Mnemonics

Mnemonics
   Zeus had many wives, Hera being his number one and his chief nemesis. But he was also married to Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. Zeus sired with her the nine muses: Calliope, patron of epic poetry; Terpsichore, goddess of choral dance; Clio, presiding over history; Erato, over lyric and amatory poetry; Euterpe, over music; Melpomene, over tragedy; Polyhmnia, over sacred music; Thalia, over comic and bucolic poetry; and Urania, over astronomy.
   Mnemosyne came from a distinguished background, the daughter of heaven and earth (Uranus and Gaea). Her godly duty was to protect memory, and through her name has come the word mnemonics, the art of improving one's memory. In Greek, mnemonikos means mindful. The system mnemonics depends on association. A word, a name, a territory—almost anything can be used to stimulate memory. To remember how to distinguish stationery from stationary, for example, one might think of the fact that a letter has two e's and no a's. Therefore, the word for the paper on which letters are written is stationery.

Dictionary of eponyms. . 2013.

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  • Mnemonics — Mne*mon ics, n. [Gr. ta mnhmonika : cf. F. mn[ e]monique.] The art of memory; a method for improving the memory; a system of precepts and rules intended to assist the memory; artificial memory. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • mnemonics — “art of developing memory,” 1721; see MNEMONIC (Cf. mnemonic); also Cf. ICS (Cf. ics) …   Etymology dictionary

  • mnemonics — [nē män′iks] n. [see MNEMONIC] a technique or system of improving the memory by the use of certain formulas pl.n. such formulas …   English World dictionary

  • Mnemonics — Der Befehlssatz (englisch: instruction set, weshalb in der deutschen Sprache der Begriff Instruktion synonym für Befehl verwendet wird) bezeichnet in der Informatik die Menge der Maschinenbefehle eines Mikroprozessors. Der Umfang des… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • MNEMONICS OR MEMORA TECHNICA — (Heb. סִימָן, siman; a sign ), devices based on the principle that the mind is able to recall relatively unfamiliar ideas by connecting, as some artificial whole, parts of them which are mutually suggestive. Mnemonics are widely used in the… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Mnemonics (album) — Mnemonics Studio album by Alan Banks Released 2005 Recorded August 2005 Genre Classical …   Wikipedia

  • Mnemonics (short story) — Mnemonics is a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, first published on 28 April September 1951 in Collier s weekly, and later in Bagombo Snuff Box in 1999. Mnemonics was one of the first short stories Vonnegut wrote (and one of the first of his which… …   Wikipedia

  • Mnemonics (keyboard) — Firefox 3.0 menu with shortcuts highlighted with green and mnemonics highlighted with yellow. A mnemonic is an underlined alphanumeric character, typically appearing in a menu title, menu item, or the text of a button or component of the User… …   Wikipedia

  • Mnemonics in trigonometry — In trigonometry, it is common to use mnemonics to help remember trigonometric identities and the relationships between the various trigonometric functions. For example, the sine, cosine, and tangent ratios in a right triangle can be remembered by …   Wikipedia

  • mnemonics — noun plural but singular in construction Date: circa 1721 a technique of improving the memory …   New Collegiate Dictionary

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