Having trouble remembering the difference between the flag of Belgium and the flag of Germany?
Remember this simple rhyme:
“Black touches Red, you’re in Germany like Kaiser Fred¹.
Black touches yellow, you’re in Belgium, so have a waffle with marshmallow².”³
¹This assumes that you know that Kaiser Frederick III was the second Emperor of Germany.
²This is only a slant rhyme, and it barely works since — while dessert waffles are associated with Belgium, and they would be pretty good with marshmallows on them — marshmallows are not particularly associated with Belgian waffles.
³Yes, I am not particularly good at coming up with mnemonics.
@pganssle I got:
- burnt fries: belgium
- burnt sausage: german
Doesn't rythme but kids remember black means burnt, fries are yellow, and sausage are red.
@bitecode Hmm, to the extent that Belgium is associated with fries, a variation on that could work very well, in that you often think of fries as being in a vertical orientation, whereas sausages are basically always lying on their side. 🍟 🌭
@pganssle How about "Black before yellow, tinkling li'l fellow", assuming one knows Manneken Pis? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manneken_Pis
I can't come up with a good one for Germany, but perhaps we can crowdsource it in this thread.