Astronomy

• Order of Planets from the Sun

My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets

Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto

Taxonomy

• To remember the order of taxa in biology:
  • Dumb Kids Playing Catch On Freeway Get Squashed. (Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species)
  • "Dear King Philip Came Over For Good Spaghetti" is often cited as a (clean) method for teaching students to memorize the taxonomic classification system. Other variations tend to start with the mythical king, with one author noting "The nonsense about King Philip, or some ribald version of it, has been memorized by generations of biology students."

Meteorology

• Richard of York gave battle in vain to remember the colours in order in a rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet)
• The Fictitious Name Roy G. Biv Is Also Used To Remember The Names And The Order Of The Colours Of The Rainbow(Edited By Jordie Robert Roland Morrison)

Chemistry

• "My Enormous Penguin Bounces Pretty High" to remember the series of alkanes : Methane, Ethane, Propane, Butane, Pentane, Hexane
• "Please Send Cats, Monkeys And Zebras In Large Cages Make Sure Padlocked" to remember the reactivity of metals : Potassium Sodium Calcium Magnesium Aluminum Zinc Iron Lead Copper Mercury Silver Platinum.
• Harry He Likes Beer Bottle Cold, Not Over Frothy. Nelly's Nanny Might, Although Silly Person, She Climbs Around Kinky Caves; for the first 20 Elements of the Periodic Table
  Periodic table
  The periodic table of the chemical elements is a tabular display of the 118 known chemical elements organized by selected properties of their atomic structures. Elements are presented by increasing atomic number, the number of protons in an atom's atomic nucleus...
  
  . (Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Neon, Sodium, Magnesium, Aluminium, Silicon, Phosphorus, Sulphur, Chlorine, Argon, Potassium, Calcium.)

OSI Model

There are many mnemonics for the seven layers of the OSI Model

OSI model

The Open Systems Interconnection model is a product of the Open Systems Interconnection effort at the International Organization for Standardization. It is a prescription of characterizing and standardizing the functions of a communications system in terms of abstraction layers. Similar...

 in computing.
Physical / Data Link / Network / Transport / Session / Presentation / Application

Because the layers are numbered from the bottom-up, many mnemonics have been developed in both directions,and from the top-down and from the bottom-up.

• Please Do Not Throw Sausage Pizza Away starts at layer 1 (the bottom),
• as does Programmers Like Networks That Seldom Postpone Anything.
• Another commonly used mnemonic starts with layer 7; All People Seem To Need Data Processing.

Geology

• Vertical mineral deposits in caves:
  • The 'mites go up and the 'tites come down. When one has ants in one's pants, the mites go up and the tights come down. (Note: In a strict scientific sense, a mite
    Mite
    Mites, along with ticks, are small arthropods belonging to the subclass Acari and the class Arachnida. The scientific discipline devoted to the study of ticks and mites is called acarology.-Diversity and systematics:...
    
     is not an ant
    Ant
    Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
    
    , although "mite" in common speech
    Colloquialism
    A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...
    
     can refer to any small creature.)
  • Stalactites hang tight, hang down like tights
    Tights
    Tights are a kind of cloth leg garment, most often sheathing the body from about the waist to the feet with a more or less tight fit, hence the name....
    
     on a line; stalagmites might bite (if you sit on them), might reach the roof.
  • You need might to do push-ups (from the floor). You must hold tight doing chin-ups (off the ceiling).
  • Stalactites are on the ceiling. Stalagmites are on the ground.
  • NESW (North, East, South, West) Never Eat Soggy Waffles

Medicine

• Intrinsic muscles of hand

'A OF A OF A'

Thenar (lateral to medial-palmar surface):
Abductor pollicis brevis
Opponens pollicis
Flexor pollicis brevis
Adductor pollicis
Hypothenar (lateral to medial-palmar surface):

Opponens digiti minimi
Flexor digiti minimi
Abductor digiti minimi

• Bones of the wrist:

Some

Scaphoid bone

The scaphoid bone is one of the carpal bones of the wrist. It is situated between the hand and forearm on the thumb-side of the wrist . The scaphoid bone is the largest bone of the proximal row of wrist bones, its long axis being from above downward, lateralward, and forward...

