There’s a great mnemonic for that which helped me a lot: put your hands into fists and hold them side by side, palms down. Now starting from your left, each knuckle represents a month with 31 days, and each valley between knuckles represents a month with 30 days (or fewer, for Feb). The space between your hands does not count as a valley.
AFAIK many use this technique. I have an instant knowledge about the number of days for every month. Once I thought almost everybody has it, but apparently it is not the case.
I have an instant knowledge about the number of days for some months; for the others I use the knuckle mnemonic (sped up by the fact that I remember that the two consecutive 31-day months corresponding to the index fingers are July and August.) I don’t even have to actually close fists anymore, I just do it in my mind now.
I still remember this one via the children’s rhyme.
Thirty days have September, April, June, and November. All the rest have thirty one, except for February alone, which has twenty eight days clear, except for every leap year.
I used to try to remember it this way, except that the rhyming parts don’t actually cue the important info, so I was always “30 days have September, April,.… um.… something, and… December? November? Something like that.” So I use the knuckle trick instead.
I also never learned the last part of the rhyme, it was taught to me as ”...except for February, which is all kinds of messed up.”
I wonder how many people (here) know the number of days for every month.
There’s a great mnemonic for that which helped me a lot: put your hands into fists and hold them side by side, palms down. Now starting from your left, each knuckle represents a month with 31 days, and each valley between knuckles represents a month with 30 days (or fewer, for Feb). The space between your hands does not count as a valley.
Except for the rightmost finger? Else there are 14 items.
Yeah, you stop when you run out of months.
Oh no! December is the end of the knuckle calendar! The world is going to end then!
AFAIK many use this technique. I have an instant knowledge about the number of days for every month. Once I thought almost everybody has it, but apparently it is not the case.
I have an instant knowledge about the number of days for some months; for the others I use the knuckle mnemonic (sped up by the fact that I remember that the two consecutive 31-day months corresponding to the index fingers are July and August.) I don’t even have to actually close fists anymore, I just do it in my mind now.
I still remember this one via the children’s rhyme.
I used to try to remember it this way, except that the rhyming parts don’t actually cue the important info, so I was always “30 days have September, April,.… um.… something, and… December? November? Something like that.” So I use the knuckle trick instead.
I also never learned the last part of the rhyme, it was taught to me as ”...except for February, which is all kinds of messed up.”