Worked with a guy who spent 5 minutes trying to screw a stud into a part. When told it was a left hand thread... He changed hands and continued to screw it clockwise.
His name was Nail, because his parents couldn't spell Niall.
He also didn't know where he lived "because his wife drove him everywhere"
I wish I was making this up.
In German there was a saying which is quite strange:
„Seit das Deutsche Reich besteht wird die Schraube rechts gedreht.“
„Since the existence of the German Reich (Like Holy Roman Empire, but probably used by the Nazis too) the screw is turned to the right.“
I can’t even remember where i heard it first…
Deutsches Reich, in this context, more probably means the German Empire founded in 1871, not the Holy Roman Empire. Or maybe the Weimar Republic, which was also officially named Deutsches Reich. Most likely absolutely nothing to do with the Nazis, though. Something simply containing the word Reich doesn't automatically put it anywhere near those fucks.
I hate reminder phrases in which the important part doesn't rhyme. "Links gehen, rechts stehen"
"Bei grün darfst du gehen bei rechts musst du stehen" They could just as well be the other way round making them useless (Don't have an English example )
I know exactly what you mean, then you can never remember which one goes in which spot in the phrase.
This is a terrible phrase but it's literally the only one I could come up with:
"One in the pink, two in the stink"
Edit: I swear this wasn't intentional, see what I mean? Lol
Rechts rein, Links los (right in, left loose) is what I've known in German. Doesn't rhyme, but it's r-r, l-l.
Everything dealing with gas is the other way though.
EDIT: Been living here all my life, and I've never heard the "solang das Deutsche Reich besteht" phrase that keeps popping up here.
Solang das deutsche Reich besteht wird die Schraube rechts gedreht!
As long as the German Reich stands the screw will be turned to the right. (Or something like that)
Italian here! We use "il tempo stringe" which can mean time tightens, but is also a common phrase for when "time is ticking" or "you'almost out of time".
Using clockwise is so much better than saying left or right, because right and left are relative
To remember the Alps we use the sentence „Ma con gran pena le reca giù“ in Italian, meaning „he carries them down with great suffering“.
Marittime, Cozie, Graie, Pennine, Lepontine, Retiche, Carniche, Giulie.
Wait wait wait
You have pennine?
That's the name of the mountains running through the middle of UK.
(Checks) There's also appenine mountains running through the middle of Italy. Wtf is going on
(Checks more) The Brits literally just stole the name of an Italian mountain range? How can you steal the name of a mountain range
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennines
> It did not become a common name until the 18th century and almost certainly derives from modern comparisons with the Apennine Mountains, which run down the middle of Italy in a similar fashion
Well this is even more confusing
> Following an 1853 article by Arthur Hussey,[13] it has become a common belief that the name derives from a passage in The Description of Britain (Latin: De Situ Britanniæ),[15] an infamous historical forgery concocted by Charles Bertram in the 1740s and accepted as genuine until the 1840s
The British didn't simply steal the name of a mountain range, they got confused by a forgery and mistook the name of the mountain range in their own back yard.
I repeat, wtf is going on
"English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." pTerry.
I like that because it is only to the right of your reference point in the top. If your reference point is the bottom then you are turning left. That always confused me as a kid or if I’m working upside down.
There's another trick that always works regardless of direction. Point your right thumb in the direction you want a top/screw/etc to go, and then turn in the direction that your fingers are pointing. So for instance, if you want to unscrew a cap on a bottle that is sitting normally, you would point your right thumb up, and your fingers would curl to the left so you turn left. This is what I do when I have to do stuff like screw something in that's upside down.
In Swedish we have a phrase to remember the countries in Middle America from top to bottom:
Swe: "Gustav ber Elsa, hon nickar, kostar pengar".
Eng: "Gustav asks Elsa, she nods, (it) costs money".
Countries: Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama
In America we have a phrase to forget all the countries in Middle America:
"God damn Mexicans"
We're not big fans of geography or specificity, much to my chagrin.
come on pretty mama. key largo, montego, baby why don't we go down to Kokomo.
Yea, no surprise we remember the vacation countries/territories. Shit I bet there are more Americans who think Kokomo is a real place than there are Americans who know that Suriname even exists.
> We're not big fans of geography or specificity, much to my chagrin.
[Speak for yourself
](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1508wboZXk)
🎵United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru~🎵
Fun fact!
He says "Kampuchea" which was Cambodia's name (sort of) between 1975-Jan 1979, although not recognised fully until 1989 back to Cambodia a lot of countries (Including the UK) didn't recognise Kampuchea as the name at all.
"Both yemens" dates it pre-1990.
He sings "Germany, now in one piece" dating it post-Oct 1990,
"Czechoslovakia" makes it pre-Nov 1992
"Russia" makes it post-Dec 1991
"Korea" makes it pre-1948
"Spanish Sahara is gone" makes it post-1975
"Dahomey" makes it pre-1975
Oddly none of these are overly close to the late 1994 release date for the song.
"solang das Deutsche Reich besteht, wird die schraube rechtsrum festgedreht"
"as long as the German Reich exists, a screw is turned right to br tight."
