Mnemonic Devices That Worked for You

[lonely moa]

The left side of bicycle pedals (and many other items, including gas fittings and mower blades and most older vehicle when lugs) it is lefty tighty.

One I have taught is FACETS,  probably the best way to not die in an avalanche.

The human factor. According to avalanche researcher Ian McCammon, the main human factors (heuristics) that may influence decisions are: Familiarity, Acceptance, Consistency, Experts, Tracks/Scarcity and Social Facilitation.These factors form the acronym FACETS.

Might be a concept applicable to other situations as well.

Oh, facets describe a metamorphic snow crystal that can produce weak layers in the snow pack and are a significant factor in avalanches. 

[John Albert]

For remembering the OSI model:

From top-down order: "All people seem to need data processing."

Or from low-to-high order: "Please do not throw sausage pizza away."




For remembering JavaScript falsy values:

"N0 FUN" = NaN, 0, false, unidentified, null

[Ron Obvious]

I tend to avoid mnemonics as it's as easy to get them wrong as it is to get them right. But I do remember the difference between" principle" and "principal", as I once attended a school where the principal told us that the princiPAL is your PAL.  The mere thought of that man being mine or anyone else's pal was so ludicrous and horrifying a thought that I still remember it now.

[Awatsjr]

Bad beer rots out young gut ...

There’s a dirtier version I won’t repeat here.

[fuzzyMarmot]

In general, I am opposed to teaching mnemonics, but a few that I've used for myself are:

Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me (spectral classes for stars). Obviously a bit problematic in a modern context.

King Philip Came Over From Great Spain (taxonomy)

Right hand rule for cross products

Circle diagram from quaternion multiplication

[Tatyana]

GAMED for the classes of immunoglobulins.

[Boßel]

Oh Oh Oh, To Touch And Feel Van de Graff’s Very Accessible Hair

The capital letters to remember the 12 cranial nerves. Van deGraff was a professor at my school who used to teach anatomy but died.

[daniel1948]

For the planets: My very educated mother just served us nine pickles. (Obviously before the demotion of Pluto.)

To spell the word arithmetic: A red Indian thought he might eat tomatoes in church.

I never needed a mnemonic for starboard and port. Oddly, I have to think about which side is right and which is left more than I have to think about which is starboard and which is larboard (port).

The only word I still remember from high school French is finetra (window) because I had such a hard time with it that I invented: An infinite number of extra fans by the window.

I always used "spring forward, fall back" but now I can forget that one because Hawaii very sensibly does not have daylight saving time. Hawaiian names, however, do not lend themselves well to English language Mnemonics.

[Tassie Dave]

I always used "spring forward, fall back" but now I can forget that one because Hawaii very sensibly does not have daylight saving time.

You don't need it in the tropics. The variation in day lengths isn't as great as places further from the equator.

[Tatyana]

I Get Smashed for the causes of pancreatitis

I idiopathic
G gallstones/ genetic (cystic fibrosis)
E ethanol
T trauma
S spider or scorpion bite
M mumps (or other infections)/ malignancy
A autoimmune
S steroids
H hyperlipidemia/hypercalcaemia/hyperparathyroidism
E ERCP Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography
D drugs (tetracycline, furosemide, azathioprine, thiazides)

[Keo_Mitchell]

Sung to the rhyme of Round n' Round the Mulberry Bush: Quadratic formula

X is equal to negative B
Plus or minus the square root
of B squared minus 4ac
all over 2a