Remembering Things

In this digital age of account numbers and passwords, we recall an old technic to improve our way of remembering things. Monico Atienza, my professor in Motion and Time Study introduced us to an acronym which sounded silly then but has been a good servant to me in carrying out any work.

Mr. Dopa stands for: (1) Make Ready; (2) Do; and (3) Put Away. These are the three parts that make up any work to be done..

Then there was this Mack Truck Service Representative giving a service training program who said the firing order of six cylinder engines is either 1-5-3-6-2-4 or 1-3-5-6-4-2 and to make sure there are no errors he suggested adding 153 and 624 or 135 and 642, either of which comes out 777.

Over the years, I have met so other mnemonic devices. I learned this resistor color code mnemonic from my Pacific Office Machines service technicians: “Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violeta Gives Willingly” stands for: 0 Black; 1 Brown; 2 Red; 3 Orange; 4 Yellow; 5 Green; 6 Blue; 7 Violet; 8 Grey; and 9 White

The medical profession has many risque mnemonics. Thanks to a good friend, then a medical student, this is one of them: “Oh Oh Oh To Touch And Feel A Girl's Vagina Aah Heavenly” for Olfactory, Optic, Occulomotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Abducent, Facial, Auditory (aka vestibulocochlear or acoustic), Glossopharyngeal, Vagus, Accessory, Hypoglossal nerves.

Hardware stores and other small shops use their own codes to mark the price tag. The following are examples:

Black Stone for 12345 67890. Thus, a code of CNKE stands for 49.50

Eating Much for 012345 6489. Thus, 49.50 in this code will be NHGE.

Photo: "Business by the River" by Olivier Agustin