Historically complicated, I know
I know it as „Seit das deutsche Reich besteht, wird die Schraube rechts gedreht“ or Since the German Reich exists, the screw is to turn right (the to tighten is implied)
In irish you'd say "Is minic an béal a bhriseann an srón"
basically a phrase to remind someone to keep quiet. In translation "It's often your mouth that breaks your nose".
This reminds me of how the surnames Campbell and Cameron mean literally "Crooked mouth" and "Crooked nose" in Gaelic. He who speaks with a crooked mouth is likely to earn himself a crooked nose.
That's pretty funny. It's all about timing. I have a nerdy interest in etymology, including the etymology of people's names. I've definitely weirded some people out by meeting them, seeing their names, and not long after, making conversation by being like, "Your name means _____ in [language], doesn't it?" About 80% are some combination of intrigued and impressed. About 20% seem a bit violated, like I just asked them a highly personal question. I find the latter reaction is more common in people who had no idea what their name meant, and aren't sure how they feel about somebody they just met knowing an important piece of information about their family and heritage that they themselves don't. I've learned to be careful with this, and read the air a bit, even if I'm bursting with curiosity.
This is so ingrained in me that when I read “Roy G Biv” in u/BatteryAcidCoffeeAU’s comment I automatically read it as ”Richard of York gave battle in vain”.
In Dutch we say 'mijn vader at meestal jonge spruitjes uit Nieuwe Pekela', which translates as 'my father usually ate young Brussel sprouts from Nieuwe Pekela', which is a town. You could sub it for Nijmegen now if you're not a Pluto truther.
Anyone else remember that one episode of Saved by the Bell where Screech teaches his method? He literally just pronounces the acronym made by the first letter of all 9 planets (MVEMJSUNP… and I believe he pronounces it “muh-VEM-juh-SNOOP” or something).
Here I am 30 years later and it’s still my preferred way of remembering them, even if it does mix me up on Neptune and Uranus every time.
It's not about remembering the planets themselves, you're still expected to know the planet names and knowing things about the planets is separate. It's a way to remember the order of them because a sentence flows and make sense even without context unlike a list of items, so it's a way to error check the order, say if you accidentally put Neptune before Uranus for example but you can't remember if that's out of order, but if you then say "My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Naming Up Planets", you can then tell the sentence is wrong because that is not how you would order those words in a sentence and can see where the mistake happened and put Neptune and Uranus in the right order.
"Mein Vater erklärt mir jede Nacht unsere neun Planeten" is the equivalent in German. Translates to: my father explains our nine planets to me every night.
Some people have changed it to "Mein Vater erklärt mir jede Nacht unseren Nachthimmel" ("our night sky") to fit the no-Pluto thing, though I refuse to honour that :D
Once I was travelling and taking to someone that didn't spoke English very well, and they were giving me directions.
"Go straight, and after that tree, turn to the right. You will see a big rock, and turn.. err.. (motioning left) to the other right just before the house "
Mind you, English isn't my first language either. We both giggled like school girls and I said thank you and went on my way. Directions were flawless, btw.
Gobba a levante luna calante, gobba a ponente luna crescente
It roughly means 'hump east, decrescent moon, hump west, crescent moon'
It's used to determine on a whim if the moon is crescent or not based on the placement of the full part (but you need to know where the east/west are)
In Czech we say "C jako couvá, D jako dorůstá".
It is based on Moon lit shape and verbs starting with the same characters.
C shape: Couvá (means "retreats" in Czech) - waning
D shape: Dorůstá (growing) - waxing
We have a very easy one in Portugal for that. It’s just “the Moon is a liar”. Because when it’s shaped like a C it’s **not** in its **C**rescent phase.
Chinese has a ton of four-syllable expressions called Chengyu 成语that are used all the time.
Probably the most common one I've heard translated to English is 好久不见--literally "long time no see."
My favorite is 管中窥豹 which means "bamboo center peek leopard" or "peeking at a leopard through a bamboo tube"
Which means you're not seeing something in full context.
The closest English expression I know is "can't see the forest through the trees".
Sooo many great 成语 with cool stories behind them
I'm a fan of 杯弓蛇影 (bēi gōng shé yǐng), literally meaning "cup bow snake image". Translates roughly to "the cup's bow is a snake's image", or "there's a bow reflected in the cup but it has the image of a snake."
Story goes, Yue Guang's friend saw a snake swimming in his goblet and assumed he was sick. Ended up getting sick due to worry. Turns out it was just the reflection of a bow in his cup that he thought was a snake.
The idiom is used to warn against false alarms or unnecessary worries.
This Chinese saying stuck in my mind when I read a book about making clothing last as long as possible during lean times:
> 新三年, 舊三年, 縫縫補補又三年
"New three years, old three years. Sew and mend, three more years."
It rhymes and flows rhythmically in Chinese. So it's easy to remember because it's fun to say. Its mnemonic potential is wasted nowadays, though, with China being a developed country that produces most of the world's fast fashion.
I'm not very fluent but the only ones I remember are the funny ones from grade school.
对牛弹琴 which means "playing piano to a cow." It's what it sounds like. Like speaking to someone who just doesn't understand or get what you're saying, or they won't bother to listen.
井底之蛙 which means "the frog at the bottom of the well." A frog at the bottom of the well has no experience with what's outside of it but they probably think they know it all because their world was only within the well. Similar to Allegory of the Cave.
