By Heather Sanders.
Last week I received my copies of three books I ordered as a result of the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” feature on Amazon. Remember when I blogged about My Grammar and I…? Yep, that’s when I got sucker-punched.
Just so you know, I recognize this Amazon feature is there to encourage (incite?) me to spend more, More, MORE! And yet? I fall prey to it every time. Okay, not EVERY time, but often enough.
The three additional books I purchased are I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School, i before e (except after c), and Easy as Pi: The Countless Ways We Use Numbers Every Day; all three are published by Reader’s Digest.
I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot From School
This book is for everyone who wants a little refresher on the the facts they learned in school. You know, the facts you can’t completely or accurately remember on any given day?
This book is organized in bite-sized chunks making it a solid reference for a variety of subjects, including theories, equations, phrases, and rules we were all taught years ago.
I jokingly refer to it as toilet-reading because the little tidbits of information are easy to read in short blocks of time. However, it could also be the long-term association I have with its publisher, Reader’s Digest.
Am I the only one whose grandparents kept Reader’s Digests in the bathroom?
Yes?
No?
Anyone?
Diphthongs.
(I can never spell that word right on the first try. The extra “h” gives me fits.)
Let’s talk Diphthongs. And no, I’m not talking about that weird cousin that no one wants to sit next to at extended family get togethers.
According to the book, “Merriam-Webster defines a diphthong as ‘a gliding monosyllabic speech sound that starts at or near the articulatory position of one vowel and moves to or toward the position of another.”
Clear as mud, right?
Diphthongs are only slightly confusing because they “can” be a digraph, but aren’t “actually” a digraph.
Got it?
For instance, the “i” in white is a diphthong.
However, the “ui” in fruit is also a diphthong.
For the record, the “ui” in fruit is also a digraph, but that is another subject entirely (one covered in this book too) and I’m not linguistic enough to explain it thoroughly.
Moving on to easier subjects…
Any questions on The Carbon Cycle?
We studied it as a part of a Photosynthesis unit this year. This book briefly (and I do mean briefly) “lights” on Photosynthesis, The Structure of a Plant, and then moves into The Carbon Cycle as part of its 30 pages of Science.
Ever confuse mean, median and mode?
Mean = Average
Median = The middle number in a set of values.
For instance, in this set of numbers (55, 57, 57, 65, 66, 69, 70, 72, 75, 79, 83) the “median” is 69.
Mode = The most common value.
In the numbers above, it is 57 because that is the only one that occurs more than once.
Get it?
Got it?
Good.
Let’s not forget about the 11th century Viking Explorers, Eric the Red and his son, Leif Eriksson (Is that a typo? Shouldn’t it be “Leif Ericson”??), not to be confused with the 20th century American actor, Leif Erickson.
While Erickson was on his own Fantasy Island adventure, Eriksson (Ericson?) became the first European to reach America; a pretty big deal after all.
Just when you think the subject matter isn’t broad enough, the final chapter, General Studies, delves into World Religions, along with Classical Mythology, Famous Artists and Composers, and The Planets.
The planets.
Admittedly, I’m still shaken about Pluto, the poor demoted ice dwarf.
“After much controversy a conference of the International Astronomical Union in 2006 deemed that Pluto no longer qualified [as a planet].”
If you don’t know, it was because of Eris, the icy body discovered in 2003 that was larger than Pluto. Eris was named after “the Greek goddess of discord, which was very appropo, given all the trouble she had caused.”
i before e (except after c)
Reviewed as a “playful jabberwocky of middle school mnemonics”, i before e (except after c) truly is full of all those simple, easy-to-remember rhymes that many of us learned in childhood as memory aids.
The book covers a range of subjects, including The English Language, Geography, Time and the Calendar, World History, The Human Body, and many more.
Who doesn’t remember their calendar rhyme:
Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November
All the rest have 31 excepting February alone
And that has 28 days clear
With 29 in each leap year.
If I’m honest, I rarely remember past the second line; that seems to be the point where my brain farts.
Excuse me…toots.
My brain, it toots.
Here’s a fun selection I found in the second chapter, “To Spell or Not to Spell”.
