A jingle to the tune of ‘Twinkle Little Star’ is also needed to figure out the positioning of the vast majority of letters in the Roman Alphabet, in spite of a private school education, two-thirds of a Bachelor’s degree, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
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Makes you think, doesn’t it.
It’s not like the concept of a 12-month calendar or a 25-letter Roman Alphabet is a new one. I’m no historian, but I’ve been led to believe that these have been around for many a century.
And yet, on every occasion in which we are made to recite the place of a letter or month (or indeed the numbers of days contained therein), a cold sweet rushes through us - as far as we’re concerned, we could well have been asked to crack the Enigma code whilst simultaneously performing in the Cirque du Soleil.
The 6 we got in a first year psych course, shockingly, provides us with no help in this hour of need.
“Maybe, I’m just an idiot”, we sigh, staring hopelessly into the reflection of the person who was once described as ‘conscientious’ on a report card by his Grade 3 Geography teacher, and who just flawlessly explained the impact of reverse swing on a green wicket to his little cousin.
It fills us with little consolation that we’re able to recall the month number of our birth (+/- one month either side).
No more to come, sadly.