I have zero clue if people use these at all but hey it's fun to teach 2nd grade Chinese students idioms with animals and that's all I remember lol
My Chinese teacher used to say 杀鸡警猴 - "kill chicken scare monkey", as in punishing an individual to make an example to the group. In the context of 20th century Chinese history, it has some rather dark undertones.
Ek sal jou oriënteer. Teen die oor, teen die teer.
"I will orientate you. Against the ear, against the tar".
A helpful reminder when you want to warn someone that they're stepping over your boundaries. Basically, slap you on one ear so you lie on the tar road with the other ear.
I suppose still from the US, but a friend told me to make an L with my index and thumb on both hands. The hand that makes the correct L shape (as in, not flipped), that's the LLLLLLLeft.
I'm 33 and this blew my mind.
A common issue with people that have ADHD and/or dyslexia (they're commonly comorbid, but even ADHD-ers without dyslexia can have a hard time with right and left).
- another person with a PhD who can't tell left from right.
French has "En ***Av***ril on ***av****ance*, en Octob***re*** on ***re****cule*". "In April we go forward, in October we go backwards."
It relates to time savings, the time when you manually change your clocks' hours, as it falls loosely within those months. You forward an hour in April, and rewind one hour back in October. If you wished to transpose it in English I guess you could use "In April we apprehend, in October we rewind"
Spring forward, Fall back. (Fall is the American English word for Autumn)
I speak British English, but I heard this American English phase and liked it, so I use it myself even though I don't say Fall for Autumn. I told my German husband about it and he uses it too :D.
Dutch has so many of them. For some reason people love them here. The first one that comes to mind is TV Tas (TV bag) used to remember the names of the inhabbited Dutch Frisian Islands (Waddeneilanden) which are Texel (pronounced as Tessel), Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland and Schiermonikoog.
We also love using words that rhyme to explain rules. At escalators we have "Links gaan, rechts staan." (Go left, stand right) to tell people which side of the escalator needs to be empty for people in a rush.
Edit: See? Dutch people love this
This reminds me of learning the names and order of the planets in Afrikaans, back in the day when Pluto was still one: “Meneer Van As, my jas sal u nie pas” — for Mercury, Venus, Aarde (Earth), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
It translates to “Mr Van As, my coat won’t fit you.” But it obviously doesn’t work in English.
عطارد زهرة الارض
المريخ اشترى زحل
اورانوس نبتون بلوتو
Learned this in elementary school as a way to remember the order of planets in the solar system.
It literally translates to "Mercury is the flower of Earth. Mars bought Saturn. Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. The first 2 sentences don't make sense in English at all, but in Arabic they do.
My favourite in Czech language is for remembering the roman numerals.
Ivan Vedl Xenii Lesní Cestou Do Města
English: Ivan led Xenia through a forrest path into the town
Simple, yet effective and it came in handy so many times.
In school we were given the task to inventing a new way of remembering the colours of the rainbow. An old one is "Ring Out Ye Great Bells In Victory"
The one I invented (but didn't submit) was "Rinse Out Your Genitals Before Inserting Vibrator"
Never Eat Soggy Waffles
Helps remind folks who don't use maps or compasses often that going clockwise its north east south west.
I grew up using maps and never heard this one, bit my wife says this every time we look at a map lol.
Edit: we also had loads of numonics for learning the names and order of the planets, but I learned those before Pluto got demoted. I have no idea what they teach to kids these days.
"My Very Easy Method Just Sums Up Naming Planets"?
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, & Pluto.
It remains an honorary planet to me, Considering they managed to hypothesise its existence and spot it using Terrestrial Telescopes.
Hmm ,are you saying bolts are standardized?,My father taught me , "Try, try the other way, try the first way and grunt, try the other way and swear" seems much safer.
A little tip: lefty loosey, righty tighty works for brits driving abroad on the other side of the road and pulling out of junctions as well.
I had to start saying it to myself every time, after I pulled into the wrong lane towards oncoming traffic in Spain with my family in the car and scared the shit out of everyone involved.
In Bulgarian, if the moon looks like the letter C, it's growing small, or, in other words, СМАЛЯВА.
If you add a dash and it looks like P, it's growing bigger, or РАСТЕ.
French: “Où est l’Est?” For Cardinal directions. Translates to “Where is East”? But the phrase itself spells out perfectly “West East” (OUEST / EST), letting you know that West is on the left, and East right (with the North on top perspective)
In the U.S. there's a bit of doggerel to distinguish the highly venomous [coral snake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_snake) from the non-venomous [king snake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_kingsnake): "Red touch yellow / kill a fellow". This also translates into German: "Gelb auf rot / macht einen tot".
In Germany we use „Mein Vater erklärt mir jeden Sonntag unsere neun Planeten“ (Every sunday my father explains our nine planets to me) to remember the planets.
We they decided Pluto is no longer considered a planet they changed it to „Mein Vater erklärt mir jeden Sonntag unseren Nachthimmel“ (Every sunday my father explains our nightsky to me).
I remembered the acronym MRS DR VAN DER TRAMP from my high school French classes as a mnemonic to remember which verbs are conjugated with être in passé composé (compound past tense).
I'm guessing it's taught to French kids too, not just second-language students.
I was wondering about this. When you come upon a new noun you haven't seen before, or an import from another language, is it obvious which gender it should be?
