Call them memory crutches or call them mnemonic devices, they can help you remember to turn right at Maple Street, and which planet is closest to the Sun. Don’t we all need that?!

Most mnemonics are verbal—a word, phrase or rhyme—but they can be visual, auditory or kinesthetic: I still move my right hand if I want to double-check left from right.

Why do mnemonics work?

We could just learn the order of the planets:  Mercury Venus Terra Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto.  But it was easier for me to learn them by remembering: Mother Very Thoughtfully Made Jelly Sandwiches Under No Protest.

That worked because it’s not arbitrary (silly, but not arbitrary). Our brains find it easier to grasp and store data if it makes a personal connection, if it’s funny, or surprising, or it’s, well.. memorable, which arbitrary sequence rarely is.

Of course, I learned that particular mnemonic when Pluto was a planet. Now? Try My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.  That mnemonic won National Geographic Society’s contest for a way to remember the eleven known planets and dwarf planet Eris.

Sing Along!

Music and rhyme, since the dawn of man, have been outstanding tools for memory. Who can’t chant along to:

Thirty Days Hath September, April, June and November. ….

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue

and, if you were in my 7th grade history class, Alexander took a ride on a horse who shadow-shied.  Why I needed to know this about Alexander the Great’s horse, I cannot say, but the phrase will be with me until death.

So if you need to remember something, set it to music or make up a poem.

Acronyms and Backronyms

Acronyms abound, simply because they are easy to remember.  Why say self contained underwater breathing apparatus when you can say scuba?

Backronyms, on the other hand, are developed by determining the preferred “acronym”, and then finding words that will create it. Take, for example, the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. Its full title is Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. They didn’t title it first and then suddenly realize: “Wow, how about that! The first letters spell out USA PATRIOT!”

A different species of backronym are those to which we assign meaning  even where meaning does not exist. One case is the universal distress call SOS, which many think stands for Save Our Ship. Nope. In Morse code, S and O are simply easy letters to type.

Association of Letters

My favorite way of making mnemonics is to associate letters to words, letters in alphabetic sequence, or even simply the number of letter in words. I will demonstrate, even at risk of disclosing the quirks in my memory:

• Learning the alphabet, for years I confused the sequence at R S T. Or was T before S, and R after it?  Finally, hooray, I figured out that S is the Second, T is the Third.  (I was in fact nearly 12 before I figured this out, so you can imagine what a relief it was.)

• To remember which side of the ship was starboard and which port, I realized that port and left both have four letters.  How many letters starboard has was irrelevant; it had to be on the right if port were on the left.

• When setting the dinner table, I finally figured out where to put the knife when I associated knife (a word of five letters) with right (a word of five letters).  That fork and left both have four letters is simply a bonus. I figured this out well after sorting out the starboard/port question, despite often setting the table yet never having been to sea.

What are your favorite memory crutches and mnemonic devices? Let me know—I need them!