At some point in our lives, we all had to learn a mnemonic or two (or twenty-seven) in school. They’re a fantastic way to memorize chunks of information, like lists of words or strings of numbers. They can even help you learn a foreign language.
Their latest claim to fame is password mnemonics—using mnemonics to create and remember super-strong passwords. It’s a method used by celebs, like Courtney Love, who uses lyrics like “Hey Jude, don’t make it bad”or “HJdmib”. Great idea, those password mnemonics! Except, she had trouble remembering whether Jude was making it bad or sad, and therefore, had trouble getting her password correct. Best to leave the password “remembering” to Dashlane’s password manager!
In addition to making super-strong passwords, mnemonics are also great for helping you remember the colors of the rainbow (Roy G. Biv – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) or the names of the Great Lakes (HOMES – Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior).
So, in honor of mnemonics and all their amazing uses, here are a few of our favorites:
3.14159265358979 aka Pi – “Now I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics”, where the number of letters in each word equals a number in pi, so Now (3 letters), I (1 letter), Need (4 letters) = 3.14.
The 9 planets – “My very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas”, as in “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto”.
For spelling: I before E
Except after C,
Or when sounded as A
As in neighbor and weigh.
Metric Units – “King Henry died Monday drinking chocolate milk”, as in “Kilo-, hecto-, deka-, [unit], deci-, centi-, milli-“. You just have to remember that the unit –meters, grams, liters — is in the middle.
There are tons of cool mnemonics out there, whether they’re classics or homemade! What are some of your favorites? Or maybe you use another method than password mnemonics to create super-strong passwords? Share them with us!