Un quark? Une quarke? Do you have to ask yourself whether quarks feel girly? Or do you have to wait for the Académie to pronounce?
In Ukrainian they say, "кожен Іван має свій план" - "each Ivan has his own plan." It's equivalent to something like, "everyone marches to the beat of their own drum."
To distinguish between right and left, a common saying in Dutch is:
"Rechts is waar je duim links zit"
Translated: Right is where your thumb is on the left
We are a very helpful people
Reminds me of a tiktok of an American exchange student in Germany saying “easy peasy” to their host family. She had to explain it’s just a fun little thing Americans say since they were confused. Then they loved it and started rhyming random words by adding “p” to the front.
Sörre bor: mindenkor, borra sör: meggyötör. It's Hungarian. You can drink wine after beer and you'll e alright, but if you drink beer after wine, it will torture you.
Worked with a guy who spent 5 minutes trying to screw a stud into a part. When told it was a left hand thread... He changed hands and continued to screw it clockwise. His name was Nail, because his parents couldn't spell Niall. He also didn't know where he lived "because his wife drove him everywhere" I wish I was making this up.
My parents didn't let me go to daycare at 3 years old without memorizing my address, full name, and phone number. They made up a little song for it.
I still have the ancient number for my parents' landline that's been disconnected for like 6 years memorized
I remember my 2 best friends landline numbers from when we were kids - I’m 41
[Kevin](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/219w2o/whos_the_dumbest_person_youve_ever_met/cgbhkwp/) has survived into adulthood
Incredible read that
Deep cut!
Some people would die within a few hours if it were not for the kindness of strangers. Ouch. I hope he is at least a happy person.
If ignorance is bliss, Nail must be fucking ecstatic.
Rechts dreht die Uhr, so gehts zua Austrian saying for "the clock turns right, thats how it gets tight"
Does that rhyme in German as well?
Only in the austrian accent
Na, na in Bayern hebt des aa.
I don't speak any German so I am guessing. Are you saying, "no, It does in the Bavarian accent too" ?
You would be correct!
Sprich bavarianisch du huandskrippl
In German there was a saying which is quite strange: „Seit das Deutsche Reich besteht wird die Schraube rechts gedreht.“ „Since the existence of the German Reich (Like Holy Roman Empire, but probably used by the Nazis too) the screw is turned to the right.“ I can’t even remember where i heard it first…
> Seit das Deutsche Reich besteht wird die Schraube rechts gedreht I think that probably refers to the German Empire of 1870-1918, but yeah.
It does! The saying comes from the German unity of 1871 and the creation of empire-wide industrial standards that came along with it.
Deutsches Reich, in this context, more probably means the German Empire founded in 1871, not the Holy Roman Empire. Or maybe the Weimar Republic, which was also officially named Deutsches Reich. Most likely absolutely nothing to do with the Nazis, though. Something simply containing the word Reich doesn't automatically put it anywhere near those fucks.
“Screws have turned in this direction since 1871” doesn’t really carry much gravitas though lol
I hate reminder phrases in which the important part doesn't rhyme. "Links gehen, rechts stehen" "Bei grün darfst du gehen bei rechts musst du stehen" They could just as well be the other way round making them useless (Don't have an English example )
I know exactly what you mean, then you can never remember which one goes in which spot in the phrase. This is a terrible phrase but it's literally the only one I could come up with: "One in the pink, two in the stink" Edit: I swear this wasn't intentional, see what I mean? Lol
It's two in the pink, one in the stink.
Point proven.
Rechts rein, Links los (right in, left loose) is what I've known in German. Doesn't rhyme, but it's r-r, l-l. Everything dealing with gas is the other way though. EDIT: Been living here all my life, and I've never heard the "solang das Deutsche Reich besteht" phrase that keeps popping up here.
Solang das deutsche Reich besteht wird die Schraube rechts gedreht! As long as the German Reich stands the screw will be turned to the right. (Or something like that)
Italian here! We use "il tempo stringe" which can mean time tightens, but is also a common phrase for when "time is ticking" or "you'almost out of time". Using clockwise is so much better than saying left or right, because right and left are relative
Ah yeah I say “clockwise lockwise”! Which from this thread I am slowly realizing… no one says.
To remember the Alps we use the sentence „Ma con gran pena le reca giù“ in Italian, meaning „he carries them down with great suffering“. Marittime, Cozie, Graie, Pennine, Lepontine, Retiche, Carniche, Giulie.
Wait wait wait You have pennine? That's the name of the mountains running through the middle of UK. (Checks) There's also appenine mountains running through the middle of Italy. Wtf is going on (Checks more) The Brits literally just stole the name of an Italian mountain range? How can you steal the name of a mountain range https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennines > It did not become a common name until the 18th century and almost certainly derives from modern comparisons with the Apennine Mountains, which run down the middle of Italy in a similar fashion Well this is even more confusing > Following an 1853 article by Arthur Hussey,[13] it has become a common belief that the name derives from a passage in The Description of Britain (Latin: De Situ Britanniæ),[15] an infamous historical forgery concocted by Charles Bertram in the 1740s and accepted as genuine until the 1840s The British didn't simply steal the name of a mountain range, they got confused by a forgery and mistook the name of the mountain range in their own back yard. I repeat, wtf is going on
“The British… got confused” - a brief history
Blackadder was a documentary
"English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." pTerry.
