Talk:List of mnemonics

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the List of mnemonics article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Psychology Mid‑importance

	Psychology portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Psychology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PsychologyWikipedia:WikiProject PsychologyTemplate:WikiProject Psychologypsychology articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Lists Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.ListsWikipedia:WikiProject ListsTemplate:WikiProject ListsList articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Remove?

I think that the "stalactites - hang low" should be removed as it is not a mnemonic. Cr6564 (talk) 04:48, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. It doesn't look. But it really is. I found it in http://ict4us.com/r.kuijt/en_stalactites.htm. It was supposed to be stalactites and a mnemonic for tights hanging down; As these type of rocks (or mineral) hang down. I have editted it and was at-once pleased only to be shocked to see that the same mnemonic appeared twice. They are at subsections : http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/List_of_mnemonics#Geology and http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/List_of_mnemonics#Geology_2.Valchemishnu 16:33, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Someone please solve this problem. It should be seen either only at the section "Phrasal mnemonics" or only at "middle letter mnemonics".Valchemishnu 16:33, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaned

External link to "list of medical mnemonics" is a redirect to a page selling books about mnemonics (spam)

I agree... so have replaced with a better link.CustardJack

I think I put that link in originally; at the time it was an interesting site but alas, things change. Thanks for changing it. Uranographer 07:10, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

restored

restored, since removed from Wikiquote - needs sourcing, which should be possible. DGG (talk) 14:48, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Link dump

'Scuse my mess. A link dump for later trawling and sourcing. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:24, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Early American Presidents

When I was in elementary school learning the Presidents up to Lincoln, I was taught "Will a Jolly Man Make a Jolly Visitor, Harry? Tyler poked Taylor, Fillmore pierced Buchanan" which yields Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan. Thought this was worth adding.

Is there are a mnemonic for the 50 US states?CharlesTheBold (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:28, 10 March 2012 (UTC).[reply]

"saw and axe" mnemonic"

This mnemonic isn't very good and doesn't make sense. Removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.240.229.3 (talk) 14:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Foreign Language section

The mnemonic "Ah we soon get old" isn't viable for the correct pronunciation of the Japanese "お" because the "l" in "old" changes it away from the short "o" sound and that's the correct pronunciation for it. The other vowel sounds are right on the mark but this is a bad mnemonic for teaching the correct pronunciation of the short "o" sound. B0r0a0d (talk) 01:27, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Peter Capaldi?

Now that #12 has been confirmed as Peter Capaldi, I updated the mnemonic. How to punish bad Daleks before many million earthlings truly see CLEARLY. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.49.179.174 (talk) 17:29, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Citations

If editors insist on a citation for every single mnemonic, this article will become very short, and will lose much of its value for readers. On the other extreme, a number of non-memorable alleged mnemonics have accumulated here that don't seem to be useful at all to anybody. I suggest that we retain the examples that actually are cited (obviously), but also set a high standard for the uncited ones, namely that they actually be memorable. Truly clever mnemonics aid memorability, while endless lists of uninspired poorly-devised mnemonics really impair memorization. Any alleged mnemonics that use non-notable proper names could be deleted immediately, as they are likely to be only vanity scent marking. Comments? Reify-tech (talk) 21:43, 28 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indiscriminate

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. This article, however, is indiscriminate. The selection criteria at WP:LSC would, it seems, eliminate every entry on this list. (I am unaware of any mnemonics that have their own articles.)

The post directly above this suggests that we should select "memorable" examples. While that is better than nothing, it is not at all objective. They also suggest that limiting the list to cited examples (that is verifiable information) would result in a very short list. That is not a problem for us to "solve": a List of people invited to the White House for a beer would either be an extensive list of unsourced entries or a very short list of citable ones. The cited list would be so short that we would not have the article... which we don't. This would be article is probably similar.

Yes, I could go to the article and add numerous mnemonics, some that I remember from years ago, some that I could make up. Those additions would be neither more nor less encyclopedic than what we have now.

I have tagged the article as a list farm. As talk pages on backwater articles tend to get very little attention, I'll let this sit for a bit. If there are no responses, I'll yank a few from the top to get anyone with this on their watchlist to take a look before I start to clean out all of the unsourced stuff. - SummerPhD^v2.0 17:12, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that too many low-quality and non-notable "home-made" mnemonic phrases have accumulated, and a major trimming is called for. For verifiable references, I have found at least one book which lists and discusses a number of mnemonics in common use,^[1] and there are probably others that can be found. I suggest making use of the Template:rp feature to add the page numbers for any source likely to be referenced multiple times. The documentation page explanation of this feature is somewhat intimidating, but the actual application of it is easily understood from seeing examples of it in use.

I will try to add a few such refs and do some trimming of dross, but won't try to take on the entire job myself, because I need to work on a number of other articles as well. Comments? Reify-tech (talk) 23:06, 31 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

^ Parkinson, Judy (2008). I before E (except after C) : old-school ways to remember stuff. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader's Digest Association. ISBN 978-0-7621-0917-3.

