The word
mnemonic derives from the Greek
mnēmōn ("mindful"), which itself comes from the verb
mimnēskesthai, meaning "to remember." (In classical mythology,
Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses, is the goddess of memory.) In addition to its adjectival use,
mnemonic is also a
noun meaning "a mnemonic device," and the plural from
mnemonics
is used in the sense of "a technique of improving the memory." As with
many classical borrowings, we
retained the double initial consonant, but
not the pronunciation of both, since the combination doesn't occur
naturally in English (
pneumonia
is a similar case). If this spelling strikes you as particularly
fiendish to remember, keep this mnemonic in mind: although the word's
pronunciation begins with an
n sound, the spelling begins with an
m, as in
memory.
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