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Best Mnemonic ever

ceggiman   June 23rd, 2010 10:48a.m.

Just came accross the best Mnemonic I've seen so far, written by user Meizhen:

宿 - I may sue this hostel, because there are 101 people under its roof!

Those having struggled to remember this character can appreciate it, even the sound is in there, thanks a lot!

jww1066   June 23rd, 2010 1:10p.m.

LOL that's awesome!

nick   June 23rd, 2010 5:41p.m.

Oh man, I have forgotten that character so many times, even though I used it all the time in class. This is great. By the way, if anyone wants to go vote for that mnemonic, it's easy using the scratchpad:

http://www.skritter.com/scratchpad?words=%E5%AE%BF_%E5%AE%BF%E8%88%8D

jww1066   June 23rd, 2010 5:53p.m.

P.S. the mnemonic comes up with "it's roof", should be "its roof". We don't have a way to correct mnemonics, do we?

jww1066   June 23rd, 2010 6:03p.m.

P.P.S. should be "a way to correct other people's mnemonics"

雅各   June 23rd, 2010 6:45p.m.

wow thats amazing, out of all my early chinese clases this is one that always stuck in my head because I read it as one hundred people under a roof.

I am not sure 101 people makese sense to me but as long as it helps! (:

sarac   June 23rd, 2010 9:01p.m.

Yes, a great mnemonic!

Following up on James' comment: I have written some, voted for and used some others and then there's another category. I see ones that are almost right for my use but because of a typo or verbosity that's unappealing to me I change it only ever so slightly. I am troubled by that for two reasons: 1) it adds another to the list which to many may seem redundant, and 2) I don't care about the competition myself but I don't want to take votes from anyone. I don't know if fixing someone else's entry is the right answer, but what is?

I see some which are using a certain system (self-defined, the fairy/monster scheme, or using the Skritter style guide which I cannot find) and I suppose that those writers might find some mnemonics which are appealing but don't suit their system.

Also, the mistaken blank entries... is there a way to delete those?

Is crowd-sourcing supposed to refine all of this? Any guidance would be appreciated.

FatDragon   June 24th, 2010 8:38a.m.

Similar to Sarac's issue above, I've found a mnemonic or two that I like, but their use of italics and boldface is swapped compared to mine - I italicize components (character components or component characters) and bold the definitions, while others work the other way around. Would it potentially be wise to set a (voluntary) standard for usage of italics and boldface in certain mnemonic styles early on to potentially prevent a confusing hodgepodge from developing over time, or is it best to let everyone go his or her merry way in their mnemonics?

Also, on a related note, if I like a mnemonic, but dislike something about it (typo, bold/italic use, etc.), will it get a vote if I select it and then edit it as an unshared mnemonic, or do I have to keep it exactly to give it a vote? I'd like to support the good mnemonics that are out there, but I don't want to be distracted by little niggling issues.

skritterjohan   June 24th, 2010 10:04a.m.

For myself, I dont use italics and bold at all and if I see a mnemonic I like I have to remove that first before I add it.

jww1066   June 24th, 2010 10:12a.m.

@FatDragon A while ago I noticed that Nick had used italics for the meaning and bold for the components in his mnemonics, so most of my new mnemonics are done that way. Like driving on a certain side of the road, it doesn't really matter which side we drive on as long as we all agree on which side it is...

@skritterjohan I like the formatting because it makes clear which parts of the mnemonic are incidental and which are important. Otherwise you can get confused about which parts are filler added to make the story flow.

James

Lurks   June 27th, 2010 11:55p.m.

Haha that's cool and pretty much the way I remembered that character.

I'm still luke warm on them ... a lot of my own systems are really dumb short cuts like things that look like latin letters, which wouldn't make sense to anyone else and so too of most others I see for me.

nick   July 1st, 2010 3:16p.m.

If you edit a mnemonic, it becomes yours (and your vote is moved from that one to your own again). Not the best in that it doesn't preserve all the credit it could, but it's very simple, which is good enough I hope.

I should've deleted all the mistaken blank entries with a script; if there are more, let me know and I'll see what's wrong.

There isn't an official style guide, no. I sort of want to see what emerges as the most useful via voting so that I don't just impose my style by default (since I'm not actually as heavy a mnemonics user as many other Skritterers).

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