You Can Learn to Remember: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life pdfdrive com

mnemonics
T
he word mnemonic (pronounced nem-on-ik) is derived from the Greek
mnemon, meaning “mindful”, which also gives us the name of the Greek
goddess of memory Mnemosyne. A mnemonic is simply a device that helps us to
remember something.
Although, strictly, the term applies to any memory technique, it is often
used to denote specifically word-based techniques, especially acronyms or
verses. However, word-based mnemonics do not meet with universal approval.
Many academics dismiss them as exercises in idle wordplay, trivial ditties for
parrots who want merely to echo a fact rather than to understand it. Some
mnemonics are also rather slow to unravel. In my opinion, however, if a word-
based mnemonic helps you to remember the right information at the right time,

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with a good chance of success, there is no harm in using it.
An acronym is a word made up of the initial letters of the words that you
want to recall. For example, the acronym HOMES can remind you of the names
of the five Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. But if you
wanted to remember the lakes in size order (beginning with the largest), you
might use the extended acronym Sergeant Major Hates Eating Onions.
How effective these techniques turn out to be depends, of course, on your
natural ability to remember the acronyms or extended acronyms in the first
place. However, if we take the trouble to make a few associations, these will
help the brain to visualize in a creative form an otherwise bland list of data. So,
perhaps the next time you need to recall the Great Lakes, you might expect that
an image of, say, your house on the edge of a lake will spring to mind, reminding
you of the acronym homes; or if you have to remember the lakes in order, you
may be struck by the trigger-image of the Sergeant Major spitting out a cheese-
and-onion sandwich, while out boating on a lake.
Rhythm can serve as an effective way to imprint information on the
memory. This is why so many word-based mnemonics take the form of verses.
How do you remember the number of days in each month? Many people use the
rhyme “Thirty days hath September,/April, June and November.” One of the
“tidiest” rhymes (by pure coincidence) is that which helps us to remember the
fate of each of King Henry VIII’s wives, in order: “Divorced, Beheaded,
Died,/Divorced, Beheaded, Survived.”