What are some mnemonic tricks that you learned for memorizing specific information?

I learned a trick for memorising numbers by associating them with sounds eg

1 = t or d
2 = n
3 = m
4 = r
5 = l
6 = Ch or j
7 = k
8 = f
9 = p or b

A number can then be represented as a word or an image. 17947 gives the sounds dk prk and the words duck park. The image of ducks in a park fixes the number in your mind.

pemdas and roygbiv come to mind.
I always tried to either rhyme things or If I needed to memorize quick, reduce words down to a couple of letters. I could always remember numbers easily for some reason.

Men Marry VENUS Jubilantly.

> Planets, smallest to largest.

Scared Lovers Try Positions They Can’t Handle.

> Carpal bones

Better Go Home Every Night Completely Paid.

> Countries of Central America, North to South

Divorced, beheaded, died…divorced, beheaded, survived

> Henry VIII’s wives’ fate, chronological order

O charmed was he (to know the root of three)

> Count the letters to get the correct answer – 1.732

All these and many more in “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” by Rod L. Evans.

I love mnemonics.

The ones you mentioned and King Philip Comes Of Fairly Good Stock are the main ones I used. I would often make up my own if I had to memorize something for an exam.

I remembered my “9” times tables by the following:

Hold all 10 fingers up. Now whatever number you’re multiplying by 9, put that finger down. For example: For 3×9, hold your 3rd finger down on your left hand. Now count the numbers before the downed finger and then count the number after the downed finger. Should be 2 and then 7. 27.

@crissy14 Or, more simply, just subtract one from the number you are multiplying by 9 = first digit. Then subtract that number from 9 = second digit. Now you don’t have to hold up your fingers and have people wonder what they hell you’re doing.

I used to do the same thing by writing out the 9x table by writing two columns of numbers – the first top to bottom, the second bottom to top.

@dappled_leaves I was in 3rd grade when I learned this. I don’t do this now!! LOL

@crissy14 Haha! Man, I was picturing you in line at the grocery store, counting fingers. Sorry!!

;) nope

PEMDAS: Please excuse my dear aunt Sally.

My native american friend sohcahtoa is handy with trig also.

Or some old hippie chased another hippie tripping on acid.

Mary’s violet eyes made John stay up nights proposing.

Planets, starting with the one closest to the sun. (assuming Pluto is a planet)

I never learned PEMDAS when I was in school. If that works for you, fine, but it seems to me that there is a simpler way to remember the order of operations. Do the operations in order of their “power”, and parentheses overrides everything else.

By power I mean that exponentiation is more powerful than multiplication, because raising a number to a power is like doing many multiplications. Similarly, multiplication is more powerful than addition. Division is on the same level as multiplication and subtraction is on the same level as addition. Consecutive multiplications and divisions on done from left to right and the same for consecutive additions and subtractions. For example, given 6 – 2 + 3 -1, it makes no sense to do the addition first.

There are several for remembering the 12 cranial nerves – (I Olfactory II Optic III Oculomotor IV Trochlear v Trigeminal VI Abducens VII Facial VIII Vestibulocochlear IX Glossopharyngeal X Vagus XI Accessory XII Hypoglossal) and for some reason most are pretty rude.

For example-

Oh, Oh, Oh, To Touch And Feel Virgin Girls’ Vaginas and Hymens.

@LostInParadise Yeah, I think a lot of people get confused by PEDMAS (examples). Really, this is not the kind of thing that should demand a mnemonic at all, especially at the age when our brains are little sponges.

Does anyone know when PEDMAS started to circulate? I never heard of it until Fluther (not here, but a long time ago).

There is a famous one for the resistor color code that I will not mention.
I use an alternate:
Bad Bourbon Rots Our Young Guts But Vodka Goes Well….Get Some Now.

I forgot 0. It is s or z.

I teach PEMA. I remember it is PEMA because that what my son called his penis when he was a toddler! :D

You’d be amazed at how many people don’t know the order of operations.

@dappled_leaves @LostInParadise At the school I tutor at, one of the students said the rule was when you have both (ie.: addition and subtraction), you work from left to right. So far, it’s given the right answers, but I was never able to prove it. I told them anyway that they’re inverse operations, so they’re at the same level.

@dxs Well, addition and subtraction are the same operation, as are multiplication and division. That’s why @Dutchess_III calls it PEMA while referring to the same thing.

PEMA doesn’t explain it thoroughly, either.
6/3*2.
In reality, there are secret parentheses around 6/3 because if not you’d end up dividing the 2, not multiplying it. This is a similar problem to one that came up in class. The only explanation I could find was the student’s—work from left to right. How can you justify the answer to this using either mnemonic?

@dxs I agree with you that it’s confusing – that’s what I was saying earlier.

The answer lies in knowing what is being divided by what (or multiplied by what, or…). Whether or not you have to draw physical or mental parentheses around parts of the equation is up to the person doing the math. But if you know that division/multiplication goes before addition/subtraction, you should be fine. It’s not as simple as applying a formula to the equation and never thinking about what is there.

6/3 is a division process so it’s the first thing to go. So you solve that first. Then you have 2 * 2.

That reminds me of how I helped students which way to go when converting fractions.
Assume 6/3 has the division sign running horizontally, rather than at a slant. I tell them “If the number on top is bigger than the number on the bottom, it is top heavy and the whole thing is faaaaallling over it is so top heavy. It always falls to the right.”
What you end up with is 3|6. Then you just have to add the top bar and you have your equation. 6 divided by 3. (I know there is a way to underline because I’ve accidentally done it before. But it isn’t in the list. It would be clearer if I could underline the 6 and put the 3 below.)