Things you remember from school but have never used

[Spidey66]

I left 40 years back, but to this day remember that the square of the hypotenuse on a right angle triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other 2 sides aka Pythgoras thereom. I have never used this gem of information in my life.

I also remember "it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife" (the first line of Pride and Prejudice, which I read for O Level English Lit.) Tbf I enjoyed the book and the TV series (not so much the film) but funnily enough have not read another Jane Austen book!

Any other gems you remember?

I remember how to ask where the swimming pool is in French. Thing is, I’ve never been anywhere in France desperately in need of a swimming pool. Maybe they should have taught me ‘where is the toilet’ or ‘where is the nearest taxi rank.’ But no ‘ou est la piscine…’ when will I ever use it? Surely if I am staying at a French resort of some kind I’ll know where the swimming pool is.

How to make an open sandwich in home economics, never made one since

Ox bow lakes

SOHCAHTOA
Flavia et Cornelia in agris ambulant

The rhubarb triangle...when Yorkshire was the rhubarb capital of the world (??)

Stop, drop, and roll. It was drummed into me at school, brownies, guides etc. Thankfully I have never been on fire, neither have I ever been around anyone who has spontaneously combusted.

I can ask for directions to the tourist attraction, then thank the person, say don't mention it, all in Russian. Also I know bits of Silent Night, and I can say hello, my name is, I am 13 years old, again in Russian. Handy considering I am now in my 40s.

I was going to say hockey : a. ‘ game’ where you have to run about fiercely with a stick but you are not allowed to hit anyone with it, unless you are the games mistress ‘ «Pet».
Closely followed by Netball, a game where you have to wear a very short skirt and jump up and down.

They say Knowledge is Power, but not in those cases.

Abraham had 8 sons. It was Jacob who had 12!

I love learning about all sorts of things, whether I "need" them or not. I'm sure I'm not alone in that!

("Allow not nature more than nature needs, man's life's as cheap as beast's." Which is somewhere in King Lear, and is a line I love.)

Pythagorus and trigonometry - loved helping DC with homework!

Friends, Romans, Countrymen speech from Julius Ceasar.

Most useless is all the words for "the" in German with the relevant cases. I forgot to revise for a test and learnt them in the ten minute break before the lesson.

35 years later and I can still recite them!

OP we used the pythagoras theorem LOTS when marking out concrete bases for our summer house in order to get a true right angle on each corner.

However I have never had to calculate the volume of a cone.

In olden days - before satnav - I used this a lot. My job involved travelling to appointments and a lot of it was motorway driving. So I knew my likely speed (30 mph in town + 70 mph approx for the rest) and I knew the distance - from that I could work out what time I needed to set off. I was rarely late.

Latin or logarithms.

that was supposed to be in reply to:

W00p · Today 10:02
Speed = distance/time
Never needed to use this.

In terms of most maths, I haven't had to use it for much for myself, but it meant that I could explain topics to DD when she was struggling with her maths homework.

I have yet to find a use for French verbs.

One of the few sentences I remember from Year 9 German is, “ich gehe mit mein Hund spazieren” (I take my dog for a walk). Sadly, I don’t have a dog.

I remember Eddie Izzard doing a whole routine about trying to make use of the phrases he learned in French, such as, “the monkey is in the tree”.

In secondary school music, we learned how to tap out rhythms using particular hand movements, “Pa pa-pa, pa-pa pom, rest, rest, rest”. I knew at the time that I’d never need this skill in adult life, but I can still remember it!

Really useful skill to learn. Once I learned how to wire a plug I discovered I could wire my record player, hair dryer and curling tongs all into the same plug so I could use them all at once. I only had one socket in my bedroom as a teenager.

I use quite a lot of maths in my job, but never logarithms - those lessons were pretty pointless given the invention of calculators.

Knowing the volume of a cylinder is pi r squared h is very useful when guessing the number of sweets in the jar at a school fete (this is not a TAAT btw). More difficult if the sweets are all different sizes!

Still remember definition of osmosis that our biology teacher drummed into us. Word for word. Helpful

Ah thanks photodad memory isn’t as great as it should be 😂

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

For me, I’ve never used the French I was made to learn, (but Italian or German would have been useful).

Never used any of the maths other than primary level but.

The most interesting and useful stuff I learned at school was all on my psychology A-level course. Especially the stuff on how memory works and how to create stronger memories.

Most of science and maths I'm finally using again to help my children with science and maths.
Interesting we left column addition and so on behind at primary as it was ALL calculator based at secondary. I'm now having to learn all the long division etc as we've drifted back towards calculator free papers for this generation, presumably as we 'improve standards' .
At the same time, I was good on mental arithmetic from using cash and other real life scenarios that poor kids are getting much less of.

Scones :- third fat to flour ratio.

Tbf I enjoyed the book and the TV series (nothatt so much the film) but funnily enough have not read another Jane Austen book!
That is really sad, you have missed a lot.

Electric field intensity is force per unit charge. No idea what it even means anymore but I can still rhyme it off.

I also had a music teacher who put little rhymes to classical music to help you remember the details. So....suite in D major, hornpipe and minuet, from Handel's water music, it is baroque period, it is baroque period...

And this poem always stuck in my head and I still remember it 30 years later:
Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong,
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.