Remember, Remember

I wanted to write about something fun and light today.

"What do want?"

"Acronyms"

"When do we want them?"

"ASAP!"

Regular readers will know that I'm a big fan of acronyms, so this week's Top Tip email is a bunch of assorted fun acronyms and mnemonics.

On A Horse With No Name

We'll start with some simple ways of remembering words that can be tricky to spell. Well, tricky to spell correctly anyway.

Like how to remember the difference between a desert (a dry barren landscape) and a dessert (the sweet stuff at the end of a meal).

If this is easy for you you might well sigh at this one and years ago I would have rolled my eyes too. Over time though, I've dropped my judgement completely.

Years ago I'd probably have to admit to having a certain disdain for poor spellers but these days I have real empathy. That's a slow learning curve but it's still an improvement on my part.

Partly it comes from learning about people such as Ben Elton who can write comedy gold like BlackAdder yet can't spell three words in a row correctly.

And part of it comes from knowing more and more brilliant people who again can't spell for toffee. And probably would struggle to spell toffee too.

Some of it comes from my own very frustrating limitation of getting lost a lot. Never being able to find my way from A to B and feeling pretty stupid when it has an impact.

Feeling stupid, but knowing you're not, yet knowing that people think you must be because  . . . getting lost so easily means you must be a moron right?

And some of it comes from the enjoyment to be had from all the various mnemonics. They're often clever, inventive and fun!

So how to remember the right way to spell desert rather than dessert?

Well, it's dead easy to remember the difference. In fact I've already used the mnemonic. It is the double 'S' for the second word. You need to identify that dessert is always sweet stuff and that's what the two S's stand for. 

Green Sleeves

Necessary trips a lot of people up. How many C's? How many S's? The way to remember this is to tell yourself that it is necessary to wear a shirt. And of course a shirt has one collar and two sleeves. That's one C and two S's? Sorted!

That's the one that works for me but you might prefer one coffee with two sugars instead. Same result.

Or maybe you use the sentence Never Eat Cucumber, Eat Salmon Sandwiches And Remain Young. 

What about the difference between stationery and stationary? We all know that one is about standing still and the other about sniffing envelopes in Rymans but which is which?

Again, I've already given you the clue. Envelope begins with an E and that's the spelling of the version you need for writing equipment: stationery.

I still have to check in with the word independent. I always want to end it with and 'ant' but that's wrong.

The way I work this is to think of the word spelled out in large metal letters, the last couple having slight hollows in them. Dents if you will. Because 'dent' is how the word ends.

Rat In Mi Kitchen

Finding smaller words within tricky to spell words is often a useful method. For example there is a rat hiding inside the word separate.

Knowing this always helps you to avoid spelling it with an e, which I know many struggle with. Visualise an ugly rat because the more visceral an image the more likely you are to remember it.

So many people trip up over when to use practice and when to use practise. The key thing is to know one is a verb and the other is a noun. But which is which?

The mnemonic for this one is to remember that 'ice' is a noun and 'is' is a verb. You'll remember this soon, with a bit of practice practise.

It's not just spelling words that mnemonics are useful for. I use a few for learning (and then remembering!) useless bits of trivia.

I know all the ancient seven wonders of the world and since I learned them back in 1992 I have been able to use this information at a pub quiz precisely once. But what a day that was!

I'm still waiting to be asked to list the North American Great Lakes but when that day comes I'll be ready. The one little phrase 'Super Man Helps Every One' will help me instantly rattle out Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario.

I could also point out that they're in geographical order from West to East. But only if I wanted to.

American Pie

"May I have a large container of coffee?" might sound like a fairly normal request but it is also the way to remember Pi to eight places: 3.1415927

• "May” has three (3) letters
• “I” has one (1)
• “Have” has four (4)
• “A” has one (1)
• “Large” has five (5)
• “Container” has nine (9)
• “Of” has two (2)
• And “coffee” plus the question mark has seven (7)

To be honest though, apart from that one pub quiz I'm not sure that any of these have been of much use to me.

Blinding Lights

One mnemonic that did help me again and again was an acronym my doctor shared.

When I was younger, (so much younger than today), I used to play a lot of football. And every couple of seasons I would sprain my ankle.

I'd always roll it very badly and be out of action for ages. Really painful, deep purple bruising, weeks on crutches type spraining.

My doctor always said there wasn't much I could do apart from RICE it.

Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. It's good advice.

He also suggested that I might want to pack in playing football but he didn't have a catchy phrase for this so I kept forgetting to give it up.

I'll end with a mnemonic for remembering, should you ever need to, the first five books of the Old Testament.

They are of course Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy and you remember it with this snappy little sentence God Equals Light, Not Darkness.

I told you I was keeping it light this week.