In Greek mythology, Mnemosyne was the goddess of memory. She was one of the daughters of Gaia and Uranus, and as the mother of the nine Muses she represents enchantment, inspiration, and the power of remembering. She is said to know everything, past, present, and future. A mnemonic device, named from the same Greek root as Mnemosyne, is something that helps us remember something else. The acrostic is an example of a mnemonic device, where the initial letters of each word in a sentence match the initial letters of what we want to remember, such as Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit for the lines of the treble clef from bottom to top.

Rhyming is another common mnemonic technique. I before e except after c is a handy one for getting your spelling right in our crosswords (although there are approximately 200 exceptions to this rule) and there are plenty of mnemonics for commonly misspelt words, such as Miss Pell never misspells and Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move.

All you need to remember to know the fates of the wives of Henry VIII is divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. To recall the seven ancient Wonders of the World, remember the phrase Solving Lovatts Mind-boggling Puzzles Helps Turn Cogs, which stands for Statue of Zeus, Lighthouse of Alexandria, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Pyramid of Khufu, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Temple of Diana and Colossus of Rhodes.
Reader Lyn Anesbury was taught how to spell pharaoh by her primary school teacher, who said that the Egyptians worshipped the Sun God Ra and this was forever shown in the middle of their name for the king. It is a memory that has remained engraved in her mind and has come in handy when solving our crosswords.

I’d be interested to know how many of you puzzlers use mnemonic strategies to help you remember facts or the spelling of tricky words when completing crosswords. Of course, the more crosswords you do, the more you will begin to recognise some of our clues and answers.

Happy puzzling!

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