Search Free Article Database:

It's All In A Phrase

By: Associate Editor

It's all in a phrase

Published on 13/04/2007

MARY Queen of Scots! We all know that she fled Scotland when things got a bit hot for her.

We know that she landed in Workington and stayed at Workington Hall. But when was that? What year?

I haven't a clue. I can't see the point of cluttering up my brain with dates I can always look up.

Back in Victorian times I would have been regarded as a total historical ignoramus. Victorian educators were very keen on dates.

Got the date yet? No! Back in Victorian times we might well have known it, thanks to a little book written in 1870 by Carlisle schoolmaster, George Crowther. It was entitled "Mnemonics."

Published in Carlisle by James C Mason, it was "compiled for the use of candidates for the London University Matriculation and other examinations."

Using his system, to get Mary's flight date, we would have remembered that when she landed on Cumbrian shores, her days of freedom were numbered.

So remembering the phrase "Finds Gloomy Imprisonment" gives us the date - 1568.

And to get the date she had her head chopped off, 1587, you merely have to recall the phrase "Fotheringay Injured Her."

Here's another one to test your historical knowhow.

What was the birth year of the Venerable Bede?

Answer - 672 AD. But you would have known that because you would have recalled the rather apt phrase "Godly Historian Born."

By now you will have worked out that the first letter of each word stands for a number. So the full table is as follows: 1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C, 4 = D, 5 = F, 6 = G, H =7, I or J = 8, K or P = 9, T = 10, E = 11 and L,M,N or R = 0.

Sometimes, the S could be used instead of G.

All very straightforward. You'd memorised the alphanumerical code.

All you then had to was to remember the hundreds of phrases which tied in with all the historical events.

You could have made them up yourself, but why bother when George Crowther had done the work for you?

All listed in one of his books, for two shillings, or one of his pamphlets, produced for school use and costing only two pence.

So what other mnemonic verbal gems had he created?

How about the death of Dick Whittington, thrice Mayor of London?

"Dead Black Cat" does the job nicely. The author added that Whittington had been a highly successful trader and that he owned a ship called "The Cat."

Then we come to the burning at the stake of Joan of Arc, for which he coined "Damsel Burned Alive."

And then there's the death of Isaac Newton. How about: "Apples Have Bumped Him" - 1727.

Some of his verbal concoctions are a bit vague.

Like "Cumberland Marsh's Humidity?" The date is 1307.

If you're wondering why there are only three words for a four figure date, it seems that the first number was often not represented.

It's the year King Edward the First died at Burgh-upon-Sands. A bit obscure that one.

Flicking through the pages, I came across some entries I knew absolutely nothing about.

"Destroy Lollard Associate" for one. In 1401, the Rev William Sawtrey, a Lollard, was burned at the stake in Smithfield -the "first person burnt in England for religious opinions."

Then in 1498, we have "Die King Inquisitor" - for the death of Torquemada, one time head of the Spanish Inquisition and believed to have burned 8,000 victims and sent 90,000 to prison.

George Crowther wasn't the first to use mnemonics. He was just one of a long line of writers, stretching back to the days of Ancient Greece.

Over in St Bees College, the Rev JH Bacon had also produced a book detailing a system not dissimilar to that devised by Crowther.

I know very little about Crowther, except that he was living in Hanover House, Carlisle in 1883.

So are mnemonics dead and buried? They are not.

I understand that they're popular with medical students, as evidenced by a book written by Dr Khalid Khan, "Mnemonics for Medical Students."

He strongly suggests that if you want to use mnemonics, you should invent your own.

It's now 2000-plus, so we've got Blair, Brown and Bush for starters. Any ideas?