My Memeory Theater

To memorize my 50 items (spices) I used a combination of my kitchen and my imagination. I decided that the most logical place to have spices was in the kitchen, but after a while I ran out of places to put all of them, so then I started to imagine objects in and around the kitchen, too.

So my list of 50 is:

1. Rosemary
2. Ginger
3. Caraway Seed
4. Licorice
5. Cloves
6. Mace
7. Lemon Peel
8. Orange Zest
9. Allspice (yes, it is a true spice not a combination of some)
10. Chervil
11. Cilantro
12. Parsley
13. Bay Leaves
14. Shallots
15. Fennel Seed
16. Cinnamon
    
17. Nutmeg
18. Mint
19. Saffron
20. Turmeric
    
21. Tarragon
22. Red Pepper
    
23. Cayenne
    
24. Thyme
25. Arrow Root
26. Savory
27. Paprika
28. Marjoram
29. Wasabi
30. Dill
31. Vanilla
32. Mustard
33. Cream of Tartar
34. Basil
35. Garlic
36. Sage
37. Anise Seed
    
38. Juniper Berries
39. Celery Seed
40. Sesame Seed
    
41. Coriander
42. Salt (yes, I know it's not truly a spice but rather a mineral, but we all use it to enhance flavor)
    
43. Pepper
44. Oregano
45. Horse Radish
46. Chives
47. Onion
48. Cumin
49. Cardamon
50. Fenugreek

I started by thinking about what the spices are used for. After I ran out of places to put them according to their use, after all there is only so much space on the stove or in the counter top oven, I started looking at places were I keep the spices. Then I went on to placing the spices by how they sounded. So it went something like this... (Spices in italics)

Rosemary with ginger hair is standing in the coriander (corridor) between the wall and the counter. She is leaving for a trip so next to her is caraway seeds because she needs to carry with her licorice to eat and mace and cloves (clubs) to keep her safe. Further along the counter, I have a fruit basket and it has lemon peel and orange zest in it. Next to that is my spice rack so it is allspice. Above the spice rack is a cupboard upon which I have placed a set of three decorations. These became chervil, cilantro, and parsley because these spices are most commonly used for garnishes. Going along the wall, I have a bay leaves (bay) window over the sink, in which I imagine a fish ready to be garnished with shallots. In the drying rack next to the sink is a fennel seed (funnel). In the corner of the kitchen I still have some Christmas decorations left out, and when I think of Christmas I think of cinnamon, nutmeg, and mint. Beyond the corner is the stove where I cook rice with saffron and turmeric, and I also have a skillet out to make mushroom omelets with tarragon. The burners on the stove are hot so they became and red pepper and cayenne. Over the stove is a microwave that shows the thyme (time) with arrowroot (arrow) buttons. Next to those is the rotisserie oven in which I cook savory chicken with paprika (the first spice I ever used on chicken). In my pantry I have wasabi which is marjoram (majorly) spicy and dill pickles. Beyond the pantry is the refrigerator which has vanilla ice cream in the freezer and mustard in the cooler. Then I moved on to the floor. I thought about the spilled cream of tartar in front of the fridge. Beyond that was Basil the mouse (from "The Great Mouse Detective") ready to lick up the cream. I looked at the tiles on the floor and thought of a garden that I might plant with anise seed and celery seed with hedgerows of juniper berries and sage. At this point I ran out of places in the kitchen, so I moved it on out to the dinning room, following Seseme (seed) Street. On the table, of course, is salt and pepper. Then the square placemat reminded me of oregano (Oregon). I had a hard time with horseradish until I placed a horse in my dinning room as well. Then I realized that spices are no good without a cook, so I added some things to my own person. On my head I had a shock of chives sprouting from my crown. I was crying from cutting up dried onion. I was cold so I was wearing a cardamom (cardigan). And in my and I held a funnel with a Greek letter on it (fennugreek). Then somebody called my name so I hollared, "Cumin (Coming)!"

What good are books?

Yes, so I was caught reading in class on Friday. And not one of the three books for class. Oops! So, what was I doing? I was looking for the origin of the now popular designer breed dogs. How does one trace the oral language. By definition, orality is impossible to trace by the very ephemerality of its nature. So how do we find out how long the word has been in use? We use literature, of course.

In this case, an argument had erupted between a friend and me about how long people have been breeding two distinct breeds of dogs to create a cross breed. (On purpose, obviously, accidental crosses have been around forever.) Many people are familiar with the Labradoodle, almost the President's dog of choice, and long been purported to be allergen and shedding free. But the question was, when did these mixes start becoming popular? So I turned to books to help me find the answer. I still have not come across conclusive evidence as to the year the designer breed fad started, but I did find reference in The Girls of Huntington House (the book I was reading in class) to a Cockapoo, which is a crossing of a Cocker Spaniel and a Poodle (usually miniture or toy). The book was first published in 1972. This means that the word Cockapoo had to have been in common usage from at least sometime in the 1960's.

