I Before E Except After C

Not that it comes up very often, but I know how to spell arithmetic because at some point in elementary school a teacher (it may have been Miss Heckmeyer) told us that if you took the first letter of each word in the following sentence, you’d spell arithmetic: A Rat In The House May Eat the Ice Cream. This sort of memory device is called a mnemonic (the first m is silent). Sometimes they can really come in handy (though never at cocktail parties). And sometimes they’re just fun to read. I e-mailed about 25 friends asking for the mnemonics they use. Here they are (some of these are PG-13 so if you’re easily offended – or still pre-bar mitzvah age – stop reading now). The order of taxonomy in biology: Kids Prefer Cheese Over Fresh Green Spinach (or for those of you who prefer, Kinky People Cry Out For Great Sex) (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species) Spell “success”:  Take two c’s and two s’s, and you’ll have success Spell “calendar”: Daughters of the American Revolution (calenDAR) Remember the order of British hereditary titles: Does Mi'lord Ever Visit Brighton Beach? (Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, Baron, Baronet) To remember the planets and their order: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizza-pies (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) Spell "weird": WE are wEIrd. The difference between principle and principal is that your princiPAL is your pal. The mathematical order of operations: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction) For the bones in the wrist: Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle (Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, Hamate) The names of the seven hills on which ancient Rome was built: Can Queen Victoria Eat Cold Apple Pie? (Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, Aventine, Palatine) The strings on a violin: Good dogs are everywhere (GDAE) The 10 Cranial Nerves: Ooh, ooh, ooh... to touch and feel a gentle virgin, so hot! (Optic, Olfactory, Oculomoter, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Abducent, Facial, Auditory-vestibular, Glossopharyngeal, Vagus, Spinal Accessory, Hypoglossal) Spell “separate”: Remembering, there is a rat in sepaRATe. The countries of Central America south of Mexico, from north to south: Big Gorillas Eat Hotdogs Not Cold Pizza (Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama) To remember the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite: A stalagmite MIGHT grow up; a stalactite holds on TIGHT to the ceiling. Order of the signs of the zodiac: All The Great Constellations Live Very Long Since Stars Can't Alter Physics (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces) While HOMES lists the great lakes, to remember them in order of size, largest to smallest: Sergeant Major Hates Eating Onions (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario) To difference between “desert” and “dessert”: You only want to cross the desert once (it only has one "s") while you always want seconds on dessert (it has two s's) Order of geological time periods: Cows Often Sit Down Carefully. Perhaps Their Joints Creak? Persistent Early Oiling Might Prevent Painful Rheumatism. (Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Recent) The lines of the treble staff: Every Good Boy Does Fine (EGBDF) Spell “rhythm”: Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move To spell “correspondence”: There is no dance in corresponDENCE. To spell “necessary”: Not Every Cat Eats Sardines (Some Are Really Yummy) To spell “believe”: Would you beLIEve a LIE? To spell “mnemonic”: Monkey Nut Eating Means Old Nutshells In Carpet.

Comments

[Jeffrey Treem]

OK, I can hardly criticize since I couldn't think of anything, but I will anyway.

- Pizza-pies? What is this 1960? Pizzas works fine
- What kind of dorky kid considers the principal his pal? I would be more incline to think mnemonic was the principal is NOT my pal
- Which of your friends is in medical school?
- The better one for dessert is "sweet stuff"
- That last one is ridiculous. Remembering that sentence is harder than just memorizing the word

Anyway, I thought the post was fun, I am just being difficult for the sake of being difficult

[Selfmademom]

Here's one for the Great Lakes- HOMES: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior.
Does this count?

[Nikki]

Well, given Pluto's no-longer-a-planet status, I think the new one would have to be:

"My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nectarines."

Or something along those lines.

[Mark R. Baker]

In music, how many sharps and flats does a particular key have? In ascending number of sharps(one, two, etc.), Go Down And Eat Breakfast First Clyde. In ascending number of flats, Four Boys Eat Apple Dumplings Greedily.

[ben]

Strings on a guitar?

Even A Derbrain Gets Better Eventually

[Mike]

I don't understand! what about field and their? please explain.