Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Brain exercise

In the book Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, a dystopia blooms from the mind of Crake, a biotech genius who creates a hybrid lifeform to replace humans. When Crake was younger, he and a playmate, Jimmy, used to play a game where they would list the scientific classification of species for fun: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, subphylum, Class, subclass, Order, suborder, Family, subfamily, Genus, Species.

Given the difficulty of remembering this order as is, a popular mnemonic is:
Do Koalas Prefer Chocolate Or Fruit, Generally Speaking?

I tried to think of my own, including the sub-categories as well, and came up with this:
Demure Kings Play stalemate Chess strategies, Oligarchies step in, Formalize sovereign Gentry Snobbery.

Mnemonics, however, are probably better when they are simple and quirky, i.e. koala food preferences. Anyone want to try their hand at it? Leave a comment :)