 Lovers

Lunate bone

The lunate bone is a carpal bone in the human hand that may be distinguished by its deep concavity and crescentic outline. It is situated in the center of the proximal row of the carpus region between the fore arm and hand...

 Try

Triquetral bone

The triquetral bone is located in the wrist on the medial side of the proximal row of the carpus between the lunate and pisiform bones. It is on the ulnar side of the hand, but does not articulate with the ulna...

 Positions

Pisiform bone

The pisiform bone is a small knobbly, pea-shaped wrist bone.The pisiform bone is found in the proximal row of the carpus. It is located where the ulna joins the carpus...

 That

Trapezium (bone)

The trapezium bone is a carpal bone in the wrist.The trapezium is distinguished by a deep groove on its palmar surface. It is situated at the radial side of the carpus, between the scaphoid and the first metacarpal bone...

 They

Trapezoid bone

The trapezoid bone is a carpal bone in tetrapods, including humans. It is the smallest bone in the distal row. It may be known by its wedge-shaped form, the broad end of the wedge constituting the dorsal, the narrow end the palmar surface; and by its having four articular facets touching each...

 Can’t Handle

Hamate bone

The hamate bone is a bone in the human hand that may be readily distinguished by its wedge-shaped form, and the hook-like process which projects from its volar surface. It is situated at the medial and lower angle of the carpus, with its base downward, resting on the fourth and fifth metacarpal...

She Looks Too Pretty Try To Catch Her

Simplly Learn The Positions That The Carpus Has

• Differential Diagnosis

VINDICATE

• Cranial nerves
  Cranial nerves
  Cranial nerves are nerves that emerge directly from the brain, in contrast to spinal nerves, which emerge from segments of the spinal cord. In humans, there are traditionally twelve pairs of cranial nerves...
  
  

List of mnemonics for the cranial nerves, their respective type and foramen

NERVE:	| Olfactory nerve	| Optic nerve	| Oculomotor nerve	| Trochlear (pathic) nerve	| Trigeminal (dentist) nerve			| Abducens nerve	| Facial nerve	| Vestibulo-cochlear (Auditory) nerve	| Glosso-pharyngeal nerve	| Vagus nerve	| Spinal Accessory nerve	| Hypoglossal nerve
					Ophthalmic	Maxillary	Mandibular
Mnemonic: (for nerve)	On	Old	Olympus'	Towering	Top			A	Finn	And	German	Viewed	Some	Hops
TYPE:	| Sensory	| Sensory	| Motor	| Motor	| Both (sensory + motor)			| Motor	| Both	| Sensory	| Both	| Both	| Motor	| Motor
Mnemonic: (for type)	Some	Say	Marry	Money,	But			My	Brother	Says	Big	Business	Makes	Money
FORAMINA:	Cribriform plate	Optic canal	Superior Orbital Fissure	Superior Orbital Fissure	Superior Orbital Fissure	Foramen Rotundum	Foramen Ovale	Superior Orbital Fissure	Internal Acoustic Meatus	Internal Acoustic Meatus	Jugular Foramen	Jugular Foramen	Jugular Foramen	Hypoglossal Canal
Mnemonics: (for foramina)	Cleaners	Only	Spray	Smelly	Stuff	Right	On	Smelly	Idiots	In	Jumbled	Junkyards	Juggled	High
	Carl	Only	Swims	South.	Silly	Roger	Only	Swims	In	Infiniti	Jacuzzis.	Jane	Just	Hitchhikes.

Engineering

• A mnemonic to remember which way to turn common (right-handed) screws and nuts, including light bulbs, is "Righty tighty, lefty loosey"; another is "right on, left off"
• For EIA electronic color code
  Electronic color code
  The electronic color code is used to indicate the values or ratings of electronic components, very commonly for resistors, but also for capacitors, inductors, and others...
  
