This post is especially written for people in teaching and public training. When you share a lot of information in a public training presentation and the audience is required to remember it, mnemonics play a crucial part. All of us have grown up with them, and yet how many of us realize the power of mnemonics? I have personally been a fan of mnemonics since my school days. For every crucial concept where I needed to remember lists, I had a mnemonic.

You might still be wondering about the title of this post. What is the 'Legend of Subodh Ranjan Saha?' Well, this post is dedicated to my Accountancy teacher during my Class XI, XII and Graduation years. His name is S.K. Jha, and he gave me one of the most interesting mnemonics in school.

When I was in Class XI he told me one day; "In Balance Sheets, all the items have to come one after the other. You cannot have Unsecured Loan before Secured Loans. You have to write Investments only after Fixed Assets."

"So how do you remember the order?" I asked. What he said in return has stuck with me for the last 12 years and will stay in my mind forever:

Few Indian Citizens Love Miss Eishwarya (spell it with an E and not an A).

Subodh Ranjan Saha Under Calcutta Corporation.

ASSETS
F Fixed Assets
I Investments
C Current Assets
L Loans & Advances
ME Miscellaneous Expenditures

LIABILITIES
S Share Capital
R Reserves & Surplus
S Secured Loans
U Unsecured Loans
C Current Liabilities
C Contingent Liabilities

The letters, in capitals, of the mnemonic are the ones you find above. Under liabilities, S will stand for Share Capital, and then R for Reserves and Surplus and so on.

BODMAS
This is perhaps one of the most famous mnemonics of all time. The order of mathematical operations is what BODMAS is all about. When you get a problem like the one below, you know how to solve it:

7+5(4+2x5)-8

Bracket - Order - Divide - Multiply - Add – Subtract!

SUCCESs
Chip and Dan Heath, the champions of “stickiness,” in their book Made to Stick, have shared the secret of what makes a message “sticky” and how we can make our public training messages sticky. To ensure we remember the six secrets of stickiness, they have very rightly helped us with a mnemonic; SUCCESs.

S - Simple
U - Unexpected
C - Concrete
C - Credible
E - Emotional
S - Story

(The last small s is just to complete the word.)

Corporate Mnemonics
If you happen to chance upon a company website, you might discover some more mnemonics. On Marico's Corporate Values page, the Mnemonic 'THINK CONSUMER TO BE BIG' gets expanded to form their set of corporate values.

What's Our Take Away?
Whenever you give a public training presentation where you want the audience to memorize a list or a very important concept, help them with a mnemonic. You can also ask the audience to think of a mnemonic on the spot. I have done that many times in public training. This will not only ensure they understand what you present, but also remember it for a long time to come. Create your own Subodh Ranjan Saha and get etched in someone's memory forever.