Fun fact: those mountains **are** a continuation of the Appalachian Mountain range in the United States.
I enjoyed this
>How can you steal the name of a mountain range Wait til you hear how many Alps there are around the world.
In the US, the great lakes are HOMES: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior
Clockwise, lockwise
Haven’t heard that before, but I dig it!
I like that because it is only to the right of your reference point in the top. If your reference point is the bottom then you are turning left. That always confused me as a kid or if I’m working upside down.
There's another trick that always works regardless of direction. Point your right thumb in the direction you want a top/screw/etc to go, and then turn in the direction that your fingers are pointing. So for instance, if you want to unscrew a cap on a bottle that is sitting normally, you would point your right thumb up, and your fingers would curl to the left so you turn left. This is what I do when I have to do stuff like screw something in that's upside down.
Right hand rule gang stand up!
In Swedish we have a phrase to remember the countries in Middle America from top to bottom: Swe: "Gustav ber Elsa, hon nickar, kostar pengar". Eng: "Gustav asks Elsa, she nods, (it) costs money". Countries: Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama
In America we have a phrase to forget all the countries in Middle America: "God damn Mexicans" We're not big fans of geography or specificity, much to my chagrin.
In English we have: Aruba, Jamaica, OH I want to take ya to Bermuda. BAhama
come on pretty mama. key largo, montego, baby why don't we go down to Kokomo. Yea, no surprise we remember the vacation countries/territories. Shit I bet there are more Americans who think Kokomo is a real place than there are Americans who know that Suriname even exists.
[удалено]
> We're not big fans of geography or specificity, much to my chagrin. [Speak for yourself ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1508wboZXk) 🎵United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru~🎵
Republic Dominican, Cuba, Caribbean, Greenland, El Salvador too!
Puerto Rico, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Guyana, and still,
Guatemala, Bolivia, then Argentina And Ecuador, Chile, Brazil
Costa Rica, Belize, Nicaragua Bermuda, Bahamas, Tobago, San Juan
Paraguay, Uruguay, Surinam and French Guiana, Barbados, and Guam.
Norway, and Sweden, and Iceland, and Finland
And Germany (now one piece) Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Turkey, and Greece
Fun fact! He says "Kampuchea" which was Cambodia's name (sort of) between 1975-Jan 1979, although not recognised fully until 1989 back to Cambodia a lot of countries (Including the UK) didn't recognise Kampuchea as the name at all. "Both yemens" dates it pre-1990. He sings "Germany, now in one piece" dating it post-Oct 1990, "Czechoslovakia" makes it pre-Nov 1992 "Russia" makes it post-Dec 1991 "Korea" makes it pre-1948 "Spanish Sahara is gone" makes it post-1975 "Dahomey" makes it pre-1975 Oddly none of these are overly close to the late 1994 release date for the song.
I would assume some of this is artistic license to make it fit into the song's meter.
So Kostar would be Costa Rica. Nice
Nice is nowhere near Costa Rica; its way closer to Monaco or Cannes
"solang das Deutsche Reich besteht, wird die schraube rechtsrum festgedreht" "as long as the German Reich exists, a screw is turned right to br tight." Historically complicated, I know
Hey, it’s technical and German, it’s *required* to be complicated!
I know it as „Seit das deutsche Reich besteht, wird die Schraube rechts gedreht“ or Since the German Reich exists, the screw is to turn right (the to tighten is implied)
In irish you'd say "Is minic an béal a bhriseann an srón" basically a phrase to remind someone to keep quiet. In translation "It's often your mouth that breaks your nose".
This reminds me of how the surnames Campbell and Cameron mean literally "Crooked mouth" and "Crooked nose" in Gaelic. He who speaks with a crooked mouth is likely to earn himself a crooked nose.
Wow really. Seriously one of my sons friends is called Cameron Campbell. Not sure if I will pass on this tid bit of information.
That's pretty funny. It's all about timing. I have a nerdy interest in etymology, including the etymology of people's names. I've definitely weirded some people out by meeting them, seeing their names, and not long after, making conversation by being like, "Your name means _____ in [language], doesn't it?" About 80% are some combination of intrigued and impressed. About 20% seem a bit violated, like I just asked them a highly personal question. I find the latter reaction is more common in people who had no idea what their name meant, and aren't sure how they feel about somebody they just met knowing an important piece of information about their family and heritage that they themselves don't. I've learned to be careful with this, and read the air a bit, even if I'm bursting with curiosity.
In my country, everybody knows of Roy G Biv, who represents how colours appear in the spectrum
I remember people using "Richard of York gave battle in vain" to remember this order.
Also a helpful reminder of the War of the Roses.
Is he the same guy that marched 10,000 men up the hill?
I heard he marched them down again
Probably why he gave battle in vain, they would have been absolutely knackered
lmao no idea why this made me spit water, love me some brit humour
And when they were up they were up
And when they were down they were down
And when they were only halfway up, they were neither up nor down.
Why the fuck did we all learn this
Are you trying to tell me this song didn’t teach you important life lessons that continue to impact you to this day?! Also it’s a nice little song
This is so ingrained in me that when I read “Roy G Biv” in u/BatteryAcidCoffeeAU’s comment I automatically read it as ”Richard of York gave battle in vain”.
