I find it impossible to remember how many days are in each month. No one ever taught me that silly rhyme, and so it doesn't help, and I'm usually around a calendar or a computer in situations when I need to know. For when I'm not, Saint Peg has a very simple way to remember, and which doesn't depend on your rhyming skills:
"In this system, the knuckles are thirty-one-day months, and the valleys between them are thirty-day months. If you start with January, on your first knuckle, you can't miss, with the exception of February, which always messes everything up anyway.
I believe, incidentally, that the Knuckle-tappers slightly outnumber the Thirty Days Hath September group. As it was explained to me by a friend, who tried both before she settled irrevocably for Knuckles, you might start off on the wrong foot with the poem- for instance, 'Thirty Days Hath December'- and you'd be in trouble all year; but your knuckles never change."
The I Hate to Housekeep Book, page 114.
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My thoughts exactly.
"Thirty days hath December,
August, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one
excepting January alone,
which hath thirty-eight days clear,
and thirty-nine on each leap year"
This rhymes and scans just as well as the original, which just goes to show how bad it is as a mnemonic. If you can remember which month goes where in the poem, you can remember them without it. The knuckle counting method, on the other hand (or the same hand, if you like) works perfectly.
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