Learning emacs - useful mnemonics?

Question

Are there any mnemonics or patterns that make memorizing emacs key combos easier?

Answer 1

Well, the main important ones are: `

• C-k to "Kill" a line and C-y to "Yank" it back from the kill buffer (aka: clipboard).
• C-s to "Search "
• C-h for "Help"
• C-t "Transpose" two characters.
• C-p "Previous" line
• C-n "Next" line
• C-f "Forward" char
• C-b "Backward" char
• C-e "End" of line
• C-a .... a is the beginning of the alphabet, so "A beginning" of line

Other than that I mostly use the arrow keys, the mouse, the menus, or a select group of actual commands. The few exceptions to this (eg: macro creation and use) I learned pretty much by muscle-memory.

Answer 2

Don't memorize it, just USE it.

Answer 3

Regarding patterns, yes, there are very obvious patterns that occur all over.

C-f forward-char
M-f forward-word
C-M-f forward-sentence/expression

C-b backward-char
M-b backward-word
C-M-b backward-sentence/expression

The pattern being C- applies to the smallest unit (char), M- applies to the next larger unit (word), and C-M- applies to the largest. For programs the units are chars, words, sexps.