My Very Erotic Mother Just Sucked Uncle Ned's Penis.

(Sophomoric humor, I know, but I did come up with it in the 10th grade...)

Personally, I've always found mnemonics harder to remember than the things they are supposed to help you remember...

"Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, species" just seems easier than "King Phillip Came Over For Great Soup".

I thought it got downgraded to a moon?

The following is not entirely correct:

"My Very Exciting Magic Carpet..." could be Loeb's biggest hit -- her only hit! -- since "Stay."

Loeb's single "I Do" peaked at #17 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was ubiquitous on radio for quite a while. I still hear it from time to time.

That said, her plans to turn this mnemonic into a song sound like a very bad idea.

Then again, actually LEARNING about the planets would make it easy to remember their names. But I guess that's too much effort for most people, what with science being so useless and all, so they need these silly tricks.

And we wonder why we're trailing behind the rest of the world in quality of education.

A song called "My Very Magic Carpet" sounds so very, very dirty to me.

I have never heard of these two extra planets- I feel like adding new planets would warrant some sort of press coverage when I've always known there to be 9? Much like the coverage I thought happened when they downgraded Pluto relatively recently?

This article reminded me of a wonderfully titled science essay by Isaac Asimov which he called "The World Ceres".

First of all, this article has a very condescending tone, implying that all of us are morons who haven't even heard of the planet Pluto. (It has been in the press quite a bit in the recent past, by the way.)

Then, when Mr Manjoo actually does have information about planets that might be new to most readers (Ceres and Eris), he mentions it only in passing and just resumes his discussion of how impressed he is with the mnemonic to remember this information.

Also, this is in a tech blog because.....? Is Mr. Manjoo expanding his scope from "What Apple Did This Week" to include introductory psychology about what makes for a good mnemonic?

We (as 10th graders as well) always found Kathy's Puerto [Rican] Cousin Only Finds Good Shit very easy to remember for Kingdom, Phylum, etc.

I thought Pluto was gone, and now it's back, and they've added a NEW one! I'm so confused.

BTW, the better taxonomy mnemonic is Kings Play Chess On Fine-Grained Sand.

Yeah! I live in Great Falls, Montana. It's just exciting when our name is mentioned.

My coworker's son goes to school with the girl who thought of that device.

(I agree that it's probably just easier to remember the names of the planets.)

Can even name 7 planets. 40% of them will say "the Sun" or "the Moon" is a planet, 10-20% will name the continents. Some will have zero answer and not understand the question.

87 is the new IQ100.

Prefer Candy Over Fresh Green Salad was what my freshman biology teacher gave us for the taxonomy one. And when I was in second grade (which was roughly 1980 or so) we learned My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizza-pies in a short film during a field trip to the Nasa-Lewis Research Center in Cleveland. So the kid who named his mother Carrie was really just recycling someone else's original work!

There was one for the lines on the musical staff:

"Every Good Boy Does Fine"

There was another one for the spaces but I forgot what it was.

Or maybe it was the other way around.

/didn't really get very far with music

R1chard3 - the spaces weren't a mnemonic, they just spell the word "FACE." I totally forgot that one til you mentioned it. That's the treble clef, of course - the lines on the bass clef are "Good Boys Do Fine Always," which makes those spaces "ACEG." Not as memorable as face, unfortunately . . .

Cows Eat Grass - the spaces on the bass clef line. Man, it's amazing how those things stick with you. My six weeks of piano lessons were more than 25 years ago.

For those of you confused about Pluto's status, I just looked it up: it's now considered a dwarf planet, along with Ceres and Eris.

So the nine planets that we (at least those of you roughly my age... 30) were taught are no more. There are either eight or eleven depending on whether or not you count the dwarves.

As for the "pizza" menmonic, I think it was submitted because it mirrors the one a lot of people my age were taught: "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas". There are variations ("e" is often "excellent", "s" is sometimes "stole", etc.), but most people my age seem to know that mnemonic. I agree that Maryn's is much better.

In my day we weren't desperate to up our planet count by including asteroids like Ceres.

You slacker kids are ruining the solar system.

Get off my lawn.

sorry - mary, but "Marry Very Early Mr. John So You Never Punish" is still tops for remembering this - 20 - years after it still comes back at the drop of a hat!

heard about 'pluto' downgrade? and 'eris' possibility.

I have trouble with: 'elephant' but it is for schools so my replacement might be unacceptable for the younger folks.....too many questions for the teacher?

I like her theme but I will say: eunuchs.

which might cause some......to question me

I've remembered this for the last 20 years, so it must be good. "Kittens Purr Constantly Over Fish Gut Sandwiches"

Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species

There's only 8 planets! How DARE the editors let this pass, as a feel good for a little kid who invented a meaningless phrase apt to confuse people? And I can't believe that Yahoo's home page also picked up this drivel!

If you start considering minor planets such as Ceres, Pluto, and Eris, then little Maryn better start dreaming up a new MEANINGLESS mnemonic because as of Feb 2008, there are 178,283 minor planets, and many more not yet numbered. And, less than 15,000 of them have been named... so, get started Maryn.