If Pays to Remember Anniversaries, Birthdays
ber, so a different idea must be used. I could tell you to make up a word which would represent the three digit num- ber, 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 nth month, 2nd day? You wouldn't, and your birthday card would be a bit late if you sent it on Novem- ber 2nd to someone whose birthday is January 12th. It 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 word 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 and 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 comes first, or, 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, it 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, al- though 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, be- cause 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 event itself, is one word to represent the year. Napoleon was crowned emperor in the year 1804. 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 remem- ber 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 im-
portant 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 imagination 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 num- bers 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 remember- ing that Mr. Karpel lives at 5211 (landed) 49th Street (rope).