Handy mnemonic
I always forget categories of the classification of living things. I just read a mnemonic (like HOMES for the names of the great lakes) for easily remembering the categories, in Discover magazine...Kings Play Chess On Fine Grain Sand - kingdom, phyllum, class, order, family, genus, species.
Now if I can just remember the mnemonic I'll be fine. I guess making a mental picture of kings playing chess on sand would be helpful. We remember images better than words. Or maybe setting the words to a tune?
Now if I can just remember the mnemonic I'll be fine. I guess making a mental picture of kings playing chess on sand would be helpful. We remember images better than words. Or maybe setting the words to a tune?
posted by Ki at
5:20 AM
8 Comments:
King Phillip Came Over From Germany Swimming.
Most apropos for those living across the pond. Now you've got me picturing a king with his crown and scepter no less, swimming across the English channel. Some day in the future I'll wonder why I conjure up kings playing with sand and swimming the channel to play chess. Thanks a lot :)
Over at A Lake County Point of View,
http://lakecounty.typepad.com/life_in_lake_county/
Hank's been talking about binomail nomenclature and he notes that besides kingdoms there are now domains and Clades.
http://lakecounty.typepad.com/
life_in_lake_county/2007/02/
digitalis_break.html#more
Even if you can remember things, you still have to look them up on google just to see whether it's changed recently.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Hi Annie,
For a moment there I couldn't figure out what the mnemonic- Over at A Lake County Point of View meant ;) OALCPV
Things move too fast for me - I barely grasp something and then it's already changed.
Thanks for pointing me to the lakecounty site - most literate and informative.
Besides the domains and clades Hank mentions, what to do with Series, Sports and Cultivars?
A tangled taxonomic tagine.
Weird that you learned "HOMES" for the Great Lakes. We learned them in order from West to East: "Sally Made Harry Eat Onions" (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario)
Hi Kim,
I learned HOMES from a Midwesterner, an Iowan to be more specific. I like yours better.
I read somewhere in the mist of time that the derivation of the word NEWS was actually a mnemonic for NorthEast WestSouth. Can't vouch for the accuracy.
Back in Biology 101 we learned
King Phillip Crossed the Ocean For Great Suds (or S*x, depending on how adventurous the professor was feeling).
Hi a gardener,
I guess there are as many mnemonics for the classification of plants as the number of people who create them, meaning many.
Yours must be a variation of the one Xris sent earlier or vice versa. Now you've got be total confused with so many pictures in my head.
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