School stuff that has stubbornly stuck in your head

[SlayingDragons]

Just that really - what has stuck in your head since you were at school?

• I remember a poem I had to learn in P5 for a Christmas concert. It was 30 years ago now but I can still recite it word for word. (It wasn’t short either!)

• I can recount every county in Ireland in alphabetical order.

• I can direct you to the train station in German just so long as it is straight ahead, take the first street on the right, second on the left and the station is on the right hand side.

(Useful stuff like how to work out the angles in a triangle so I can help my first year with her homework - not so much!)

Pi r squared and 2 pi r - completely useless in my 55 years but I still remember them, as loads of other equations, too such as Ke=1/2mv squared. Also bil and bev but havn't the foggiest what they were about (I don't think I did at the time either) - something to do with electrical forces (A level physics).

SOHCAHTOA obviously - something else completely useless in adult life.

Krankenwagen - German for ambulance, Krankenhaus - German for hospital. Geschlect - German for sex.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - can't remember anything else about the poem.

"eloi eloi lama sabachthani" - literally the only thing I could ever remember from Religious Studies O Level - I got grade U twice (the sods made me do it again the year after!).

My greatest success is being able to recite "the naming of cats" by TS Elliot - I can still recite it today, decades later. I don't even like cats, but our English teacher spent lesson after lesson, week after week, forcing us to learn line by line for CSE Eng Lit. Trouble was, we never really learned what it was all about, so despite being able to recite it, the whole class was abysmal at answering questions on it!

He seems to me to be equal to a god,
If it is right to say it, to surpass the gods, he who sitting opposite you looks at and listens to you sweetly laughing, a thing which steals all my senses from me etc etc

The glaciers from the Ice Age in Britain pushed the terminal morain in front of them and stopped at Muswell Hill in London. If ever I drive up or down that massive hill I always think of that.

Measuring the volume/level of water from the bottom of the meniscus. Can still vividly recall being in the physics lab aged about 11 or 12, and the teacher making us look at how water goes up at the edges.

Too much bloody Latin.

Aah @ChiaraRimini, good old ecce Romani! Happy days!

A song to remember the days of the week in French, from 35 years ago

Science - when instructed to weigh an item of food, burn it and then re-weigh it to determine its calorific value, not to choose cheese as the food item

' Chuaigh mé amach Faoin Tuath ag piocfadh sméara dubha '. 'Tar éis an Timpiste, bhí an charr í smidiríní '..... Primary school in Ireland in the 70s/80s !!

Some of you remember useful stuff. (Or at least - useful if you have DC now who might need help with homework!) I recognise the term SOHCAHTOA but I haven’t the foggiest what it’s about. How I got an A in GCSE maths I will never know!

How to play 'The Skye Boat Song' on the recorder. I can't remember any other tunes, though.

From Macbeth:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Also Sonnet 73...

Lundi, mardi, mecredi,
jeudi, vendredi
samedi et dimanche,
la semaine recommence...

Sohcahtoa - some of Henry’s cows and horses trot on Arthur.

Trod. They trod on Arthur.

The rhyme of the verbs taking Etre from French class. I didn't do French o level so it's been stuck for a long time...

E,ES,E,E,ONS,EZ,ENT. french verbs.

The quality of mercy is not strained.... the merchant of Venice.

I can not write ‘because’ without saying Bad Eggs Cause An Upset Stomach Everyday to help me spell it.

Oh location quotients from geography.
Yes to learning the Skye Boat Song on recorder.
Also whole class singing Marie's Wedding and The Gypsy Rover.

Oh and this little beauty from the Ginn 360 reading books in primary school.

One fine day, in the middle of the night
Two dead men got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.

Ecce Romani! There's a blast from the past.

One of the answers upthread has just reminded me of how I used to wind DH up at Christmas. He grew up with his dad insisting that Adeste Fideles had to be sung in Latin. He was from a working class council house family, none of whom knew any Latin apart from FIL, and DH had a real hatred of that carol. I didn't know this, and the first Christmas we spent together I started singing carols, and sang Adeste Fideles in Latin, because I have always been a show off. Every year since I have done it purely to annoy DH

Force = mass x acceleration.
Momentum = mass x velocity.
The law of conservation of energy (still my absolute favourite).
And, bizarrely, the words of La Marseillaise.

@SlayingDragons - fair dues to you being able to remember and list the counties in Ireland in alphabetical order. That is indeed a skill for a table quiz.

@val4 - I'm impressed with the Gaeilge there. An rinne tú dearmaid ar "An bhuil cead agam dul amach go dtí and leithreas"?

@GameSetMatch - I do the same with Rhythm - Rhythm has your two hips moving!

I grew up in SA and can hold forth for 20 minutes or so about whether independence in Zimbabwe was a result of force or negotiation (hint: both). It was the history paper question, in some version, every year.

Could also happily do the Battle of Isandlwana as my Mastermind special subject.

Cogito, ergo sum

And

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum
Wie treu sind deine Blatter!
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum
Wie treu sind deine Blatter!
Du grunst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum
Wie treu sind deine Blatter!