The memory is always present; ready and anxious to help-if only
we would ask it to do so more often.
And, of course,
one of the most common (and most
limited) peg lists is the one which uses words that sound like the
numbers. Such as gun for one, shoe for two, tree for three, door for four, and
so on, to hen for ten, which is about as far as you can go.
we would ask it to do so more often.
-RogerBroille
Many Times
when I’ve been challenged to prove that any-one can remember by using something
similar to the peg system-I would use a method which taught the skeptic to
memorize ten miscellaneous objects forwards and backwards, and in and out of
order, in about five minutes. What I did was to put ten small items, in a row,
on a table; items like a ring, a watch, a cigarette, a match book, a comb, etc.
I then told the person that these ten objects were to represent the numbers from
one to ten.
Now I taught
him to associate the item I called to the object on the table which represented
the number called In other words, if I called “typewriter” as #7, and the seventh
item on the table was the ring. Later on,
when I asked if he remembered #7, he would count to the seventh object, the
ring which would remind him of the typewriter.
This usually
convinced the skeptic that he could remember better than he thought he could,
but he always wanted to know if he’d have to carry those ten items with him. Of course, if had have to carry those ten
items with have had a list of ten pegs to which to associate any other
palely unassociated items to use for a
peg list; and, in this case, would hardly be worth the trouble.
However, as I
mention elsewhere in the book, it was Simonies
who first used the rooms of his house, and the furniture in the rooms as
a peg list. And this idea will also, there
is to mush sameness in pieces of furniture to make a useful list. There
is the possibility of becoming confused, and it would take time to know which
number each piece represented.
There have been a
great many ideas thought up on how to devise peg lists. I’ve heard of one man who used twenty-six women that he knew, whose names each began
with a different letter of the alphabet. This gave him a list typewriter, was
#16, he would associate typewriter to each peg must create a distinctly different picture in you mind if it is to
work properly.
There are some
ideas besides the phonetic alphabet which can be used just as well, except that
they are limited in length. For instance, I have had occasion to need a few
short peg lists to help me recall up to twenty or twenty-six items. Well, there
are two methods that I’ve used quite
often. The first is to use the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. All you have
to do is to make up a word for each letter which sounds like the letter itself.
Look at this list:-
A-ape
|
N-hen
|
B-bean
|
O-eau (water)
|
C-sea
|
P-pea
|
D-dean
|
Q-cute
|
E-eel
|
R-hour (lock)
|
F-effort (or effervescent)
|
S-ass
|
G-jean (or Gee, command to horse)
|
T-tea
|
H-ache
|
U-ewe
|
I-eye
|
V-veal
|
J-jail
|
W-waterloo
|
K-cake
|
X-eggs
|
L-el (elevated train)
|
Y-wine
|
M-ham
|
Z-zebra
|
If you go
over this list once or twice, you’ll have it. Decide on a picture for each one,
and use that all the time. Now, You have a list which will enable you to
memorize up to twenty=six objects. For “B,” I used “been” only because “bee”
would conflict with your basic peg word for #9. Of course, there are other
words that can fit for some letters, and you can use any that you like. Just be
sure that they do not conflict with your
basic list of pegs. The words listed above are the ones that I use.
Incidentally,
if you made a link from zebra to ape, you
would be able to recite the alphabet backwards, which is quite a feat in
itself. If you want to, you can
associate each letter word to your regular peg word for that particular
number. In this way you would know the numerical position of
each letter immediately:- ape to “tie”; bean to “Noah”; sea to “ma,” and dean
to “rye,” etc.
Another
idea I use is to make a list of nouns, each of which look like the number they
represent. You can do this with many numbers, and for those that you can’t you
can make up any picture to remind you of it. For #1, you might picture a
pencil, because a pencil standing upright looks like the numeral one. For #2,
you can picture a swan; a swan on a lake is shaped something like the numeral
two. I usually picture a three-leaf clover for #3. A table or chair, or anything with four legs can represent #4. For #5, you
can see a five-pointed star. A yo-yo on a string, with a little stretch of the
imagination, looks like a numeral six.
