Editing Talk:2492: Commonly Mispronounced Equations

:How is "soh cah toa" a mnemonic?? It's just a bunch of random letters.  Normally you memorize random letters by coming up with words that fit together, not vice versa.  I think this is much harder to remember than the thing it is supposedly a mnemonic for.  If anyone actually finds it useful, can you explain how it works for you?  I've seen this before so I suppose it's a real thing, but I find it baffling.  [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.220|108.162.221.220]] 04:15, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

:How is "soh cah toa" a mnemonic?? It's just a bunch of random letters.  Normally you memorize random letters by coming up with words that fit together, not vice versa.  I think this is much harder to remember than the thing it is supposedly a mnemonic for.  If anyone actually finds it useful, can you explain how it works for you?  I've seen this before so I suppose it's a real thing, but I find it baffling.  [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.220|108.162.221.220]] 04:15, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

::Not sure it's a mnemonic, no, but I was taught SOHCAHTOA by a very good (but strict) maths teacher as in "... (like?) that volcanic eruption". Given we were 10, 11 years old, I don't think we even ''knew'' about {{w|Krakatoa}} at that point (despite having also a very good Geography teacher who readily identified lumps of 'Gneissian schist' that I may have brought back from holiday - he also had a much better sense of humour...) so whether I (or the teacher?) was mistaken in understanding "Sohcahtoa" to be purported to be a (now ironically memorable) volcano rather than it was a "it rhymes with..." mnemonic, I don't now know. But since then I have always used SOHCAHTOA to confirm in my mind which trigonometric identity I should use. And, later, I learnt and never forgot that {{w|Krakatoa,_East_of_Java|Krakatoa is/was ''west'' of Java}}! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.230|141.101.98.230]] 08:20, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

::Not sure it's a mnemonic, no, but I was taught SOHCAHTOA by a very good (but strict) maths teacher as in "... (like?) that volcanic eruption". Given we were 10, 11 years old, I don't think we even ''knew'' about {{w|Krakatoa}} at that point (despite having also a very good Geography teacher who readily identified lumps of 'Gneissian schist' that I may have brought back from holiday - he also had a much better sense of humour...) so whether I (or the teacher?) was mistaken in understanding "Sohcahtoa" to be purported to be a (now ironically memorable) volcano rather than it was a "it rhymes with..." mnemonic, I don't now know. But since then I have always used SOHCAHTOA to confirm in my mind which trigonometric identity I should use. And, later, I learnt and never forgot that {{w|Krakatoa,_East_of_Java|Krakatoa is/was ''west'' of Java}}! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.230|141.101.98.230]] 08:20, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

::(PS - If I ever have to use the "Many Very Elderly Men Just..." mnemonic (or whatever it is, I was sure it had had Earthenware Vases, but maybe only in a reversed version!), I tend to have to ''backform'' it from my unclear recollection of the mnemonic(s) I've been told plus just ''knowing'' that it's "Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, **, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune*, Pluto-if-we're-counting-it*" (* - except between 1979 and 1999 when it was "...Pluto-definity-counted-at-this-time, Neptune") (** - and then there's possibly an A, B or C here for Asteroid, Belt or Ceres; nobody I know has ever added Kuiper and/or Oort into the string of words to need remembering, though) using very non-mnemonical direct or indirect knowledge about the solar-system, like Clarke's written version of 2001 aiming at Saturn but Kubrik's film 'only' going as far as Jupiter. So I "(Sometimes?) Might Very Earnestly Make And Join Something Unprecedented Never Known Originally" on the spur of the moment.)

::(PS - If I ever have to use the "Many Very Elderly Men Just..." mnemonic (or whatever it is, I was sure it had had Earthenware Vases, but maybe only in a reversed version!), I tend to have to ''backform'' it from my unclear recollection of the mnemonic(s) I've been told plus just ''knowing'' that it's "Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, **, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune*, Pluto-if-we're-counting-it*" (* - except between 1979 and 1999 when it was "...Pluto-definity-counted-at-this-time, Neptune") (** - and then there's possibly an A, B or C here for Asteroid, Belt or Ceres; nobody I know has ever added Kuiper and/or Oort into the string of words to need remembering, though) using very non-mnemonical direct or indirect knowledge about the solar-system, like Clarke's written version of 2001 aiming at Saturn but Kubrik's film 'only' going as far as Jupiter. So I "(Sometimes?) Might Very Earnestly Make And Join Something Unprecedented Never Known Originally" on the spur of the moment.)