Essays on Writing and Language in Honor - Sino-Platonic Papers

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Sino-Platonic Papers, 27 (August 3 1, 199 1) ous, ordinary words are easier to remember and link with other words than long, semantically homogeneous numbers. zoo tie Noah ma rye 1 aw show COW ivy bee lace lot lion loom lure lily leech log 1 ava lip Table 2. Lorayne's Recommended "Pegs" toes tot tin tomb tire towel dish tack dove tub cheese sheet chain chum cherry jail choo choo chalk chef ship nose net nun name Nero nai 1 notch neck knife knob case cot coin comb car coal cage coke cave cob mice mat moon mummy mower mule match mug movie mop fez fit phone f om fur file fish fog fife fob rose rod rain ram rower roll roach rock roof rope bus bat bone bum bear be1 1 beach book puff pipe Notice carefully that the rational phonetic cipher underly- ing the pegs facilitates their translation to and from numbers but does not participate in the linking process itself. Linking not only does not depend on rationality but actually works best in its absence; moreover, it works only if you can easily visualize both items to be linked. This requires seeing them in a familiar context, for the irrationality of the linkage results precisely from the clash between the imagined relationship between the items and the expectations that normally flow from the context. If either item is something highly abstract or hard to visualize (e.g. equality, anger, sleep), a context may not readily suggest itself or even exist. The "pegsvv for the numbers show how one copes with such a situation: first, treat an abstract item as part of a system (the numbers in order) rather than as an isolated entity: second, use ordinary words that refer to easily visualized things as tags for the elements of the system: third, associate tag words with elements of the system by means of a simple, compact set of rules (phonetic cipher). In short, al- though Lorayne does not say so explicitly, he is really offering two quite different approaches to memorization: a visual strategy that depends on imagining irrational gestalts: and a linguis- tic strategy that depends on constructing ratdonel cipher connec-
Schn$$estschn!jf: &sap in Honor of John &Francis tions between the elements of two sets of speech forms. Each strategy is better suited to those situations in which the other is hard to apply. This complementarity Is Implicit in Loraynets third tech- nique, which concerns the problem of remembering information that has no intrinsic meaning for the performer. Lorayne explains what he means by "meaning1' here with the well-known example of the lines of the musical staff marked with a treble clef: The letters, E, G, B, D, and F don't mean a thing. They are just letters, and difficuJt to remember. The sentence. "Every Good Boy Does Fine" does have meaning, and is something you know and under- stand. The new thing, the thing you had to commit to memory was associated with something you already knew." Now suppose the performer must associate faces with names. Names like Baker or Lincoln readily call up a visual image, but many do not. Loraynets description of how to deal with them is clear even without the accompanying cartoon illustrations: No. 3 is Miss Standish. I would select her "bang" hairdo. You could "see" people standing on the bangs and scratching them- selves violently because they Itch. Stand itch--Standish. Of course, a ddsh standing, would serve the same purpose, but I like an association into which I can inject some sort of action. Now look at Miss Standish and see the picture you've decided on, in your mind's eye. No. 4 is Mr. Smolensky. Don't let the name acare you, it's easy to find a substitute thought for it. I would see someone skiing on Mr. Smolensky's very broad nose, and taking pictures (while skiing) with a small camera (lens). Small lens ski--Smo- lensky. See how simple it is? I have chosen Mr. Smolensky's broad nose; you might think that the receding chin is more obvious. Choose whichever you think is most obvious, and see the picture of the skier taking pictures with a small lens.= Notice how both the rational/phonetic' and irrational/visual techniques play a role here. The "meaningless" proper noun (typically a single morpheme) is expanded via a phonetic cipher (punning) into a string of morphemes associated with visualizable things, which form a memorably absurd constellation linked to the features of the face in view. True, we increase the number of morphemes rather than reduce it, as with the "pegs," and impose a ridiculous image on a real sight rather than see a "crazy" ges- talt inwardly, as with "links"; still, the same two techniques are at work. One application of substitute words that Lorayne recommends is memorizing foreign-language vocabulary items: you find an English phrase that "sounds like" the foreign word and visually linking the word's meaning to the (non)sense of the English phrase. A good example of this would be "G.1. Japanese" phrases like "a ring a toe" for ardgat8 'thankyou' and "don't touch your mustachen for d5 itashfmashite 'you're welcome', accompanied by a heroic effort to imagine the handing over of ringed toe as a gesture of gratitude or granting permission to leave the upper
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SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS Number 27 Augu
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Table of Contents Tabula Gratulator
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Olov B d Anderson Ivan Aymat Dayle
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S~hI7frfls~hc$: Essays</str
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Schriftfestsch~!: Essays</s
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Schrififestschrifl: Essays<
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. Some women novelists or tanci (#
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EXAMPLE 26: Sino-Plutonic Papers, 2
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are in the same academic department
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Goals and Objectives for Cultural I
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enjoy a much better link with the s
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A translation of the quadrisyllabic
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Number 23 24 25 26 Date 9 1/7/4 911
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