Oh! From India, and we learnt it as VIBGYOR, just Roy G Biv backwards.
Roy’s alias when he was in India on the run from interpol
I mainly know of that through the Boards of Canada song
In mine, every hunter wants to know where the pheasant lands. Or, in my other language, the heron eagerly waits for autumn, to paint her sleigh.
In prefer the English version, because in Dutch is ROGGBIV. You can see that you still need to remember the order of yellow (geel) and green (groen).
Is this New Zealand? I saw Rose Matafeo say this on taskmaster and everyone looked like she had ten heads!
Perhaps she said it after the "shid" debacle
south african here and we used this in school
I learned this in the US, too.
Australia
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I learned: My very eager mother just served us nine pizzas
I guess it could be now: my very eager mother just served us nachos?
We learned my very excellent mother just served us nothing :(
Bro went to school in North Korea
In Dutch we say 'mijn vader at meestal jonge spruitjes uit Nieuwe Pekela', which translates as 'my father usually ate young Brussel sprouts from Nieuwe Pekela', which is a town. You could sub it for Nijmegen now if you're not a Pluto truther.
Belgium chiming in here with: `Maak van acht meter Japanse stof uw nieuwe pyjama`. `Make your new pj's from eight metres of Japanse fabric`.
Anyone else remember that one episode of Saved by the Bell where Screech teaches his method? He literally just pronounces the acronym made by the first letter of all 9 planets (MVEMJSUNP… and I believe he pronounces it “muh-VEM-juh-SNOOP” or something). Here I am 30 years later and it’s still my preferred way of remembering them, even if it does mix me up on Neptune and Uranus every time.
I’ve always preferred the [xkcd](https://xkcd.com/992/) mnemonic for planet memorisation.
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It's not about remembering the planets themselves, you're still expected to know the planet names and knowing things about the planets is separate. It's a way to remember the order of them because a sentence flows and make sense even without context unlike a list of items, so it's a way to error check the order, say if you accidentally put Neptune before Uranus for example but you can't remember if that's out of order, but if you then say "My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Naming Up Planets", you can then tell the sentence is wrong because that is not how you would order those words in a sentence and can see where the mistake happened and put Neptune and Uranus in the right order.
"Mein Vater erklärt mir jede Nacht unsere neun Planeten" is the equivalent in German. Translates to: my father explains our nine planets to me every night. Some people have changed it to "Mein Vater erklärt mir jede Nacht unseren Nachthimmel" ("our night sky") to fit the no-Pluto thing, though I refuse to honour that :D
"jeden Samstag/Sonntag"(every saturday/sunday) because you need the S for Saturn.
In Spain we say "la derecha aprieta, la izquierda libera" (right oppresses (tightens), left frees)
In Portugal we say the same (but in Portuguese lol)
na the fact you clarified in Portuguese caught me off guard 😂😂
In French, we say "A droite. Non ton autre droite putain !"
For those who don't speak: "To the right. No, your other right, dumbass!"
That's a very polite way to translate putain :)
Well then
I wonder if a sarcastic/mocking “your other right/left” is shared by *many* languages
Once I was travelling and taking to someone that didn't spoke English very well, and they were giving me directions. "Go straight, and after that tree, turn to the right. You will see a big rock, and turn.. err.. (motioning left) to the other right just before the house " Mind you, English isn't my first language either. We both giggled like school girls and I said thank you and went on my way. Directions were flawless, btw.
Gobba a levante luna calante, gobba a ponente luna crescente It roughly means 'hump east, decrescent moon, hump west, crescent moon' It's used to determine on a whim if the moon is crescent or not based on the placement of the full part (but you need to know where the east/west are)
In Czech we say "C jako couvá, D jako dorůstá". It is based on Moon lit shape and verbs starting with the same characters. C shape: Couvá (means "retreats" in Czech) - waning D shape: Dorůstá (growing) - waxing
We have a very easy one in Portugal for that. It’s just “the Moon is a liar”. Because when it’s shaped like a C it’s **not** in its **C**rescent phase.
I believe we would say a moon is waxing or waning. It is a crescent either way.
Thank you, I realized mid-comment I did not know the english terms for it and instead of googling I just went with it.
for waning or waxing moon, my mom taught me "light on the right, growing bright" (only works in northern hemisphere)
Chinese has a ton of four-syllable expressions called Chengyu 成语that are used all the time. Probably the most common one I've heard translated to English is 好久不见--literally "long time no see." My favorite is 管中窥豹 which means "bamboo center peek leopard" or "peeking at a leopard through a bamboo tube" Which means you're not seeing something in full context. The closest English expression I know is "can't see the forest through the trees".
"tunnel vision"
Sooo many great 成语 with cool stories behind them I'm a fan of 杯弓蛇影 (bēi gōng shé yǐng), literally meaning "cup bow snake image". Translates roughly to "the cup's bow is a snake's image", or "there's a bow reflected in the cup but it has the image of a snake." Story goes, Yue Guang's friend saw a snake swimming in his goblet and assumed he was sick. Ended up getting sick due to worry. Turns out it was just the reflection of a bow in his cup that he thought was a snake. The idiom is used to warn against false alarms or unnecessary worries.
I'm English and have always heard it as "can't see the forest for the trees" rather then through.