A golf
club held upside down is similar in shape
to #7. For #8, you could picture an hourglass. For #9, I use a tape measure. I
mean the tape measures that are made of metal and unroll from a round
container. If you pull the tape out about six inches, the thing looks like a
numeral nine. A bat and ball pictured side by side can represent #10; the bat
is the digit 1, and the ball is the zero. I picture spaghetti for #11; my original picture was of two pieces
of raw spaghetti lying side by side, which looked like #11. For #12, you can
think of 12:00 o’clock and picture a clock.
You can
use either a black cat or walking under a ladder for #13. My original picture
for #14 was a straight running river or
stream to represent the 1, and a farm that looked like the numeral four from
the air. If you can create this picture in your mind-looking from an airplane
and seeing this farm adjacent to the
river, they would look like the #14. You can then use either farm or river, or
both, to represent the number.
I pictured
myself stepping into an elevator and saying “fifteenth floor, please, “ for
#15. I now use elevator to represent the number. For #16, I pictured a road sign that said, “route 16.”
I have used
this list for years to help me memorize six-teen objects. There is no reason
for your to stop at sixteen. You can use the same idea to bring the list up to
twenty, or higher if you like. No thought or picture is too far fetched; if it
suggests a certain number to you, then it will serve the purpose. Just get your imagination working.
Anyway, here is
the list as I’ve used it, up to #16:-
1-pencil
|
9-tape measure
|
2-swan
|
10- bat and/or ball
|
3-clover
|
11-spaghetti
|
4-table
|
12-clock
|
5-star
|
13- black cat (or ladder)
|
6-yo-yo
|
14-farm (or river)
|
7-golf club
|
15- elevator
|
8-hourglass
|
16-sign
|
There are other ideas
which I could list; but I won’t. if you need any more lists, you can use your imagination
to help you form them. I’m sure you realize that he phonetic alphabet, and the letter or number equivalent
method taught in this book, is far superior to any of the methods mentioned in
this chapter. Your basic list of peg word can be brought yup to a thousand, or
over, if you wanted to, and the beauty of, it is that as soon as you heard one
of them, the sounds in the word would tell you immediately makes it possible
for peg words to be at your fingertips for any number; you don’t have to make
them up and remember them in advance, either, you can make them up when or as
you need them.
The two ideas I’ve
suggested to you here, however, can be useful if you need a short its quickly,
or if you want to use one of them in conjunction with your basic peg words. The
latter idea can be used for some amazing memory feats, as you will learn in a
later chapter.
Before closing this
chapter, I just want to remind you again that none of these ideas are to
far-fetched. Any one of then will work for you if you make up your mind to use
them. The two listed here are, as far as I’m concerned, the best of the lot;
but any list of words that you happen to know in sequence can serve as a peg
list. I know one man who uses his own body for this purpose. From head down, he
uses hair, forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, neck, chest, all the way down to
toe, for his peg list. So, if an object to be remembered were #3, he would
associate it to “eyes,” if it were #7, he would associate it to “neck,” and so
on.
Some of the old-time
memory experts who performed in vaudeville would use the theatre itself to help
them do the stunt of memorizing objects called by the audience. They might have
used the stage for #1, the footlights for #2, the orchestra for #3, divans for
#4, balcony for #5, etc. anything in the theatre was utilized; the draperies
chandeliers, exit signs, men’s room, ladies’ room, etc.
Well, I guess
my main reason for telling you about all
these other ideas for word lists was to show off the effectiveness of the
phonetic alphabet. As far as I know, there is no other idea that approaches it
for its unlimited qualities and for its versatility.
In the
next chapter you will see how either one of the lists you learned here, or
parts of them, can be used in conjunction with the phonetic alphabet .
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