10 memory tips

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/17/10-memory-tips.html

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My family are natural experts at this. All you have to do is remember only the things you do right and all the things that everyone else does wrong it is incredibly easy.

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I think I learned these tips once…

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5 tips for remembering the 10 tips for remembering everything. And so on…

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Was mildly disappointed that he didn’t include BLARF: Be Living Always Really Focused!

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What was the first one again?

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I can’t remember.

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My memory’s really good. It just doesn’t last very long.

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I vaguely remember having a memory, but I’m not sure where I put it.

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Now where did I put that book?

I chuckled at the last one.

I prefer my drink to the left of the plate, because I prefer to drink with my left hand at table.

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i’ll just bookmark this and be sure to read it later…

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I had learned something similar to my very entertaining mother… back in high school except it had a P for Pluto at the end and I forgot how it went, anyhow. There ought to be a version starting with S for Sun, an A for Asteroid Belt after Mars, and K for Kuiper Belt at the end to keep the entire solar-system mentally in order.

But the one I somehow remember was the order of operations form algebra:
Pretty Please, My Dear Aunt Sally
is
Powers - Parenthesis - Multiply and Divide - Add and Subtract

On a boat, port is left—they both have 4 letters (leaving starboard for right by POE.) But, in a craft you can stand upon and move your orientation, it’s a bit like saying east is right and west is left; they are, but only if you’re facing north. The utility of the terms “port” and “starboard” are predicated upon being independent of one’s personal orientation, so saying port=left is a bit of a misnomer but if you can fill in that it’s only left in terms of the bow, then it’s still helpful to a landlubber.

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All that stuff is right-hand-norm-enforcing. You hold the food in place with your fork in the left hand so you can cut it with the knife right-handed i.e. rapid motor control=right hand. Lifting and aiming liquids at your face is reserved for the hand the norm has better dexterity with.
I get that preferences for tool-using is more individual than which hand one writes with—I’m very leftie but prefer right for a lot of things—but that’s how it’s all rooted.

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I’m right-handed, but when I was young I embarked on a long-term project to become ambidextrous. It didn’t work and after a few years of doing basically everything with my left hand I gave up.

But I still prefer to drink with my left hand, I put my wallet in the “wrong” pocket, I eat European-style (fork stays in left hand, knife stays in right hand)…

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I always remember port/starboard with the slap-in-the-face memory tip.

The version I remember is “My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets.”

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I still do this from time to time, just to challenge my right-hand dominance. My brother is a lefty, and was forced to be ambidextrous by necessity. Watching him switch effortlessly makes me feel like a clumsy toddler sometimes.

I’ve practiced this before visiting different countries, just to make sure I don’t stab my lips, teeth, or tongue with my fork in public. Yeah, I’m that uncoordinated with my left hand.

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As a lefty-converted-to-right and mildly dyslexic human animal, I still have left-right issues and have to think about it every time. I used to hear that “Righty-tighty lefty-loosey” jingle a lot, and it never made sense!
There’s just as much of the screw moving right as there is in all of the other directions, relative to its plane of motion. The stupid rhyme does NOT say that it pertains to a selected point which we might arbitrarily call the “top” of the screw, but which may in reality have nothing to do with its relative distance to the closest gravitational source. I had to figure that out over several years of my easily confused existence.

People take so much crap for granted.

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My memory was always terrible, as I recall.

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