I never used the mnemonics, I just think of a map of the world. Where America is, that’s the Wild West. Japan is the Far East innit, then where Norway is, that’s North, then South is where South America and South Africa are.
With pedals – they undo in the same direction the wheel would go if you were riding backwards, and do up if you were riding forwards. Easy and foolproof.
I still do that now, I have a real blind spot with East and West.
Richard of York gave battle in vein
I used to remember the ancient astronomer Roy G. Biv.
A high school teacher once let something slip and then finally buckled under pressure to tell us a resistor colour code mnemonic, though if I repeated it here I’d have to ban myself.
My mum did some shared teaching with medics when she was at uni in the 1950s. They made all the girls leave the room when they did mnemonics – course, the boys told them afterwards anyway.
Only one she could brig herself to tell me was “Oh, Oh, Oh, To TOuch A Girl’s Vagina” – I 😳 ‘d
not quite universal, but pretty important in traditional music teaching:
FACE – the lines on a stave in the treble clef
Every good boy deserves football/fudge/fruit/favour (EGDBF – the spaces between the lines on a treble clef)