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frith_in_thorns) wrote2020-12-03 12:07 am
frith_in_thorns) wrote2020-12-03 12:07 am
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[december meme] Mnemonics
December meme! I'm writing posts this month on topics requested by friends. If you have an idea for something you'd like to hear me talk about, request it here!
Today's topic isn't from the comment section, but from a discussion with Ellie: spelling mnemonics!
One of the clear benefits to Ellie of being married to a primary school teacher is that I have LOADS of great mnemonics. Here are some of my favourites, or ones that I have been reminded of recently because I've shared them with her.
Rhythm: an acronym one. "Rhythm helps your two hips move." I find mnemonics in general work best when they relate to the subject, as they're easier to remember than random ones.
Necessary: a sort of acronym. I find what's hard to remember with this word is the relative number of c's and s's. "One coffee, two sugars" works for the relative number and the positioning!
Believe: I don't really have a problem remembering this spelling, but I also always remember the mnemonic I learned for it in school, which was "Would you believe a lie?" to remind you that it has "lie" inside.
Government: There is a man called "Ern" who works for the government!
Environment: There is a man called "Ron" who lives in the environment! Those three all come from the same teacher.
On a similar note, I find it useful to look at words I'm having trouble with and really break them down to see if I can remember them having done so. I have an extremely visual memory so thinking about how a word is physically made up works best for me, hence the spread of the examples above. So breakfast is literally break/fast (which is where the word came from), because includes the "cause", I always remember to say "FebRUary" when I'm thinking about the month etc. And sometimes I just have to practice. I had a long issue where Word would autocorrect my attempt at spelling "definitely" to "defiantly" and I had to notice, turn that autocorrect off, and make a big effort to go back every time and practice retyping it until I got it right.
Bonus: some of my mnemonics are things I've made up just for me and absolutely don't need to make sense to anyone else. When I did A level chemistry I had a whole set of them. For electrophoresis, I remembered the difference between cations and anions because cats are positive and make me happy, but anions are basically onions which are negative because they hurt my eyes. Meanwhile catalysis is a negative reaction which makes sense because cats destroy things, and anionisation is a positive reaction -- you add onions to dishes to build them up. (There is also a really helpful lyric from a Kimya Dawson song: "a gain of electrons is reduction, obviously!" I guess this only really works if you already know the song, though.)
Do you have any favourite mnemonics? Am I alone in having favourite mnemonics?
Today's topic isn't from the comment section, but from a discussion with Ellie: spelling mnemonics!
One of the clear benefits to Ellie of being married to a primary school teacher is that I have LOADS of great mnemonics. Here are some of my favourites, or ones that I have been reminded of recently because I've shared them with her.
Rhythm: an acronym one. "Rhythm helps your two hips move." I find mnemonics in general work best when they relate to the subject, as they're easier to remember than random ones.
Necessary: a sort of acronym. I find what's hard to remember with this word is the relative number of c's and s's. "One coffee, two sugars" works for the relative number and the positioning!
Believe: I don't really have a problem remembering this spelling, but I also always remember the mnemonic I learned for it in school, which was "Would you believe a lie?" to remind you that it has "lie" inside.
Government: There is a man called "Ern" who works for the government!
Environment: There is a man called "Ron" who lives in the environment! Those three all come from the same teacher.
On a similar note, I find it useful to look at words I'm having trouble with and really break them down to see if I can remember them having done so. I have an extremely visual memory so thinking about how a word is physically made up works best for me, hence the spread of the examples above. So breakfast is literally break/fast (which is where the word came from), because includes the "cause", I always remember to say "FebRUary" when I'm thinking about the month etc. And sometimes I just have to practice. I had a long issue where Word would autocorrect my attempt at spelling "definitely" to "defiantly" and I had to notice, turn that autocorrect off, and make a big effort to go back every time and practice retyping it until I got it right.
Bonus: some of my mnemonics are things I've made up just for me and absolutely don't need to make sense to anyone else. When I did A level chemistry I had a whole set of them. For electrophoresis, I remembered the difference between cations and anions because cats are positive and make me happy, but anions are basically onions which are negative because they hurt my eyes. Meanwhile catalysis is a negative reaction which makes sense because cats destroy things, and anionisation is a positive reaction -- you add onions to dishes to build them up. (There is also a really helpful lyric from a Kimya Dawson song: "a gain of electrons is reduction, obviously!" I guess this only really works if you already know the song, though.)
Do you have any favourite mnemonics? Am I alone in having favourite mnemonics?