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Mnemonics 01
Red sky at night, shepherd's delight...

Mnemonics 01

Mnemonics are rhymes and sayings which help us to remember facts, for example, "30 days have September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, excepting February alone"'.

The word "mnemonic" means "a device to aid the memory" (Oxford English Dictionary). One of the most common forms of mnemonic is the rhyme, because rhymes are easier to remember than non-rhyming sayings. So in the mnemonic above, which is meant to help people remember whether a month has 31 days or not, the rhyming pairs are September/November and thirty-one/alone (you might notice this second pair is an example of approximate rhyme). It is harder to remember the number of days in each individual month than it is to remember one simple mnemonic. If it's ever the thirtieth of April and you're trying to work out the date of the following day, you'll now always know that it's the 1st of May!

Many people are not sure how to pronounce the word "mnemonic" because the mn- combination of letters is so unusual at the beginning of a word. The usual British pronunciation is: n'monic.

Try our English Mnemonic quiz and see how much you remember!

1.
Find the purpose of the following well-known mnemonic.
"Spring forward, fall back"
History dates
Music notes
Time change
Weather forecast
The clocks go forward one hour in spring and "fall back" in the autumn ("fall")
2.
Find the purpose of the following well-known mnemonic.
"Change y to i and add -es"
Colours of the rainbow
History dates
Music notes
Spelling rule
One "lorry" but two "lorries"
3.
Find the purpose of the following well-known mnemonic.
"All cows eat grass"
Learning the alphabet
Music notes
Shopping list
Spelling rule
These are the notes in the bass clef spaces
4.
Find the purpose of the following well-known mnemonic.
"In 14 hundred and 92 Columbus sailed the ocean blue"
Colours of the rainbow
History dates
Music notes
Spelling rule
In 1492 Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas
5.
Find the purpose of the following well-known mnemonic.
"My very easy method just sets up naming planets"
Colours of the rainbow
History dates
Music notes
Solar system
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter... the planets in order before Pluto was demoted in 2006!
6.
Find the purpose of the following well-known mnemonic.
".....all the rest have 31 excepting February clear....."
Days in a month
History dates
Music notes
Weather forecast
Don't write September 31st!
7.
Find the purpose of the following well-known mnemonic.
"Richard of York gave battle in vain"
Colours of the rainbow
Music notes
Shopping list
Spelling rule
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet
8.
Find the purpose of the following well-known mnemonic.
"Red sky at night, shepherd's delight....."
History dates
Music notes
Solar system
Weather forecast
".....Red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning"
9.
Find the purpose of the following well-known mnemonic.
"i before e except after c"
Learning the alphabet
Music notes
Shopping list
Spelling rule
This rule helps us to spell such words as "'receive"
10.
Find the purpose of the following well-known mnemonic.
"Every good boy deserves favour"
Colours of the rainbow
History dates
Music notes
Spelling rule
Music notes on treble clef lines: EGBDF
You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - How to memorise tricky spellings

Author:  Sue Daish

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