i before e (except after c) [Hardcover]

Parkinson Judy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2008

Here is an amusing collection of ingenious mnemonics devised to help us learn and understand hundreds of important fact as children and can continue to resonate with us as adults.

Featuring all the mnemonics you?ll ever need to know, this fun little book will bring back all the simple, easy-to-remember rhymes from your childhood?once learned, fix the information in the brain forever?such as learning to count by reciting ?One, Two, buckle my shoe, Three, Four, knock at the door.? Packed with clever verses, engaging acronyms, curious?and sometimes hilarious?sayings that can be used to solve a problem or cap an argument.

Take a trip back to the classroom, and rediscover the assortment of practical memory aids covering a range of different subjects, including spelling, time, mathematics, history, general trivia, and much more. The information is organized in short snippets by category such as:
* Geographically Speaking: Remember North East South West by reciting Never Eat Slimy Worms or Naughty Elephants Squirt Water.
* Time and the Calendar: ?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?
* Think of a Number: Know the Roman numerals by remembering ?I Value Xylophones Like Cows Dig Milk?
* World History: ?In fourteen hundred, ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, And found this land, land of the Free, beloved by you, beloved by me?

The clever verses, engaging acronyms, curious sayings are endless. Guaranteed to amuse and inform, here is a perfect gift for any language lover?complete with a To/From gift plate.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Judy Parkinson is taking us on trip down memory lane. The author…has brought back the playful jabberwocky of middle school mnemonics.”
—Stephen Lynch, New York Post --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Judy Parkinson is a graduate of Bristol University. She is a producer of documentaries, music videos, and commercials, and won a Clio award for a Greenpeace ad. Parkinson has published four books and has contributed to a show of life drawings at the Salon des Arts, Kensington. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Readers Digest (April 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762109173
• ISBN-13: 978-0762109173
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #52,751 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #68 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Books & Reading > Reference

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trip down "memory lane", May 18, 2008

By 

D. Paris (Atlanta, Georgia United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: i before e (except after c) (Hardcover)

I am a home schooler, and the memory tips in this little book are invaluable teaching tools. Some I remembered, some I had forgotten...and some were new to me. All can serve anyone on "memory lane." It even helped me come up with memory keys on my own. Great book, and an easy read.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Little rhymes that make the simple yet essential things in life easy to remember, June 15, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: i before e (except after c) (Hardcover)

Little things, little rhymes that make the simple yet essential things in life easy to remember - those little things are collected and compiled in "I Before E (Except After C): Old School Ways to Remember Stuff". Remembering how many days are in each month, simple grammar rules, and other little bits of modern wisdom that comes up so much. A great gift for young children just learning to figure out the world, "I Before E(Except After C): Old School Ways to Remember Stuff" is highly recommended to community library reference collections.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Could make a good gift, November 16, 2008

By 

Debra Hamel (North Haven, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: i before e (except after c) (Hardcover)

Judy Parkinson's I Before E is a collection of hundreds of mnemonic techniques and tips, divided by theme among 16 chapters. The book covers mnemonics related to the English language, for example, and to geography and world history, science, religion, the calendar, and so on. Some of the devices included will be familiar to readers, but not all. Everybody knows that Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, for example, but we may not all be familiar with the order in which the Smart People of Athens lived, that is, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The majority of the tricks included in the book are acronyms such as those two examples. But Parkinson also includes poems and other miscellaneous tricks, like using your knuckles to remember how many days are in each month, or memorizing a poem to remember the value of pi to 31 places, or using Fibonacci number to convert (roughly) miles to kilometers. The mnemonic devices that are not based on acronyms seem to me to be the more useful because they are less easy to develop on one's own. The book is short so it's not very hard to find specific tricks, but its helpfulness would be improved by the inclusion of an index.

Would this book be helpful for the student in your life? Maybe. While some of the tricks included will be familiar, most will not, and everyone could benefit from at least a few of them. On the other hand, no one could possibly need or remember them all. And some are surely more ingenious than helpful: it seems easier to simply remember how to spell the word "beautiful," for example, than to remember the technique suggested for remembering it--Big Elephants Are Usually BEAUtiful. The book, particularly as it's an attractive volume, would probably serve well as a gift for a student or teacher.

-- Debra Hamel