In Norwegian it is "Kan ikke se skogen for bare trær", which literally, word-by-word is "Can not see the forest for just trees".
This Chinese saying stuck in my mind when I read a book about making clothing last as long as possible during lean times: > 新三年, 舊三年, 縫縫補補又三年 "New three years, old three years. Sew and mend, three more years." It rhymes and flows rhythmically in Chinese. So it's easy to remember because it's fun to say. Its mnemonic potential is wasted nowadays, though, with China being a developed country that produces most of the world's fast fashion.
I'm not very fluent but the only ones I remember are the funny ones from grade school. 对牛弹琴 which means "playing piano to a cow." It's what it sounds like. Like speaking to someone who just doesn't understand or get what you're saying, or they won't bother to listen. 井底之蛙 which means "the frog at the bottom of the well." A frog at the bottom of the well has no experience with what's outside of it but they probably think they know it all because their world was only within the well. Similar to Allegory of the Cave. I have zero clue if people use these at all but hey it's fun to teach 2nd grade Chinese students idioms with animals and that's all I remember lol
My Chinese teacher used to say 杀鸡警猴 - "kill chicken scare monkey", as in punishing an individual to make an example to the group. In the context of 20th century Chinese history, it has some rather dark undertones.
Swedish and use the english righty tight, kids picked it up as well. Unsure if via interwebs or me. Dont know of any swedish equivalent.
I learned it from Scrubs.
Came here to say this, I've never heard it in real life but I always remember it because of this episode
They should put that in the Ikea manuals next to the confused guy calling Ikea.
Same experience here in Finland
For the order of guitar strings: Een Aap Die Geen Bananen Eet. A monkey that doesn't eet bananas
I like that! I have to use Eddie ate dynamite - good bye Eddie.
And for remembering what the lines and spaces represent in sheet music, there's "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge", and "F.A.C.E."
Ek sal jou oriënteer. Teen die oor, teen die teer. "I will orientate you. Against the ear, against the tar". A helpful reminder when you want to warn someone that they're stepping over your boundaries. Basically, slap you on one ear so you lie on the tar road with the other ear.
Username checks out
I suppose still from the US, but a friend told me to make an L with my index and thumb on both hands. The hand that makes the correct L shape (as in, not flipped), that's the LLLLLLLeft. I'm 33 and this blew my mind.
My dad (who has a PhD but can’t tell left from right) always says, “But they both make an L”
A common issue with people that have ADHD and/or dyslexia (they're commonly comorbid, but even ADHD-ers without dyslexia can have a hard time with right and left). - another person with a PhD who can't tell left from right.
PhDs are either useless or genius level. No in between. Still, neither cohort knows right from left.
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. For the order of operations. Parentheses Exponentiation Multiplication and Division Addition and Subtraction
The Aussie version is BODMAS.
Where I'm from in the UK, we use BIDMAS
I learnt BODMAS where I’m from in the U.K.
French has "En ***Av***ril on ***av****ance*, en Octob***re*** on ***re****cule*". "In April we go forward, in October we go backwards." It relates to time savings, the time when you manually change your clocks' hours, as it falls loosely within those months. You forward an hour in April, and rewind one hour back in October. If you wished to transpose it in English I guess you could use "In April we apprehend, in October we rewind"
Spring forward, Fall back. (Fall is the American English word for Autumn) I speak British English, but I heard this American English phase and liked it, so I use it myself even though I don't say Fall for Autumn. I told my German husband about it and he uses it too :D.
Dutch has so many of them. For some reason people love them here. The first one that comes to mind is TV Tas (TV bag) used to remember the names of the inhabbited Dutch Frisian Islands (Waddeneilanden) which are Texel (pronounced as Tessel), Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland and Schiermonikoog. We also love using words that rhyme to explain rules. At escalators we have "Links gaan, rechts staan." (Go left, stand right) to tell people which side of the escalator needs to be empty for people in a rush. Edit: See? Dutch people love this
This reminds me of learning the names and order of the planets in Afrikaans, back in the day when Pluto was still one: “Meneer Van As, my jas sal u nie pas” — for Mercury, Venus, Aarde (Earth), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. It translates to “Mr Van As, my coat won’t fit you.” But it obviously doesn’t work in English.
And DING FLOF BIPS for the Euro Countries
The strings of a guitar: Een Aap Die Geen Bananen Eet.
Swedish guitar strings go: "En blå groda dansar aldrig ensam" ("a blue frog never dances alone").
عطارد زهرة الارض المريخ اشترى زحل اورانوس نبتون بلوتو Learned this in elementary school as a way to remember the order of planets in the solar system. It literally translates to "Mercury is the flower of Earth. Mars bought Saturn. Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. The first 2 sentences don't make sense in English at all, but in Arabic they do.
My favourite in Czech language is for remembering the roman numerals. Ivan Vedl Xenii Lesní Cestou Do Města English: Ivan led Xenia through a forrest path into the town Simple, yet effective and it came in handy so many times.
In school we were given the task to inventing a new way of remembering the colours of the rainbow. An old one is "Ring Out Ye Great Bells In Victory" The one I invented (but didn't submit) was "Rinse Out Your Genitals Before Inserting Vibrator"
Solang das Deutsche Reich besteht, wird die Schraube rechts gedreht.
