The word ‘mnemonic’ is one of around 150,00 words of Greek origin – from air to zoo – that have found their way into English, a language with more borrowed words than any other. It literally means ‘relating to memory’ and is defined as a technique to aid information retrieval or retention – something much needed to assist the notoriously wayward and overloaded human memory.
Being a direct snatch from the Greek without any anglicisation, mnemonic is the only word in the entire English lexicon that begins with ‘mn’ – although the mn digraph is not unknown at the end of words (e.g. autumn, column, condemn, damn, hymn, solemn) while the mn blend, where each consonant keeps its separate sound, is routine in countless words (e.g. amnesty, chimney, circumnavigate, gymnastics, insomnia, omnibus, randomness, etc). Note that the ‘n’ is silent whenever the mn digraph appears at the end of a word, however at the beginning of a word as in the case of mnemonic the ‘m’ becomes the entirely superfluous silent letter meaning the word is pronounced ‘nemonic’. How demonic!
In Welsh, which like all European languages contains words derived from the Greek, there are around 200 words that can be traced to the Greek original – from abad to ystyr – but all have been welshified and, since there are no silly silent letters in the Welsh language, the pronunciation problems inherent in a word like mnemonic never arose. In this instance, no attempt was made to either borrow the word or make it fit Welsh syntax so it was simply translated to cymorth i’r cof (‘help to remember’).
Mnemonics come in many forms. They can be acronyms, poems, rhymes, songs, jokes, phrases or in fact any format that makes remembering something that needs to be remembered an easier task. To give examples, here are some of the mnemonics I use regularly:
Right tight, Left loose: the direction a screw/bolt/nut must be turned to tighten/loosen, open/close is an absolutely essential godsend of practical knowledge that hardly a week goes by without me relying on as, yet again, I forget which way to turn the bloody screwdriver.
I before E except after C: engrained in me since primary school, this not entirely reliable attempt to conquer the wild irrationality of English spelling remains a handy tool, even allowing for the multiple exceptions to the ‘rule’ such as forfeit, glacier, height, neighbour, science, seize, weight, weird and so on.
C comes before S, N comes before V: as a writer, I’m always using this solution to the impossible problem of the difference between Advice and Advise, Licence and License and Practice and Practise: abide by alphabetical order, so when it’s a noun (N) use C and when it’s a verb (V) use S. It’s infallible!
Stalactites cling tight to the ceiling, Stalagmites might one day reach the ceiling: engraved on my consciousness since school trips to Ystradfellte to explore the area’s caves, waterfalls and sinkholes for geology A-level, this mnemonic doesn’t crop up very much in my life today but my love of geology has never diminished and knowledge is always its own reward.
ROYGBIV: there are many different mnemonics for remembering the colours of the rainbow, for me the straightforward sequence of initials I learnt as a child has always worked.
My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets: a classic acronym that clinches not merely the names of the planets in our solar system but also their correct order going outwards from the sun, data I have always struggled to remember. As for the decision by the the IAU (International Astronomical Union) to downgrade Pluto to ‘dwarf planet’ status in 2006, they can stick it up their Uranus…(pronounced Yur-uh-nuss, of course, as decreed by preposterous, prissy, prim Americans)
There are more, usually involving street names worked out in my own head as I tramp around Cardiff. But somehow or other they almost always end up as extremely obscene – I can’t understand why! Therefore, in an era of trigger warnings, I couldn’t possibly tell readers the hilarious mnemonic I cooked up to remember the tricky series of streets (all named after some of the Bute Estate’s vast land holdings in Scotland) that run east to west in Splott from the East Moors bend to the Cottage pub: Gwendoline, Asgog, Kerrycroy, Kilcattan, Inchmarnock, Cumrae, Kingarth and Cumnock. Look at all those Ks and Cs and use your imagination! 🤣
Yes, autumn, but autumnal; damn, but damnation; solemn, but solemnities and so on. Perhaps the final n became inaudible when in these examples the Latin(?) precursors were shortened, so they’re not really on a par with mnemonic. How did the Greeks pronounce “mn” anyway? I don’t know.
The Greeks pronounce the initial ‘mn’ as [mn] – the [m] sound doesn’r disappear. Similarly the Greeks pronounce the initial ‘ps’ as [ps], with the [p] sound definitely pronounced. I have no idea why English has chosen not to pronounce the initial letters in such instances.
Many thanks for this. How about the initial “c”, as in ctenophore and cnidarian, which also tends to get dropped in English, again for no obvious reason?
[One of my favourite words to say as a child was phthalein, as in the indicator phenolphthalein. “phth” “PHTH!”. Apologies for hijacking the post.]
The original Greek script would have begun ‘ctenophore’ with χτ, i.e. chi and tau, and ‘cnidarian’ would have begun with χν, i.e. chi and nu. I hope this explains things.
Down In A Really Revolting Hole Of Every Arse. Works every time
“I before e except after c’ is definitely wrong, even if the sound is ‘ee’. In other words, ask Keith, Sheila and Neil how much protein and caffeine they’ve consumed, and how many skeins of wool they’ve knitted. I’ve read somewhere that the word ‘ceiling’ may represent a misspelling – if the word is derived from the French ‘ciel’ for sky. However, I do believe I’ve cracked the puzzle, i.e. in the case of words which have come into English via French, but are ultimately derived from compounds of the Latin verb ‘capio’, then it’s ‘e before i immediately after c’, i.e. receive, receipt, conceive, conceit, etc, etc. All other examples are to be learnt individually!