By rote

[Kaypeep]

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, sir."

[Nikko-chan]

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, sir."

We used this in ASL one to get our hands used to fingerspelling. though without the sir. Ours was "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

[ShanghaiJill]

Thirty days hath September

April, June and November

When short February's done

All the rest have 31.


From high school, I can recite the Five Basic Elements of A Contract.

[minky]

The Owl and the Pussycat and Portia's mercy speech from The Merchant of Venice.

[scotcat60]

A little known poem by Robert Browning called "The Heroes", because it was set to music and was my School song. However, I never really thought the lines "Was it for mere fool's play make believe and mumming/ So we battled it like men, not boylike sulked or whined" were entirely appropriate for a school of some !,600 girls.

[Elisabunny]

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, sir."

We used this in ASL one to get our hands used to fingerspelling. though without the sir. Ours was "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

I learned, "The quick brown fox jumpS over the lazy dog."   

[ShanghaiJill]

I can tell you the phases of mitosis, but I've never been asked.

[doodlemor]

I can tell you the phases of mitosis, but I've never been asked.

Please tell us.  I'm always open to learning.  Finally, you have been asked.

[Nikko-chan]

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, sir."

We used this in ASL one to get our hands used to fingerspelling. though without the sir. Ours was "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

I learned, "The quick brown fox jumpS over the lazy dog."   

yes! That was what it was... I knew I was forgetting the S but I didn't know where it was... thank you Elisabunny!

[emwithme]

I can remember some absolutely useless, ridiculous things. 

Like the first chapter of the latin course I did at school (Ecce Romani http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Romani).  In both latin and English. 

All the phone numbers and full addresses (including postcodes) I've ever had (14 now)

And some (relatively) useful things.  Lots of poems - at junior school (age 7 - 11) we had to learn a poem a week.  Some of them now are just part of me - like Cargoes, and Sea Fever.  I love saying these two out loud, and BFF and DF can tell when I'm really stressed because I'll start saying them under my breath.  They just regulate my breathing nicely.

The most random poem I can remember is "When Daddy Fell Into The Pond" http://www.poetry-online.org/noyes_daddy_fell_into_the_pond.htm

I can also draw you the water cycle (23 years since I last learned it), the layers of the earth and how oxbow lakes are formed.

As for random, quiz type questions - yes please!  No one will play me at Trivial Pursuit any more because I keep beating them (I have been told I'm a gracious winner but it's quite funny when someone suggests board games and then everyone goes "Oh emwithme's here - no Triv), and I have once won in a single move (but only once).  At one point my cousin and I were barred from our local pub quiz because we won for eight straight weeks. 

But ask me the name of the box in the kitchen that keeps things cool and sometimes I'm stumped 

[Soprych]

I wonder if our grandparents cared more about poetry than later generations. I think I've heard from someone that teaching children poetry is good for their learning development. Something about rhyme, repitition and rhythm.

Did anyone else have A Child's Garden of Verses read to them?

"When I was sick and lay abed . . ."

I had two pillows at my head
and all of my toys beside me lay
to keep me happy all the day

and sometimes for an hour or so
I watched the leaden soldiers go
with different uniforms and drill
amongst the beadpost thourgh the hills...... your turn

I remember a few Christopher Robin poems, lots of Odgen Nash, one of the first long poems I learned was The Ballad of Nancy Hanks.

Most of the nursery rhymes from "The Annotated Mother Goose"

I used to know "Annie and Willies Prayer",  "Somebodies Mother", "Echoless Shores" but was just very surprised to find out I did not remember them in their entirety.
 

[elephantschild]

I can recite the Preamble due thanks to Schoolhouse Rock as well.

I know there are Anne McCaffrey fans on here. I can recite almost all (maybe really all) of the verses before the chapters in her earlier Pern books.

"Honor those the dragons heed,
In thought and favor, word and deed.
Worlds are lost and worlds are saved,
From those dangers dragon-braved."

(And am I the only one who hears "Ode to Joy" in her head while mentally reciting the one that starts "By the Golden Egg of Faranth ...?")

"We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel.   Memorized it in high school on a dare.

"Halfway Down" by A.A. Milne. Not sure why. It just stuck.

[artk2002]

"Halfway Down" by A.A. Milne. Not sure why. It just stuck.

"It really isn't any place, it's somewhere else instead."

[Soprych]

The time has come the walrus said
to talk of many things
of shoes and ships and sealing wax
of cabbages and kings

of whether the sea is boiling hot
and why don't pigs have wings



Robin the Frog (on the Muppets) did a recording of Halfway Down the Stairs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGFR3zz12p0

[Barb3000]

well I still memorize poems for fun, so

The Cremation of Sam McGee
Barbara Frietchie
The Shooting of Dan McGrew
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

and several others


At one shining point in time I could recite The Love Song of J. ALfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot, but that slipped out of my head as soon as I had it nailed.

Now I am working on "Christmas Day at the Workhouse."

Oh, and I also remember
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species

from Biology