So you see, I do not need help, as Dr. Sexson claimed; rather, I was doing research into the origins of a word, which surely started by the oral tradition of labaling things, but can only be traced now by literature.

The combination of two words to create a new word is called portmanteau. For example, brunch is a combination of breakfast and lunch, a spork is one of those annoying plastic impliments you find at picnics that resemble a spoon with tines. When did portmanteau come to mean this? Why, it was first used by Lewis Caroll in his book Through the Looking-Glass, of course!

The Secret Is Out!

Yes, it's true. The esoteric memory exercises, not fit for the unwashed masses, that we have been practicing in class have been revieled in this month's Women's Health (sister magazine to Men's Health) in an article titled "Total Recall". The article gives four ways to help place things in the memory.

The first one, similar to the meathod in Ad Herennium (p 11, Yates), recommends that for long lists, such as grocerie lists, you should visualize each item that you want in an unusual way. Since few people go shopping for ram's testicles, the articles uses the example of "Ryan Reynolds holding the milk in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other, wearing nothing by boxer briefs made out of your favorite cereal." (I'm not sure who Ryan Reynolds is, but, from the context of the article, I can assume that he is somebody who one might find strange or interesting to look at.)

Secondaly, "Total Recall" suggests that to remember random things, such as a string of numbers in a phone number, one should try to find groupings within those numbers that can be connected with on a personal level, such as birthday or lucky number.

The third meathod mentioned is our Memory Palace (although the article calls it "Use the Room").

The fourth meathod isn't so much a memory system as it is an information processing technique. When being introduced to new people, the article states, pause at every third person and comment on something about him, clothes, name, appearance, etc., and while doing this mentally review the names of the previous two people. The object of this is to slow the flow of information, giving the memory a chance to store new information before receiving more.

Pictograph system versus the alphabet

What's the word for believing one's culture to be superior to all others?

In Ong's book, he claims that the Chinese writing system is "time-consuming and elitest" p 86. He goes on to say that undoubtably, once the Chinese have seen the light and started to speak in a mutually comprehensible language, that they will automatically switch to the much simpler and clearly superior roman alphabet.

So I wanted to take a closer look at the differences and similarities of the Chinese writing system to our own writing system. The first thing that caught my attention was that Ong claimed that it took 20 plus years to become "significantly learned" in the Chinese writing system. But isn't that what it takes us in our own system? If it takes less than than 20 years, then why are we in college, majoring in English? We should already have mastered the depth and breadth of our language at the end of high school, right? In truth, grammer can be learned well by the end of fifth grade, but the nuances, shades of meaning, and spelling can take much longer, perhaps another 15 years and more. That's not so different than Ong's claim of 20 years to learn the Chinese writing system.

The K'anghsi dictionary, Ong says, contains 40,545 different characters. And nobody actually knows all of them! Did you know that the Oxford English Dictionary 2 contains 263,917 entries? http://www.oed.com/news/updates/revisions0812.html (And that's not including the various word forms that go with them.) I'm going to out on a limb here, and suggest that Ong cannot find an English speaker that knows all of those, either. As users of an alphabet, we do have an advantage here, in that even if we cannot spell the word we want correctly, we have enough of a basis in phonetics to be able to understand the intention, for the most part, of the writer, whereas, Chinese symbols misdrawn may be incopmrehensible. But the Chinese have an advantage that I feel equals that: Their symbols are mutually comprehesible between various languages, while we run into trouble the second we try to read another language.

Lastly, but surely not least, Ong attempts to make light of his disparaging analysis by writing, "The loss of liturature will be enormous, but not so enormous as a Chinese typewriter using over 40,000 character." Ha, ha, WalteRong. Somehow, I find the loss of liturature, in any language, less than laughable. If anybody is interested, here is a picture and article of the Chinese typewriter, developed by a Dr. Lin Yutang in 1946: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/01/07/new-typewriter-conquers-chinese-symbols/ (I recommend just reading the news article, the blogger who posted underneath it, doesn't really have a grasp of the machine or the Chinese language, and so is confused and confusing.)
This typewriter, it must be said, is much more complex than our own, and in the time one would need to learn how to use it whatever it was that needed to be typed could have been hand written and delivered.

Oh, yes, it's called ethnocentrism.

Unrelated, exept in pure coincidence, there is a movie, unfortunately only available in Europe at this time, called The Chinese Typewriter starring Tom Selleck. It's amazing what one finds on Google! If anybody has this movie, I would like to see it. Seriously! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319180/