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!)

@exWifebeginsAgainat46 & @TryingToBeBold we did musical Noah too "careful with the lights, feed the beasts in batches" and Mr E, who was adjusting the lights at the time, shouted "I AM being careful!" (during a rehearsal).
We did jonah man jazz and a musical version of Dracula "stammers and hakes I mean hammers and stakes, hammers and stakes they find rather a drag" - I've a feeling that a teacher might have done that one- and a choir performance about creation "the Lord said to Adam this place I give to you, look after it with caaaare, but there is one thing I ask you, keep away from that tree over theeeere" - it was full of surprisingly beautiful tunes.

From secondary school, the word "phenolphthalein" and
"our brains ache, in the merciless iced East winds that knive us" from Exposure by Wilfred Owen.

@AndNoneForGretchenWieners I suspect Latin teachers may be fundamentally terrifying. mine certainly was too.

does the "read in english" bit work for you for the less introductory stuff too?

I can't quite remember all of this one so {...} means a bit I have forgotten

Vivamus, mea Lesbia
atque amemus.
Rumoresque senum severiorum, {...} unius assis.
Soles occidere et redire possunt.
{...} brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Da mi bassia mille, deinde cento, deinde altera mille, deinde cento. {...pretty sure that bit repeats a few times but can't remember how many...}
Dein, cum milia multa feceremus, conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus {...}
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

I occasionally get a little phrase from this popping into my head, especially "conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus", "Rumoresque senum severiorum" and "nox est perpetua una dormienda" - my English teacher was really uninspiring and dull that may be why I liked studying poetry in Latin way more than in English.

I remember one more step along the world I go as being the most dreary tedious song ever, I'd have lost the will to live by the last verse.
The hammer, anvil and stirrup bones in the ear.

Caecilius sunt in via... I hated Latin...

Caecilius est later
Rex est canis
Caecilius eat in horto
Multus sanguis fluit

I failed Latin

*pater. Damn autocorrect.

est in horto ffs

"A pronoun stands instead of a noun, as she instead of Brenda Brown"

We had a whole poem of grammatical terms. But this is the only line I remember.

How to spell onomatopoeia by saying the letters to the tune of "old McDonald had a farm"

My latin teacher was also pretty terrifying but hilarious. She once got us to re-enact a ritual slaughter using cuddly toys and pretend to be poisoned.

I can remember pretty much every godawful Out of the Ark assembly song, school play, and "Burns" poem (which, other than Tam O Shanter, was never actually Burns).

I also remember the handwriting rule: "the tall letters are tall, the small letters are small, and the middle sized letters are all the same size". Which, actually, is a crap rule and is blatantly obvious.

Fiddle di dum, fiddle di Dee
The ring round the moon is pi times d
But if a hole is to be repaired
The one to use is pi r squared

I can still decline more Latin than is normal, quote chunks of Shakespeare and I remember my first french dictee from 50 years ago, Zazou, je n'aime pas les petits garçons qui touchent, touchent, touchent, qui cassent mes oeufs...

Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete
Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete

Sorry, wanted to join in with the Latin what kind of posh school do you learn that in?!

I also remember the slightly suspect radiation acronym from my teacher:

Gay X-Rated Uncle liVes In My Room

Aller, venir, revenir, devenir, arriver, partir, sortir, entrer, rentrer, rester, descender, monter, tomber, retourner, mourir, naitre and all reflexive verbs - French verbs that take etre instead of avoir as their auxiliary verb.

Still there after nearly 40 years thanks to the redoubtable Miss Stephens

Cornelia est puella Romana....Ecce Romani

Raeda in fossa haeret.

@AllStarBySmashMouth I did Latin at a comp in the late 90s!

I still hum the theme tune of the French series "L'amour de la vie" we seemed to have to watch every French lesson for months on end. It was about 2 blokes and a girl travelling around in a 2CV if I remember rightly.

I did Latin at a comp in the late 90s

My son has done latin over the last few years - he really enjoyed it. Still taught in a lot of state schools.

How about for those of us who were taught touch-typing:

The quick brown fox runs over the lazy dog.

Having to repeatedly type it line after line after line, literally dozens/hundreds of times to build up speed and accuracy.

Vandertramp (mnemonic for the French verbs which take être as an auxiliary, rather than avoir.) wow that takes me back! Ours was "Mrs Vandertamp" - can't remember if the "Mrs" was significant.

Also learning spellings which I still use: "Wed-nes-day" (which also works for "Gros-ven-or" which I had to type a lot in my first job) and "B.e.a.utiful".

Also learned carols in Latin and "Il est né le divin enfant..." in our state school.

Our progressive head taught the whole school to read music in a series of assemblies and I learned the treble recorder as well as descant. And yes I remember all the carol descants.

Our perverted English teacher. In one lesson, a boy was being told off for spelling business wrong. The teacher pointed to the girl in the class with the biggest boobs and said think of her and remember "it's bustiness without the T"

Kazzyhoward

Also "now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party".

Je suis une pamplemousse dans la mer de vie.

Our French teacher was a bit strange.

As above, in French, the conjugation of lots of verbs still sticks in my head.

The 1832 Reform Act, no idea what it is, but I can remember the date.

How to ask where the town hall is in Spanish (always useful )

The order of rivers on the east coast of England working North to South.

Random Shakespeare quotes, particularly from Macbeth.

Multiple verses of many hymns, plus some Latin singing from assembly.

The Hallelujah chorus from a performance we had to do.

The kind of cookery you were taught in the late 70s, so every sort of cake making method, all pastries (apart from hot water crust as I was ill that day and still have no idea!), bread, classic sauces etc