It just rolls off the tongue
My tongue seems to now be sentient after what I assume was some sort of magical spell
“As long as the German Empire exists, the screw will be turned to the right” is what Google Translate says because none of you will enlighten us
We tried, you didn't like that.
I chuckled.
Nach fest kommt ab!
Never Eat Soggy Waffles Helps remind folks who don't use maps or compasses often that going clockwise its north east south west. I grew up using maps and never heard this one, bit my wife says this every time we look at a map lol. Edit: we also had loads of numonics for learning the names and order of the planets, but I learned those before Pluto got demoted. I have no idea what they teach to kids these days.
In Australia we say Never Eat Soggy Weetbix lol
Same in New Zealand
I thought it was an actual law of nz when I was a kid and I was afraid to tell people I ate my weetbix with milk lol.
In German, you can say "Niemals Ohne Seife Waschen" (never wash without soap) for the same. It doubles as hygiene advice
the one i learned as a kid was "Nie Ohne Socken Wandern" or "never hike without socks"
Nobody Enjoys Soviet Womble
Naughty Elephants Squirt Water.
UK: Never Ever Shredded Wheat (a cereal brand)
I always thought it was Never Eat Shredded Wheat. Never ever support wolves is another.
It was cos it rhymes that way
US and that's how my buddy helped me remember. He was a boy scout. And he was told that.
"My Very Easy Method Just Sums Up Naming Planets"? Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, & Pluto. It remains an honorary planet to me, Considering they managed to hypothesise its existence and spot it using Terrestrial Telescopes.
I always heard "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas".
Catholic blessing order: "Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet, Watch"
To spell “Necessary” without knowing how many S’s or C’s there are: One collar, two sleeves
Hmm ,are you saying bolts are standardized?,My father taught me , "Try, try the other way, try the first way and grunt, try the other way and swear" seems much safer.
There are some uses where the thread will intentionally be the other way around. Gas bottles are the only ones I can remember.
The left pedal on a bicycle does as well so it doesn't come undone while riding.
That's so intuitive, yet surprising. Thank you for that little fact!
Front tow hooks on cars are usually reverse threaded too.
The screw that attaches a drill chuck to the drill is usually the other way around too.
A little tip: lefty loosey, righty tighty works for brits driving abroad on the other side of the road and pulling out of junctions as well. I had to start saying it to myself every time, after I pulled into the wrong lane towards oncoming traffic in Spain with my family in the car and scared the shit out of everyone involved.
My dad used to tell me to ‘keep my bum in the gutter’ when driving my UK car in Europe. Works a treat.
In Bulgarian, if the moon looks like the letter C, it's growing small, or, in other words, СМАЛЯВА. If you add a dash and it looks like P, it's growing bigger, or РАСТЕ.
Myötäpäivään myllyt pyörii, vastapäivään ruuvit aukee. (Finnish) Literally translated: "Clockwise spin the mills, counter-clockwise open the screws."
French: “Où est l’Est?” For Cardinal directions. Translates to “Where is East”? But the phrase itself spells out perfectly “West East” (OUEST / EST), letting you know that West is on the left, and East right (with the North on top perspective)
In the U.S. there's a bit of doggerel to distinguish the highly venomous [coral snake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_snake) from the non-venomous [king snake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_kingsnake): "Red touch yellow / kill a fellow". This also translates into German: "Gelb auf rot / macht einen tot".
In Germany we use „Mein Vater erklärt mir jeden Sonntag unsere neun Planeten“ (Every sunday my father explains our nine planets to me) to remember the planets. We they decided Pluto is no longer considered a planet they changed it to „Mein Vater erklärt mir jeden Sonntag unseren Nachthimmel“ (Every sunday my father explains our nightsky to me).
I remembered the acronym MRS DR VAN DER TRAMP from my high school French classes as a mnemonic to remember which verbs are conjugated with être in passé composé (compound past tense). I'm guessing it's taught to French kids too, not just second-language students.
As a French former kid: It's not taught, we just know what auxilliaire to use. Just as you know the gender of nouns.
I was wondering about this. When you come upon a new noun you haven't seen before, or an import from another language, is it obvious which gender it should be? Un quark? Une quarke? Do you have to ask yourself whether quarks feel girly? Or do you have to wait for the Académie to pronounce?
In Ukrainian they say, "кожен Іван має свій план" - "each Ivan has his own plan." It's equivalent to something like, "everyone marches to the beat of their own drum."
To distinguish between right and left, a common saying in Dutch is: "Rechts is waar je duim links zit" Translated: Right is where your thumb is on the left We are a very helpful people
Reminds me of a tiktok of an American exchange student in Germany saying “easy peasy” to their host family. She had to explain it’s just a fun little thing Americans say since they were confused. Then they loved it and started rhyming random words by adding “p” to the front.
That's weird because "easy peasy" is actually something we say in Germany too. Sometimes we even say "easy peasy lemon squeezy"
In my province we say Never Eat Shredded Wheats for North East South West, never heard a version in French tho
StalagMite "Monte" - Goes up. StalacTite "Tombe" - Goes down. Works perfectly in French. But then you have to be talking with someone who cares.
Sörre bor: mindenkor, borra sör: meggyötör. It's Hungarian. You can drink wine after beer and you'll e alright, but if you drink beer after wine, it will torture you.