"On Old Olympus Towering Tops ..." If you have ever trekked your way through Anatomy 101, you will recognize that little rhyme - made up to remember the Cranial nerves: Olfactory, Optic, Occulomotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, etc. The rhyme is called a mnemonic device, however, I could only recall four of the first five nerves this morning. I'm afraid the sing-song nature of the rhyme did little to jog my fuzzy memory. It seems that this isn't the only one of those mnemonic devices that went fuzzy in my brain. I received an urgent email from one of my more careful first draft readers. Up until this time no one had pointed this gigantic boo-boo out to me. It seems my main character, who is an art instructor, doesn't know the correct order of the colors of the rainbow!
My mnemonic device for the colors of the rainbow, which I used several times in my book, was twisted! Roy G. Biv became Roy B. Giv!! So blue got turned around with green, making any art student sit up and smell that this author didn't know what she was talking about! The order is important because they are arranged according to the size of each color's wavelength. From now on I have vowed not to use Roy G. Biv and have instead decided to use this little ditty: "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain." I don''t think I can get my wavelengths mixed about as long as I remember the right place Richard is from! Or for that matter what Richard's name is ...
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