  : Bad beer rots our young guts but vodka goes well – get some now Black(0), Brown(1), Red(2), Orange(3), Yellow(4), Green(5), Blue(6), Violet(7), Gray(8), White(9), Gold(5%), Silver(10%), None(20%)

Calculus

• For remembering the order of taking the derivative of a quotient in calculus, the phrase "lo-di-hi minus hi-di-lo all over lo squared" can be useful, where lo means the bottom, hi means the top, and di means the derivative. So,

Another phrase that one may use is: "Bottom d Top, Top d bottom", where "d" stands for derivative (note that this mnemonic does not include the crucial dividing by the bottom squared). Another phrase memorable for sounding like a square dance is "low d high less high d low, draw the line and square below."

Order of Operations

PEMDAS- Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication & Division, Addition & Subtraction can be remembered by the phrase: "Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally."

Geography and chronology

• How to set your clock to accommodate the shift to and from daylight saving time: "Spring forward. Fall back" or "Spring ahead, Fall behind."
• To remember which direction Latitude and Longtitude are: Latus is Latin for side - latitude lines go from side to side (EW). Longitude lines seem longer (top to bottom, NS). Remember "Lat is Fat" - Latitude goes around the equator belt.
• To remember the Great Lakes
  Great Lakes
  The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
  
   in order of increasing surface area, use : "Only erections hurt misinformed superstars". (Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, Superior)
• To remember the Great Lakes
  Great Lakes
  The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
  
   in anyway use : "HOMES". (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior)
• For the streets running east and west in downtown Seattle, running south to north: "Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Pressure" (Jefferson/James, Cherry/Columbia, Marion/Madison, Spring/Seneca, University/Union, Pike/Pine)
• To remember the compass directions. Starting at the top and going clockwise: "Never Eat Soggy Waffles."

Physics

• Color code for Resistor

Big brown rabbits often yield great big vocal groans when gingerly slapped

Bad boys run our young girls behind victory garden walls (bad → black, boys → brown, but → blue)

for the colors Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Grey, White, Gold, Silver respectively

• Microwave frequency bands

Mnemonic for microwave frequency bands in the increasing wave lengths (decreasing frequencies), which are Ku band, X band, C band, S band, L band, respectively is given by,

"King Xerces Can Seduce Lovely Princesses"

Units of Measure

• Metric System / SI Prefixes
  SI prefix
  The International System of Units specifies a set of unit prefixes known as SI prefixes or metric prefixes. An SI prefix is a name that precedes a basic unit of measure to indicate a decadic multiple or fraction of the unit. Each prefix has a unique symbol that is prepended to the unit symbol...
  
  

King Henry Died By Drinking Chocolate Milk.

Stands for: kilo-, hecto-, deca-, base unit, deci-, centi-, milli-, in descending order of magnitude. As in centigram, deciliter, meter, etc. Mnemonic's acronym is KHDBdcm.

Also, King Henry Doesn't Mind Dusting Clean Money.

Pronunciation

• The pronunciation and lexical ordering of the Japanese vowels:

Ah we soon get old

AIUEO

• Common vowel sounds for several languages including Spanish
  Spanish language
  Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
  
   and Esperanto
  Esperanto
  is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
  
   (one sound per letter):

Pa let me go too (AEIOU)

Characteristic Sequence of Letters

• I always comes before E(but after C, E comes before I

In most words like friend, field, piece,pierce, mischief, thief, tier, it is "i" which comes before "e". But on some words with c just before the pair of e and i ,like receive, perceive, "e" comes before "i". This can be remembered by the following mnemonic,

I before E, except after C

But this is not always obeyed as in case of weird and weigh,weight,height,neighbor etc and can be remembered by extending that mnemonic as given below

I before E, except after C

Or when sounded "A" as in neighbor and weigh

And "weird" is just weird

• Where ever there is a Q there is a U too

Most frequently u follows q. e.g: Que, queen, question, quack, quark, quartz, quarry, quit, Pique, torque, macaque, exchequer. Hence the mnemonic:

Where ever there is a Q there is a U too(But this is violated by some words; see:List of English words containing Q not followed by U

• When two vowels go walking the first does the talking

For words like "oat" or "eat", here the second letter a is silent and first letter o and e respectively are pronounced in the examples

Letters of Specific syllables in a Word

• BELIEVE

There is a lie in believe

• SECRETARY

A secretary must keep a secret

• TEACHER

There is an ache in every teacher.