Well, I've waited long enough and no one had anything helpful. I've started to clean out the unsourced entries.[1] After I finish that, we'll still need to ditch the unreliable/trivial/self-published sources. - SummerPhD^v2.0 01:19, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@SummerPhDv2.0: SummerPhD, the commentary under Indiscriminate is reasonable at the outset, regarding the arbitrary nature of mnemonics. I have an opinion about this, largely because you and another have removed the AICPA (accounting) mnemonics a couple times. The AICPA mnemonics developed are derived from more than 400 CPA-exam examinees, in groups, forming the most memorable mnemonics they can, and occasionally replacing one of the ones listed on this page with one that is marginally more memorable. This is an unpublished process, replicated three times a year by roughly 50 CPA examinees each time, and it has gone on...well you can see by the history. Thus, there exists no citation for it, as it is an unpublished academic process. On the other hand, as far as arbitrary mnemonics go, this is a far more elaborate process than that by which "Every Good Boy Does Fine", and other commonly recognized mnemonics were derived. And yet the common mnemonics are without primary sources for documentation. Obviously, I am arguing to permit a reasonable number of these to remain (maybe the top 3), because mnemonic themes function with different efficacy for different individuals. If you'd feel more comfortable with it, I could cite the graduate Accounting Ethics course in which these are derived, although the work spans several years of development. My feeling is that mnemonics are not worthy of citation, and the general rule that you're applying does not apply well to a page such as this. The page is (merely) a list of memory aids, and it makes sense to keep them as a single article. I have found mnemonics elsewhere on W, on particular pages, and they could instead be pulled into this page (and they are also without citation).129.118.195.112 (talk) 21:33, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I could sit here and randomly add mnemonics for lots of material I needed to know for tests throughout my schooling. Some of them are likely fairly common ("My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" comes to mind). Others were likely invented by someone no more than a handful of generations removed from me (i.e., I heard it from someone who learned it from someone who learned it from the creator). Still others I created myself.

Lots of people running across articles about things often created by and for children (as may mnemonics are; much like childhood songs, games and such) find a random collection of versions. Most of the time, one of two things happens: They add their favorite versions, change the versions already here or remove those that do not match the version they learned. The other likely outcome is they walk away with the reasonable impression that Wikipedia is a random dumping ground of whatever someone wanted to write.

Allowing for some material of completely unverifiable prevents us from reasonable limiting other unverifiable material. Soon, rather than a reasonably scholarly discussion of the origins of the song you learned in first grade, with a few well-sourced versions from the song's history, we end up with an indiscriminate collection of variations of the song from no one knows where or when.

Yes, mnemonics are useful. Wikipedia is not a random collection of useful information. You aren't likely to find my killer pizza sauce recipe here or how to fix a defective dishwasher either. Instead, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Writing Wikipedia is not documenting what you know or have found. We call that "original research". No original research is one of Wikipedia's pillars.

People looking for a killer pizza sauce recipe, help fixing their dishwasher or mnemonics to help with their studying for that Accounting Ethics course have sources*. Wikipedia is not that source.

(*I have an unpublished study, n=1, documenting the pizza sauce recipe and dishwasher bits. I leave finding the Accounting Ethics mnemonics as a topic for future study.) - SummerPhD^v2.0 22:01, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@SummerPhDv2.0: SummerPhD, I understand your interest in distinguishing miscellaneous drivel from cite-able source-able material on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I will include a citation for the graduate training program from which this material derives, Texas Tech University, Rawls College of Business, School of Accountancy, Accounting Ethics (ACCT 5332). This is in keeping with the citations included elsewhere on the List of Mnemonics page, which are largely YouTube videos, school webpages, or copied from, "Old School Ways to Remember Stuff." I've also reduced the number of mnemonics listed to the most salient. Lastly, I've refrained from commentary regarding standard error of estimation on your n=1 vs n>400 quip! Jrinaldo (talk) 21:00, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your proposed approach seems to be going by what is here (substandard as it is), not what should be here (per Wikipedia's policies and guidelines). While it is true I had not completed my planned clean-out of unsourced/poorly sourced material, that proposal positively reeks of "How can you write me a ticket for speeding when other people are speeding too?" I suppose I'll have to just do the work. - SummerPhD^v2.0 15:56, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on List of mnemonics. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110902045137/http://www.transport.wa.gov.au/imarine/19240.asp to http://www.transport.wa.gov.au/imarine/19240.asp
Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.eudesign.com/mnems/_mnframe.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:47, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on List of mnemonics. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 13:14, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Spinoff articles?

As a way of getting this list to a more manageable size, I suggest splitting off several of the longest sections to their own articles, and Wikilinking to them from here. Good candidates are: Medicine, Music, and Spelling. There already seems to be a List of medical mnemonics article, and most of the stuff here should be merged into it (hopefully getting rid of some duplication). Some of the (scarce) references here should also be merged into the other more-specialized articles.

The article here should remain as a catch-all for miscellaneous mnemonics which are too few to merit their own separate articles, as well as giving pointers to the more-specialized articles. By pushing the more-numerous mnemonics to specialized articles, they are more likely to be scrutinized, evaluated, and given references by subject specialists who are repelled by the overwhelming size of this article. Last but not least, this should eliminate some unnecessary duplication of material. Reify-tech (talk) 23:17, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

planets

is pluto a planet or star? 2001:569:5279:D200:5839:DEDE:5CAD:6C86 (talk) 14:38, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"King Henry died drinking chocolate milk" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect King Henry died drinking chocolate milk has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 February 10 § King Henry died drinking chocolate milk until a consensus is reached. GSK (talk • edits) 16:17, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[Parkinson-1] Parkinson, Judy (2008). I before E (except after C) : old-school ways to remember stuff. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader's Digest Association. ISBN 978-0-7621-0917-3.

[1]