“Does your husband forget your anniversaries?”
“Never. I remind him of it in June, and again in January;
and I always get two presents!”
If a man’s memory is so poor that he can be led to believe
that he has an anniversary every six months-then he deserves to have to buy two
presents.
Seriously though, the peg system can be applied to
remembering not only important anniversaries, but also important dates in
history. It is also helpful for memorizing addresses, prices or style numbers.
As far as dates are concerned, if you want to remember
people’s anniversaries or birthdays, just associate the people, or substitute
words for their names, to the date, in this way:- Suppose Mr. Gordon’s birthday
is April 3rd. if you associate Mr. Gordon, or the word, “garden” to “ram,” you would
remember it. “Ram” represents 43, and Mr. Gordon’s birthday falls in the 4th
month, on the 3rd day!
Of course every days will not be able to be transposed into
a basic peg word. You can do that only with those that fall within the first
nine month, and for the first nine days of those months. All other dates will
be a three digit number, so a different idea must be used. I could tell you to
make up a word which would represent the three digit number, and I will tell
you to do that in most cases. But, if done all the time, it may confuse you.
If the word in your association was “tighten” (112), how
would you know whether it meant the first month, 12th day, or the 11th
month, 2nd day? You wouldn’t and your birthday card would be a bit
late if you sent it on November 2nd to someone whose birthday is
January 12th. If would be late,
or about two months too early.
So, you must have a definite distinction to avoid this. I
would suggest that the easiest way to do it is to use one word for the three
digits, only for the first nine months. For October, November and December, use
two words, your peg word to represent the month, and another word to represent
the day. If you feel that you wouldn’t know
which words came first, then always use a word that is not a basic peg
word for your day. That way you’ll know that the regular peg always represents
the month.
Actually this isn’t necessary if you’re going to use one
word to represent the month an day for the first nine months. If you do, you will
know that wherever you have two words in your association, the one that denotes
two digits must represent the month, and the other, the day.
If you have two words in your association, both of which
denote two digits, then naturally the one over twelve would have to stand for
the day. Only in the few cases where the day is either the 10th, 11th
or 12th in the 10th, 11th or 12th
month will you have to use the ideas suggested in the chapter on telephone
numbers. You would have to use a “logical illogical” picture to know which word
come first, of, always use the basic peg word for the month, and make up a word
that fits phonetically. But is not a regular peg word, for the day.
If, as in school work, if is necessary for you to remember
the year as well as the month and day-simply get a word to represent the year
into your association. For instance, although everybody knows the date of the
signing of the Declaration of independence, I can use that as an example. If
you associated the Declaration, or a substitute word, to “car cash,” you would
know that it was signed on July 4th (7-4-car) in the year 1776
(76-cash). It is almost never necessary to bother with the first two digits of
the year, because you would usually know the century in which an event occurred.
If not, get a word for those digits into your picture, too.
School students usually
have to remember only the year of an historical event. This is a cinch,
because all you need in your association, besides the even itself, is one word
to represent the year. Napoleon was crowned emperor in the year 1840. If you
made a ridiculous picture of Napoleon being crowned, and the crown hurting his
head, or making it sore (04), you would remember it.
The Chicago fire was in 1871; just associate fire to “cot”
(71). If you made a ridiculous picture of a giant ocean liner sinking because
it is made of “tin,” you would remember that the Titanic went down in 1912.
Sometimes it is necessary to remember the year of birth and
the year of the death of important people. Just as an example, if you made an
association of a stevedore dressed as a lass, fighting a bear-you would recall
that Robert Louis Stevenson (stevedore) was born in 1850 (lass) and died in
1894 (bear).
Now you won’t be like the little boy, who when asked how he
was doing in school, complained that the teacher expected him to know about
things that happened before he was born!
Talking about school work, in Geography it is often
important to know the products that a country exports. So, why not use the Link
method to remember them. Also, if you want to remember the general outline of
the map of any country or state, you can always use the idea that is usually
used to remember the shape of Italy.
Italy is shaped like a boot, which makes it easy to recall.
If you look at the map outline of any country, with a little imagi ation you can make it look like something
that can be pictured. Just associate that to the name of the country, and
you’ll always have a general idea of its shape.
Now, if you fellows want to be able to throw away those
little black books full of addresses, you can. Just remember the addresses of
the young ladies by using associations.
The same methods apply to this. Simply transpose all the numbers into sounds,
the sounds into words, and associate the words to the person living at that
address. If you made a picture in your mind of yourself flying a rope, and landing it on a carpet
(landed rope)-it would help in remembering that Mr. Karpel lives at 5211 (landed) 49th street
(rope).
The same ideas, of course, apply to style numbers and
prices. If you happen to work in the clothing line, and wish to remember the
style numbers of, say, dresses-associate the number to an outstanding feature
of the dress. If style #251 is a dress with a back panel, you might “see” that
panel melting; melt-351. The dress with
puffed sleeves is style #3140; associate “mattress” to the puffed sleeves, etc.
The prices of the dresses can be included in the same
association. I’m giving you only one or two examples for each idea, because it
is always best for you to use your own imagination. It is entirely up to you as
to which method you will use for remembering dates and how you will associate
style numbers and prices, etc. the ideas, however, can be applied in any business.
Prices can be memorized just as anything else that has to do
with numbers. Just associate the price to the item. To avoid confusion, you
might decide to always use the basic peg words for dollars, and any other word
that fits phonetically, for cents. The
same methods have to be used here, as for telephone numbers and dates. You can
use one word to represent three or four digits because you’ll usually know if
an item is priced in the hundreds of dollars, or not.
If you had associated “maple” with book, you’d know that the
price of the book is probably $3.95, and not $395.00. on the other hand, if you
had associated “maple” to television set, it would buy a couple of dozen.
Well, there you are. After this you should never forget any
dates, prices, style numbers, addresses, and so on. I must repeat that it might
seem easier, at first, to write down this type of information, but after awhile
you will be able to associate faster than you can write.
Most important, can’t worry
about cluttering your mind with all these associations. Again, I want to
remind you that once you have memorized the information through
associations-and you use this particular information; well, you’ve etched it
into your mind. The associations have served their purpose and you can forget
about them.
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