• MEASUREMENT

You should be sure of your measurements before you start work.

• FRIEND

A friend is always there when the end comes.

Fri the end of your friend

• SPECIAL

The CIA have special agents

• BEAUTIFUL

Big Elephants Are Ugly

• SLAUGHTER

Slaughter is laughter with an S at the beginning.

• SEPARATE

Always smell a rat when you spell separate

There was a farmer named Sep and one day his wife saw a rat. She yelled, “Sep! A rat – E!!!”

Distinguish between similar Words

• Difference between Advice & Advise, Practice & Practise, Licence & License etc.

Advice, Practice, Licence etc (those with c) are nouns and Advise, Practise, License etc are verbs.

One way of remembering this is that the word ‘noun’ comes before the word ‘verb’ in the dictionary; likewise ‘c’ comes before ‘s’, so the nouns are ‘practice,licence,advice’ and the verbs are ‘practise,license,advise’.

• Here or Hear

We hear with our ear.

• Complement and Compliment

complement adds something to make it enough

compliment puts you in the limelight

• Principle and Principal

Your principal is your pal

A rule can be called a principle

• Sculpture and Sculptor

A sculpture is a kind of picture

• Stationary and stationery

Stationery contains er and so does paper; stationary (not moving) contains ar and so does car

First Letter Mnemonics of Spelling

• DIARRHOEA

Dining In A Rough Restaurant: Hurry, Otherwise Expect Accidents!

Diarrhoea Is A Really Runny Heap Of Endless Amounts

• ARITHMETIC

A Rat In The rreerrHouse May Eat The Ice Cream

• NECESSARY

Not Every Cat Eats Sardines (Some Are Really Yummy)

Never Eat Crisps, Eat Salad Sandwiches, And Remain Young!

• BECAUSE

Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants

Big Elephants Can’t Always Use Small Entrances

• MNEMONICS

Mnemonics Now Erase Man's Oldest Nemesis, Insufficient Cerebral Storage

• GEOGRAPHY

George's Elderly Old Grandfather Rode A Pig Home Yesterday.

• TOMORROW

Trails Of My Old Red Rose Over Window

• RHYTHM

Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move

Transportation

• Marine
• The phrase "there's always some red port (wine
  Port wine
  Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, and comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties...
  
  ) left
  Relative direction
  The most common relative directions are left, right, forward, backward, up, and down. No absolute direction corresponds to any of the relative directions. This is a consequence of the translational invariance of the laws of physics: nature, loosely speaking, behaves the same no matter what...
  
  " is used to remember the basics in seafaring.
• Aviation uses many mnemonics in addition to written checklists.
• pre-landing: GUMPS - Gas, Undercarriage, Mixture, Propeller, Speed.
• pre-final: MARTHA - Missed (procedure), Altitude (limit), Radios (set), Time (limit), Heading (final), Airspeed (descent)
• pre-high-altitude - FLOWER - Flow (enabled), Lights (test), Oxygen (charged), Water (humidity), Electricity (on), Radio (check)
• pre-flight-paperwork - ARROW - Airworthiness (certificate), Registration, Required (charts), Operating (checklists), Weight and balance
• night collision avoidance: Red, Right, Returning - Red nav light on Right implies target is Returning (closing)
• radio loss Instrument course - CDEF - as Cleared, else Direct to last fix, else as directed to Expect, else as flight plan Filed
• spin recovery - POKER - Power (off), Opposite (full rudder), Klean (flaps, ...), Elevator (briskly forward), Recover (from dive)

Astronomy

• In Have Spacesuit Will Travel, Robert A. Heinlein
  Robert A. Heinlein
  Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
  
   includes 'prices' which represent the mean AU (Astronomical Unit - mean distance of the Earth from the Sun = 93 million miles = 149 million km) of all the planets from the sun:

• MERCURY
  Mercury (planet)
  Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
  
   $0.39
• VENUS $0.72
• EARTH
  Earth
  Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
  
   $1.00
• MARS
  Mars
  Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
  
   $1.50
• ASTEROIDS
  Asteroid
  Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
  
   (assorted prices, unimportant)
• JUPITER $5.20
• SATURN $9.50
• URANUS $19.00
• NEPTUNE $30.00
• PLUTO $39.50

• Oh Be A Fine Girl / Guy, Kiss Me: the main sequence
  Main sequence
  The main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appears on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams after their co-developers, Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell...
  
