This (arguably unhelpful) phrase seems to be taught across schools all over the world. What are some other phrases like this that are common ?
that phrase is to biology as “donde esta la biblioteca” is to spanish
Troy and Abed in the mooorning!
‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’
Like in “science”.
I’ve only heard this phrase from Americans, so I think “all over the world” is a stretch
Its taught in India as well, (and is also a meme here)
Can confirm in south india
Australian here, they taught us this meme in school.
Do you have any evidence your phrase is used all over the world? I never learnt it.
I learned it in German in Germany. Do we have evidence from the francophone world? Latam? China?
Checking in from NZ, sounds familiar to me
Definitely did it in Australia.
What class? What year?
Biology class circa 2001-2003
While not unhelpful, stop-drop-and-roll and quicksand don’t come up as often as we thought back then
I was always worried about proper handling of nitroglycerin. Talking to my friends it seems that wasn’t as common as quicksand or even thinking you’d need to tell gold apart from fool’s gold (pyrite). Games like Crash Bandicoot, shows like Dexter’s Lab, and a general interest in science may have meant I heard more about it as a kid.
“Don’t use Wikipedia as a source.”
Man, if I want to get a pretty good overview on almost anything, Wikipedia is the best and most accessible way. Luckily, the consensus seems to slowly change to a cautious “Don’t use Wikipedia as your only source, especially on controversial topics.”
To the tune of “Pop Goes The Weasel”:
x equals negative b /
plus or minus the square root /
of b squared minus 4 ac /
all over 2a!I cannot believe that stupid fucking song is still in my head, but good God damn it worked. It’s there for all 0 times I’ll need the quadratic equation in my daily life.
I can’t even visualise what you are saying
It was to to the tune of Frère Jacques when I learned it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frère_Jacques
Negative b, negative b
Plus or minus square root, plus or minus square root
B squared minus 4 AC, b squared minus 4 AC
Over 2A, over 2AFinding the name of the original song was a pain. I’d never seen it written as an adult and thought it said “do re mi” so every search result kept telling me it was from the sound of music.
“Christopher Columbus discovered America” (hopefully they’re not still teaching this)
Even worse: Columbus thought the earth was round but nobody believed him.
In 14 hundred and 92 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And also committed genocide
We never learnt that.
y = mx + b
Didn’t that originate in a Sabrina The Teenage Witch episode? Or did I just imagine that?
I have met multiple people from across the USA who specifically learned about “the fertile silt of the Nile river delta.”
I don’t remember hearing that specific phrase in school. I remember hearing a teacher tell us to take deep breaths to fire up the mitochondria but not that it was “the powerhouse of the cell.” This was a meme that became common after my education was done. Because it became a popular meme it’s possible more teachers said it specifically along with whatever other fun phrases they had.
I think a big part of why it took off and lives on as a meme in the internet forums sense of the word, was the familiarity of the bizarre and unnatural phrase to the young adults using those forums who remembered it from biology class.
Certainly that’s how it was for me because before Digg, or Reddit, even before Facebook (though I guess not that long before), I had had that phrase uttered sincerely as part of my education and it was so uncanny and funny to see that this highly specific and distinctive phrase was used rote, word for word, at schools all over the world and was as memorably unhelpful to others as it had been to me. Perhaps the positive feedback loop from this phrase’s new life on the web really has fed in to education in a life imitating art kind of way like you describe, but I can assure you it definitely predated it’s status as a joke, and that’s where that joke came from.
I’m not doubting it was used before the meme, I’m just doubting the ubiquity of it prior to the meme. I believe it is a bit of a Mandela effect type of thing. People remember the general purpose of mitochondria and remember their science teachers saying things similar to the effect of “powerhouse of the cell” even if they didn’t actually say that. Sort of like how “beam me up, Scotty” was specifically never used in Star Trek but just about every other variant of the phrase was.
I’m not gonna go looking for scans or anything, but KnowYourMeme lists the popularity of this one as starting between 2013 and 2015, and I definitely remember seeing this phrase in a textbook around 2010 or 2011. So honestly, I might blame Pearson or McGraw Hill.
That’s after my time in highschool. (Class of 2010.) It’s possible there was enough of a push to get new editions of books and they all happened to use that phrase right around the time a bunch of future memers would be online that it caused it.
The unlikely story of how two country singers are behind the mitochondria is the powerhouse. Aaaaaand now that I’m double checking that I’m wondering if I’ve been a victim of misinformation. I thought somebody told me Tim McGraw and Faith Hill founded McGraw Hill but I’m not seeing anything to support that.
my very eager mother just served us nine
rip pizzas
Mother very easily made a jam sandwich using no plate.
E = mc²
Stop, drop, and roll