Eye halve a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques for my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it to say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
It’s rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
Eye am shore your pleased two no
It’s letter perfect awl the weigh
My checker tolled me sew.
-Margo Roark
Need a mnemonic for Geography?
General Eisenhower’s Oldest Girl Rode A Pony Home Yesterday.
Okay, raise your hand if it is just easier to learn how to spell Geography?
Agreed?
This was a blast from the past.
Anyone use this way to memorize your Roman Numerals?
I Value Xylophones Like Cows Dig Milk?
I did!
Me! Me!
Though I don’t really value xylophones.
I mean, I expect they are a good instrument and all…just don’t “value” them.
“PEN is possibly the simplest acronym in the history of mnemonics: Proton, Electron, Neutron”
Excellent!
Throughout the book are little snippets of background information on some of the mnemonics, as well as advice on how to create you own memory tricks. Though some of the suggestions are more laborious to learn than the actual word, they are fun to peruse and share with your kids or friends.
Easy as Pi: The Countless Ways We Use Numbers Every Day
I don’t typically go for anything “Math” related. I know, I know, those of you who love Math are shaking your head at my confession. Still, I bought this book because the review said that it would “please any puzzle lover” and I am a lover of puzzles.
I’m a puzzler.
Which is puzzling.
The product description sets the tone for the book: “Have you ever wondered what makes ‘seventh heaven’ and ‘cloud nine’ so blissful and the number 13 so unlucky? Or why ‘fourth-dimensional’ thinking is really out of this world?”.
Catchy, eh?
The book covers instances of numbers in language, fiction, culture, mythology and religion, and math and science.
Numbers, numbers, everywhere.
The Whole Nine Yards. I use this one a lot and have no idea why it is relevant to “giving something your best effort or using all your resources”. It seems no one really knows where it originated.
One theory: “One of the more credible theories is that American bombers during the World War II were issued 9-yard (27-foot/8-meter) belts of machine-gun ammunition (around 900 bullets) and might have to fire them all during a particularly difficult mission.”
However, since the phrase didn’t become widespread until the 1960s, this is unlikely.
Another possibility is “that the phrase derives from the average capacity of cement-mixing trucks–about 9 cubic yards…or from a rather rude story about a Scotsman’s kilt.”
Hmmmm…
I’m curious about the Scotsman’s kilt.
Moving from 9′s to 10′s – “The 10 Percent Myth”.
It has been said we only use 10 percent of our brain – true or false?
False.
According to the book, “The idea is untrue, and scientifically invalid: It would make no sense for humans to evolve large brains over millions of years only to leave them mostly inactive.”
I’ll leave y’all to debate whether we evolved or not.
Whoohoo! Discussion starter!
The book goes on to discuss phrenology, glial cells, and a 1944 advertisement for the Pelman Institute.
This is one you gotta read for yourself.
I’d break copyright laws if I pasted it all in!
Wonder why buses come in threes?
Apparently this is a “well-documented phenomenon of mass transit.”
Who knew?
Mathematical anomalies abound!
77.
I loved this one.
Anyone studying World War II? Here is some interesting trivia.
“This otherwise unremarkable number took on enormous importance for Sweden during World War II. Seventy-seven, written ‘sjuttiosju’ in Swedish, is extremely difficult to pronounce in that language, and it was the pronunciation–or mispronunciation–of it that helped guards at the border of neutral Sweden to distinguish between native Swedes and others from Germany or occupied Norway.”
I am soooooo glad they do not have pronunciation tests when people enter other states from Texas. Honestly, I can’t even get my iPhone to understand my drawl, I can’t imagine if I had to pass a test to enter an eastern state. I’d never make it.
So here’s the question of the day. I have truly enjoyed reading all the mnemonics. Give me your favorite Mnemonics and tell me when you learned them. OR if you made them up yourself, tell me that too! This will be fun!
OMSH/Heather L. Sanders is “Momma” to three kids, Emelie, Meredith and Kenny. When not homeschooling, Heather designs websites and writes about life in the piney woods of Texas at OMSH.com.