Pale Eddie Often Mocks People Playing Harp
My wife loves memorizing things. Bones of the body. Insect orders. U.S. presidents. The Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet. Stuff like that.
The other day, she mentioned she was having a hard time with geologic epochs of the Cenozoic Era -- all the epochs since the KT Boundary:
- Paleocene
- Eocene
- Oligocene
- Miocene
- Pliocene
- Pleistocene
- Holocene
Many years ago, she picked up a mnemonic that never really worked for her: "pink elephants only make poo poo happily". As she remembers the story, this was the mnemonic used to teach her best friend the order of the epochs in college. I was curious whether this was "a thing", but some quick googling turned up nothing. Perhaps this was a phrase made up by the instructor? No offense to whoever invented that, but I felt certain I could come up with something better. Ideally, something with a personal connection.
After a bit of noodling, I came up with a mnemonic that takes advantage of my wife's love of Van Halen:
- Pale Eddie often mocks people playing harp
Often, the hardest part of remembering a series of words is getting started. It's like a melody -- if you can hum the first few notes, you're set. This particular mnemonic has the benefit that the first word is also the first syllable of the series you're trying to recall: "pale" leads your mind quite naturally to "paleocene". It also starts with a phrase that conjures an image, which helps with retention and recall: "Pale Eddie". Plus, it's a complete sentence, and it kind of makes sense: it's not hard to picture Eddie Van Halen poking fun at people playing harp.
Lining this up with the epochs of the Cenozoic Era, we have:
- Pale - Paleocene
- Eddie - Eocene
- Often - Oligocene
- Mocks - Miocene
- People - Pliocene
- Playing - Pleistocene
- Harp - Holocene
Since I shared this with her, she's been quizzing herself every so often, and it worked! Just thought I'd share this, in case you're a student of geology in need of a mnemonic.
Looking for more mnemonics to help memorize the geologic time scale? Some of these are great! I especially like "Cold oysters seldom develop many precious pearls, their juices congeal too quickly." (Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, Quaternary)
If you found this helpful, you'd like to thank me, and you enjoy reading science fiction, consider buying my book! More info here.