    (O B A F G K M).

Physics

• The phrase "We guarantee certainty, clearly referring to this light mnemonic." represents the speed of light
  Speed of light
  The speed of light in vacuum, usually denoted by c, is a physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value is 299,792,458 metres per second, a figure that is exact since the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time...
  
   in meters per second
  Second
  The second is a unit of measurement of time, and is the International System of Units base unit of time. It may be measured using a clock....
  
   through the number of letters in each word: 299,792,458.

History

• 543210 is a mnemonic for the date when prohibition
  Prohibition
  Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
  
   was lifted in Finland
  Finland
  Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
  
  : 5th April (4th month) 1932 at 10 in the morning (local time).

Philosophy

• THE LAD ZAPPA a Mnemonic for the first 11 (and most important) Ionian philosophers: Thales, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Leucippus, Anaximander, Democritus, Zeno, Anaximenes, Protagoras, Parmenides, Anaxagoras .

• THE PLAZA PAD another Mnemonic for the first 11 (and most important) Ionian philosophers:Thales, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Protagoras, Leucippus, Anaximander,Zeno, Anaximenes, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Democritus.

Chronology

• The rhyme Thirty days hath September
  Thirty days hath September
  Thirty days hath September is a traditional English mnemonic rhyme, of which many variants are commonly used in English-speaking countries to remember the lengths of the months in the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
  
   is commonly used as a mnemonic for the number of days in the months of the year.

Thirty days hath September,

April, June, and November;

All the rest have thirty-one,

Save February, with twenty-eight days clear,

And twenty-nine each leap year.

Guitar

• Mnemonics is used also in remembering guitar string names in standard tuning.
• Eddy Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddy
• Every Adult Dog Growls Barks Eats.
• Easter Angels Don't Give Broken Eggs
• Every Average Dude Gets Better Eventually

Thus we get the names of the strings from 6th string to the 1st string in that order.

Conversely, a mnemonic listing the strings in the reverse order is:

• Elvis' Big Great Dane Ate Everything

Reading music

• Musicians can remember the notes associated with the five lines of the treble clef using any of the following mnemonics: (from the bottom line to the top) Every Good Boy Does Fine.

Every Good Boy Deserves Footie

Every Good Boy Deserves Food

Every Green Bogey Deserves Flicking

• The four spaces of the treble clef spell out (from the bottom to the top) FACE.

Internal letters

As well as first-letter mnemonics, some mnemonics employ internal letters of words:

Geology

• For differentiating stalactites and stalagmites.

• (Stalac)tights hang down

Think of Tights "hanging" on a washing line (stalac-tights).

• Which one is spelt with a C and which with a G?

StalaGmites - G - from the Ground

StalaCtites - C - from the Ceiling

• Tights hang from the Ceiling, and Mites crawling around on the Ground

• Eras of life

The eras are Precambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous:

• Pregnant Camels Ordinarily Sit Down Carefully . Perhaps Their Joints Creak

• Mineral Hardness scale 1-10:

For Talc(=1) Gypsum(=2) Calcite(=3) Fluorite(=4) Apatite(=5) Orthoclase(=6) Quartz(=7) Topaz(=8) Corundum(=9) Diamond(=10)

Mineral Hardness scale 1-10:

• Toronto Girls Can Flirt And Only Quit To Chase Dwarves .
• Terrible Giants Can Find Alligators Or Quaint Trolls Conveniently Digestible
• Tall Girls Can Flirt And Other Queer Things Can Do!

Onomasty

• Given names (masculine and feminine):

Francis (him) and Frances (her)

Don (son) and Dawn (daughter)

External links

• List of hundreds of mnemonics belonging to several topics
• Medical mnemonics pdf (consisting of 22 pages full of) mnemonics on medical topics ordered alphabetically
• Medical mnemonics
• Searchable database of Medical mnemonics
• Mnemonics generator for numbers