conuly

Over in

ozarque's journal, there's a discussion on poetry and why it's important (or not). This discussion is spread out into two different posts, and the comments are well worth reading, I think.

This leads me to two thoughts. The first is that I should link to this article on anti-poetry month. Go read it.

The second is found in the comments. I had commented that not many people actually have the entire "30 days..." poem memorized. They trail off after "November". Which is fine. So long as you know your month isn't September, April, June, November, or February, you're good.

griffen had commented with the poem as he learned it (causing me to rebut with the poem as I learned it, but this is all very boring), and I almost mentioned the way I *first* learned which days go to which months...

Put your two fists together. Count from the leftmost knuckle. Each knuckle or dip is a month. The knuckles are 31 days, the dips are either 30 days or February. July and August don't have a dip in between them because they're both 31 days.

Using my hands is also how I finally learned how to tell my left from my right - if it makes an L, it's the left! Ta-da!

And punching in a number is how I remember somebody's phone number, a far sight from my mother's method of making words (which doesn't always work, anyway).

Hm. Is there a special name for this sort of physical mnemonic? Are there any others I don't know about? Should I be outside enjoying the weather?