11. MNEMONIC DEVICES

A good mnemonic leaves no doubts. Feed a cold, starve a fever, or the other way round? Beer before liquor, or beer after liquor? (I myself stick to liquor. Just to be safe. And fuck starving yourself when you're sick, unless you have food poisoning.)

Scientists seem to have the most mnemonics - you would not believe, dear readers, the number of absurd and/or obscene medical mnemonics I happened upon in the course of my research. It may perhaps undermine your faith in doctors to know that next time you are in there in your paper gown with the ear flashlight in your ear, your doc may be muttering "he licks her helix like a lover pining for meaning" or "Tim observed Eunice's tube from two windows" to remind herself of the parts of the ear....

King Phillip Came Over From Germany Screaming (King Phillip Can Only Find Gay Sex)
For the classification of organisms in the natural world, from largest grouping to smallest grouping - Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species.

Every Acid Dealer Gets Busted Eventually (Eat All Day Get Big Easily, Easter Bunnies Get Drunk At Easter)
For the tuning of strings on a guitar, lowest to highest - EADGBE. (Myself, I am chronically unable to remember any of these, so I use Good Day Albert Einstein for the bottom four and then I always just remember the B and the E. I dunno, it works.)

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge
For the notes which fall on the lines of the treble staff when writing music, lowest to highest - EGBDF.

Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Pressure
For the streets of downtown Seattle, south to north (two streets per letter) - Jefferson James Cherry Columbia Marion Madison Spring Seneca University Union Pike Pine.

Roy G. Biv
The order of the colors in the spectrum - Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet.

HOMES
The names of the great lakes - Huron Ontario Michigan Erie Superior.

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
The mathematical order of operations - parentheses exponents multiplication division addition subtraction.

Damn Clever Mnemonic Makes No Prefix Forgettable, Absolutely
The metric prefixes for units smaller than the base unit, from larger to smaller - deci centi milli micro nano pico femto atto.

My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Planets
The order of the planets in the solar system, from closest to the sun to further away - Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Pluto.

I Proposed Marriage to Anna by Telephone Before I Sighted Her Cleavage
The phases of cell division - interphase prophase metaphase anaphase telophase cytokinesis cleavage.

Cows Often Sit Down Carefully. Perhaps Their Joints Creak? Persistent Early Oiling Might Prevent Painful Rheumatism.
The order of geological time periods, from oldest to most recent - Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretacious, Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Recent.

Never Eat Shredded Wheat
The cardinal directions on the compass, clockwise, starting from the top. (Me, I usually have more trouble remembering what direction clockwise is than which direction is which, but there you go.)

Eat An Aspirin After A Nighttime Snack
The continents - Europe Asia Antarctica Africa Australia North America South America.

Sultry Carol Languished Grumpily Near Carl, Always Aware Virginal Men Frequently Take Time.
The Confederate states - South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, Texas.

Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle
Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father
The musical circle of fifths - particularly clever cos it works backwards too (though there are many entertaining ones which only work one way - Freddy Can Get Drunk At Every Bar, Fat Cats Go Down Alley Eating Birds, Fat Corpulent Germans Drink And Eat Badly, etc.).

May I have a large container of coffee?
Or - Sir, I send a rhyme excelling
In sacred truth and rigid spelling
Numerical sprites elucidate
For me the lexicon's dull weight
Count the letters in each word and these will give you the digits of pi to 7 places or 20 (respectively). If you can remember how to spell "elucidate."