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May 21, 2010

Strange But True!

Q. Astronomy lovers, can you decode the following mnemonic device: “My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas”? Or if not that, then “My Very Early Morning Jam Sandwich Usually Nauseates People”?

A. The word “mnemonic” comes from Mnemosyne (“knee-MAS-ah-knee”), the Greek goddess of memory, says Mark Davidson in “Right, Wrong, and Risky.” A third memory crutch answers the above questions: “My Very Easy Method Just Simplifies Us Naming Planets.” In all these examples, the first letter of each word represents a planet in the correct order out from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. The final large body is Pluto, now classified as a dwarf planet or plutoid, prompting one disenchanted sky-watching mnemonist to quip: “Since scientists demoted Pluto, I suppose we'll have to use ‘My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nothing.'”


 
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