Comments on: What Are Your Favourite Spelling Memory Aids?

By: Becky

Becky — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:06:38 +0000

All new animals eat supper “the” toast is cold – Anaesthetic a word I find most difficult to spell!

By: Steve O

Steve O — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:30:49 +0000

The easiest way to learn different spelling idiosyncrasies is to read!

By: Steve Chai

Steve Chai — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:11:07 +0000

Rhythm – Red hot, you two headed monster!

Ironically, I always have trouble spelling “mnemonic”. Haven’t found a good memorable phrase to help with that yet.

By: JMarkP

JMarkP — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:28:31 +0000

The most useful I know is to distinguish between practice (noun) and practise (verb). Make the connection to advice (noun) and advise (verb) – the morphology is the same but the distinction in pronunciation has been lost from practi[c,s]e.

By: Chaim

Chaim — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:19:04 +0000

type your word into google and if you spell it anywhere close to the real word it will correct your spelling for you.

By: Cornflower

Cornflower — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:11:00 +0000

And does anyone want to know the mnemonic for figuring out the Doomsday of a given year this century (you add that to the rule for what day of the week is any day in the year if you know the doomsday)

It is “2 dozens remain for the day”

The doomsday for 2059 is
2 + 4 (dozens) + 11 (remainder) + 2 (two fours in 11) = 19 = Friday (count from Monday through the days)

Look up Doomsday in Wikipedia to get the day of the week for any day of the year if you knwo the doomsday, but in short it is
If Doomsday is an _x_day (e.g. Friday) then the following days will be an _x_day:
4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12 (super easy)
5/9, 9/5, 7/11, 11/7 (easy enough)
March 7, 14, 21, 28 (also March 0!)
non-leap years: Jan 3 and Feb 28
leap years: Jan 4 and Feb 29
(okay, you have to remember these ones)

This all stems from John Conroy looking through a calendar for co-incidents, and finding them.

So I will turn 100 on July 19, 2059, a Saturday (will I notice?)

Enjoy the other comments.

By: Anon

Anon — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:50:01 +0000

I don’t have any spelling tricks – I tend to just remember most words – but I do still remember the rhyme for sharps/flats in musical key signatures:

For sharps:
Father Christmas Gave Dad An Electric Blanket

For flats:
(the) Blanket Exploded And Dad Got Cold Feet

or the one I preferred as a kid:
Baby Elephants Always Drink Good Cocoa Fast

And it’s only writing these out that’s gotten me to realise that one is the opposite of the other (F,C,G,D,A,E,B – B,E,A,D,G,C,F), which makes sense really. Hmm. Learn something new every day…

By: JessT

JessT — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:34:33 +0000

“Because”
Thinking of my friend Rebeca;
“Beca-use”, as in: Beca, use that because I said so.

By: Davis

Davis — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:55:33 +0000

Having grown up in the south, “M I crooked letter crooked letter I crooked letter crooked letter I humpback humpback I” spells “confederate redneck”.

By: Meg C

Meg C — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:52:32 +0000

Capital of Finland: If a fish doesn’t have a fin, then Helsinki. (he’ll sink-y)