[samatman]

It's easy! Cations are positively charged, so cathodes are, uh, negatively, charged. With anions and anodes it's the other way around.

It makes perfect sense! Cations, you see, are attracted to anions. And reduced by cathodes. Anions? Attracted to cations. And oxidized by anodes.

Whereas cations are oxidized by anions, and anions are reduced by cations.

The only alternative here would be if cathodes and cations were positively charged, and anodes and anions were negatively charged. But then cathodes would reduce anions, and cations would also reduce anions. Even worse, anodes would oxidize cations, and anions would also oxidize cations.

And we can't have that. It would just be too confusing.

[abecedarius]

The other day, I was reading a chemistry book at the point where it "helpfully" listed four different mnemonics for the same thing -- cations vs. anions, or maybe it was cathodes vs. anodes, or anyway, you know, something in that vicinity.

I just let my eyes skip over that list. I refuse to be the Jaguar in "Just-So Stories" https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/79/just-so-stories/1294/the-begin...