to use the mnemonic to remember the order.

Example of a "no-frills" mnemonic that I find helpful and actually useful: For memorizing the vertebral level at which the inferior vena cava, esophagus, and aorta pass through the diaphragm, the phrase "I ate ten eggs and twelve" (I-8, 10-E, A-12). Not a whole lot of extra information there, and helpful for me because I have trouble memorizing numbers.

I also still use the mnemonic for the carpal bones. I know the names of all of them, and I know some of them individually, but in order to get them all down, I generally need to think through the mnemonic. And the mnemonic is easier to remember because it's slightly dirty: Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle.

I agree. In my French class, we used to have to learn stupid songs and phrases to remember vocabulary and grammar rules. I didn't pay attention while they were being taught, and I still did really well in the class. I think it's silly when people make up mnemonics for memorizing numbers. Then you have to memorize the mnemonics and then what numbers go with them. I find it much easier to just memorize the numbers alone. The only thing I find usefull for memorizing things is splitting them up into sections or categories, such as phone numbers being split up by hyphens.

I could see using them for certain situations - but it seems like they are used for some very common things that shouldn't need them. I generally find them distracting and harder to memorize than the actual info. Same for the songs - that is just annoying - lol. My daughter had some bizarre math songs when she was little they thought would help the kids learn. How about the old standard - "1 x 1 is 1; 1 x 2 is 2" and for get about all this going to farm or circus stuff that has nothing to do with the numbers.

I still remember this one from biology:
Kings Play Chess On Fiber Glass Stools

Alot of people probably know this from music:
Every Good Boy Does Fine

Never Eat Soggy Waffles.

Oh wow, mnemonics are incredibly powerful tools of memory. I can memorize vast quantities of information in a short period of time using them. The trick is to think of something crazy. In high school, I could memorize a hundred or two vocab words in Latin using mnemonics the period before the test.

I'm lost without mnemonics to remember lists of planets, chemical elements etc. Can't remember lists at all otherwise, unless I have to use them hundreds and hundreds of times. This might be partially because the early years of my education were spent in the then-fashionable system of not bothering children with trivial details like remembering the alphabet in the right order.

In IT in our last year of high school, for no readily explicable reason we had to remember a specific set of steps for problem solving, ie

1. Define the problem
2. Specify the solution
3. Design the solution etc etc... Yes, fairly straightforward stuff and pretty common-sense, but to pass the test we had to actually write it down in the exact words the teacher wanted. I could not remember it, so I came up with a very silly mnemonic: Do Such Deeds If Dogs Tell Everyone. It's the dumbest thing ever, but I passed the test.

sometimes I used to spend too much time trying to remember the phrase that the letters stood for and would eventually forget what the heck it was really for. I answered a lot of tests with things like "every good boy does fine" and "Never eat spoiled watermelon" instead of the actual answers.

I remember learning DAMSON for long division.
And although my mathematics function is highly developed I still can't do long division.

I've always found it harder to learn the mnemonic than it was just remember what it stood for.

Last edited by Astilius on 11 May 2007, 11:46 am, edited 2 times in total.

I hate soggy waffles. Roommate puts too much syrup on the east and than she wonders why Venice is flooded.

Mnemonics are useful for those who learn or understand that way.
I tend to remember things in spatial visual ways if that makes any sense.

Indeed it does. For my work I need to know the 568b wiring protocol. Considering its wo, o, wg, b, wb, g, wbr, br. You can either think up some weird mnemonic thingy to try to remember.. or I can just remember a picture of it wired up in the correct order.

In school they tried to teach me so many mnemonics I always had so much trouble with it. I always did better just ignoring the mnemonic and just remembering the material.. but then of course you would get the occasional weird teacher who wanted to put the mnemonic itself on the test: "What does EGBDF stand for?". Bastard

There's only one thAT i remember from schoiol. dumnb monkeys squash bananas.... for long division ... i liked that one ha

Exactly.
I usually remember this way, directions too. I can know my way around a town or a mall or something like that by creating visual checkpoints. Same with diagrams, I learn better if I watch how it works or have a visual way of utilizing it. Patterns are great.

We learned: "King Philip Came Over From Greece Saturday"

or alternately: "King Philip Came Over For Great Spaghetti"