A Helpful Mnemonic Device for Artisans

Everyone may be an artisan now, from candlestick-makers to sandwich-slapper-togetherers, but I have a mental block against remembering how to spell the word. Sure, maybe because I hate it. Nonetheless, I’ve recently stumbled upon a handy way to remember the spelling.

Yup — artisanal is just “art is anal.” There, just try and think about your artisan sandwich spread the same way again.

Mnemonics, previously:

• The planets, minus Pluto
• Good Boys Do Fine Always / Girls Buy Dolls From America

Mnemonic Devices for Remembering the Order of Planets (Minus Pluto)

For some time now, eccentric mothers throughout the English-speaking world have ceased to order their children ninety pizzas. Pluto being downgraded to a mere dwarf planet has rendered this handy-dandy mnemonic device irrelevant, and while “My very excellent mother just served us nachos” works okay, I guess, I think we can do better.

Some suggestions:

• Many volatile educators maim juveniles suddenly, using needles.
• Mice very enthusiastically munch Jerry Seinfeld’s uncle, Norman.
• Mr. Valdez excitedly mimicked jiggly strippers until noon.
• “My valuable excrement makes jewelry shine,” uttered Nancy.
• My vulgar exclamations might just soften underwear nubs.

I am betting that no one who reads this blog can come up their own. Now prove me wrong.

Girls Bury Diana Friday Afternoon

Back in my piano lesson days, I was told to remember the order of notes on the treble staff with the mnemonic device “Every Good Boy Does Fine.”The sentence’s initial letters correspond to the notes that appear on the lines: E-G-B-D-F. Clearly, this device worked. It’s been a good twelve years since I studied piano and I can still bat it off as if it were my name and birthday.

While I’m pretty sure everyone learned this, the devices used to remember the bass clef notes — that is, the bottom staff, beginning below Middle C and moving down — seem to be less famous. In spite of the fact that it’s a sucky derivative of “Every Good Boy Does Fine,” the most widespread appears to be “Good Boys Do Fine Always.” I can’t imagine why both would be taught side-by-side, since a kid learning something as abstract as written music could easily confuse these two sound-alikes. Granted, you’re working with a limited range of options in that the scale has only seven notes named for seven letters, but “Good Boys Do Fine Always” nonetheless smacks of a lack of creativity.

Not that the one taught to me was much better. Mine, “Girls Buy Dolls From America,” might even out the gender ratio by giving boys and girls each a mnemonic device, but it’s also pretty sexist: Boys get the implication of being and doing good, while girls get stuck buying dolls. In any case, it doesn’t seem to be one with which too many people are familiar, at least according to Google.

Lame mnemonic devices seem to abound in music however. In Googling all this, I came across another one for remembering the order of sharps: “Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle.” (If a key only has one sharp, then that will be F-sharp. If it has two, it will be F- and C-sharp, etc.) The one offered for flats? “Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles’s Father.” Boo.

Music previously pondered:

• The solfleggio and why it’s no longer ut-re-me
• Why the treble and bass clef look the way they do