Mnemonic/Catalogs/List of mnemonics in English

Spelling

• "'i' before 'e' except after 'c'" is a commonly taught mnemonic rule of spelling, but it is false. The following words break the rule: conscience, society, eighty, eigenclass, science, atheist, leisure, heights, Eiffel (as in Eiffel Tower), beige, feisty, heinous, sheik, dreidel, geisha, Einstein, caffeine, protein, rottweiller, kaleidoscope, zeitgeist, reified.
  • To deal with the many counter-examples, sometimes the rule is extended to "'i' before 'e' except after 'c' when the sound is 'ee' or when the sound is 'a' as in neighbor and weigh".
• Spelling of the word 'arithmetic':
  • "A Rat In The House May Eat The Ice Cream"
• Spelling of the word 'because':
  • "Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants"
• Spelling of the word 'business':
  • "You take the bus to business"
• Spelling of the word 'geography':
  • "George Eliot's old grandmother rode a pig home yesterday"
• Spelling of the word 'Mississippi':
  • "M I crooked letter, crooked letter I, crooked letter, crooked letter I, humpback, humpback I"
• Spelling of the word 'necessary':
  • "Never Eat Cress Eat Salad Sandwiches And Remain Youthful!"
  • "A vicar has one collar and two socks" (one 'c', two 's')
• Spelling of 'separate':
  • "There is always a rat in 'separate'"
  • "Keep your parachute in separate"
• Spelling of 'stationary'/'stationery':
  • "Stationery has an 'e' as in envelope, stationary has an a as in automobile"
  • "Stationery is for paper. Stationary is for parked car."

Mathematics

• Sin = Obtuse / Hypotenuse; Cosine = Adjacent / Hypotenuse; Tangent = Obtuse / Adjacent – see trigonometry
  • SOH CAH TOA

Science

• The colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
  • Richard of York gave battle in vain.
• Order of the planets: Mercury, Venus, Terra (or Earth), Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto
  • "Mother very thoughtfully made a jelly sandwich under no protest"

Engineering

• The color code on electronic resistors: Black = 0, Brown = 1, Red = 2, Orange = 3, Yellow = 4, Green = 5, Blue = 6, Violet = 7, Gray = 8, White = 9
  • "Bad boys ravish our young girls but Violet goes willingly"

Medicine

• Beta blockers end in "olol" which looks like two lower-case backwards B's: acebutolol, betaxolol, bisoprolol, oxprenolol, propranolol.
• HIV/AIDS-prevention public health policy: "ABC" – abstinence, be faithful, use condoms.
• Basic life support: Airway, Breathing, Circulation. Intermediate and advanced add D, which may stand for defibrillation, drugs, or definitive treatment
• Bones of the wrist: "Never lower Tilly's pants; mother might come home: navicular, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform, greater multongular, lesser multongular, capitate and hamate
• Cranial nerves: "On Old Olympus Towering Top, A Finn And German Viewed Some Hops." olfactory, optic nerve, oculomotor nerve, trochlear nerve, trigeminal nerve, abducens nerve, facial nerve, acoustic nerve, glossopharyngeal nerve, vagus nerve, spinal accessory nerve and hypoglossal nerve
  • Functions of the cranial nerves (i.e., S: sensory, M: motor, B: both motor and sensory): "Some say marry money but my brothers say bad business marrid money."

Military

• Spot intelligence report: SALUTE.
  • S—Size. Report the number of personnel, vehicles, aircraft, or size of an object.
  • A—Activity. Report detailed account of actions, for example, direction of movement, troops digging in, artillery fire, type of attack, [[weapons of mass destruction|NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) activity, etc.
  • L—Location. Report where you saw the activity. Include grid coordinates or reference from a known point including the distance and direction from the known point.
  • U—Unit. Report the enemy's unit. If the unit is unknown, report any distinctive features, such as uniforms, patches or colored tabs, headgear, vehicle identification markings, etc.
  • T—Time. Report the time the activity was observed, not the time you report it. Always report local or Zulu time
  • E—Equipment. Report all equipment associated with the activity, such as weapons, vehicles, tools. If unable to identify the equipment, provide as much detail as you can so an identification can be made by higher headquarters.
• BRASS: Breathe, Relax, Aim, Sight, Squeeze. (How to shoot a rifle.)
• Selecting targets by reconnaissance personnel: CARVER
  • Criticality: How important, in a strategic context, is the target? What effect will its destruction have on other elements of the target system? Is it more important to have real-time surveillance of the target (e.g., a road junction) than its physical destruction?
  • Accessibility: Can an special reconnaissance (SR) team reach or sense the target, keep it under surveillance for the appropriate time, and then exfiltrate after the target is struck?
  • Recuperability: When the target is destroyed by fire support or direct action, In the case of DA missions, can the enemy repair, replace, or bypass it quickly, minimum resources? If so, it may not be a viable target.
  • Vulnerability: do SR (including direct action) and supporting units have the capability to destroy the target?
  • Effect: Beyond pure military effect are the political, economic, legal, and psychological effects of destroying the target? How would the attack affect local civilians?
  • Recognizability: Can the target be recognized clearly, by SR and attack forces, under the prevailing weather, light, and in its terrain? If there are critical points within the target, they also must be recognizable by the means of destruction used.