Acrostics

Acrostics are phrases or sentences where you are using a memorable phrase to prompt you the concept which you really want to remmember. So, for instance, a simple sentence might contain a prompt of the planets of the solar system;

This is an acrostic for memorising the planets and the dwarf planets:

Murky conVention's Efforts Mar *Series;

Jury Set yoUr Next *Planet *Chart *Erratically.

Taking the first prominent letter of each word of that sentence:

M=Mercury [Murky], V=Venus [conVention], E=Earth [Efforts], M=Mars, 'Series' sounds like Ceres; J=Jupiter, S=Saturn, U=Uranus, N=Neptune, P=Pluto, Ch=Charon, Eris [formerly UB313]

[I used an asterisk in places to emphasise the dwarf planets' words.]

In 2006, a committee of astronomers elected that Pluto should not be classified as a planet. They considered how there are dwarf planets such as dwarf planet UB313 also known as Eris; and Pluto has certain similarities with that 'dwarf planet' classification rather than 'planet' classification.

My acrostic sentence uses words which have several letters in common with the planet names which they resemble.

When I look at other people's acrostics, they often just aim to share the same first letter as the word which they seek to represent; I think that my way is better because it is more distinctive.

Using just the first letter as a prompt is weak; and I tend to see it in medical mnemonics where an acronym is made. An acronym is something like the pop group ABBA using the initial letters of the 4 band members' names to spell a word. It becomes less and less memorable as a method if you create tens of acronyms - but in moderation, I believe that it is a useful method.

So we see that we can take hard-to-learn sequences and make them more memorable. An application of that principle is that sequences of digits may be learned by using acrostics; this is looked at next.

Single Digits 0 to 9

Acrostics may be used to memorise a sequence of digits.

You need to have previously learned a code system where letters equate to digits; then, the first letter of each word in a sentence can be converted into a digit.

Here is a single digit code system followed by an example of it being used:

Digit	Words starting with ...
0	Ch  P  Ph  Sh  Th  X  Y  Z
1	D
2	B  E
3	C  H  K  Q
4	I  L  T
5	M  N
6	O  R
7	J  S
8	G  U  V  W
9	A  F

'Ch' equates with the digit 0; also, 'P' equates with 0, and so does 'Ph' and 'Sh' and the other arrangements there.

So, a word like Showman would be seen as being 'Sh' followed by some other letters. In the table, 'Sh' = 0; so the digit 0 would be figured out.

A phrase like 'Tennis Player' would have the 'T' of 'Tennis' and the 'P' of 'Player' selected since they come first in each word. In the table, you see that the 'T' indicates a 4 and that the 'P' indicates a '0'. So, 'Tennis Player' can be translated into a 4 followed by a 0: 40.

The table shows that D = 1 ; so two words using 'D' would mean 11. eg. 'Drop Down' or 'Dave Davis' or 'D-Day'.

A sentence of several words could symbolise a number of many digits. A four word sentence could become the 4 digits of someone's PIN number. So, instead of memorising a 4-digit number, you would memorise a sentence and then turn it into its acrostic digits. eg. "What Is My PIN?" has words beginning with W, I, M and P: and the table matches 'W' with 8, 'I' with 4, 'M' with 5 and 'P' with 0; therefore, the 4-digit PIN is: 8450.

1066 is the year that the Norman French's king, after having been denied the throne, crossed the English Channel and took over England. In other words: 'Denied THrone, Overthrew Royals'. D of 'Denied'='1', TH of 'Throne'=0, O of 'Overthrew'=6, R of 'Royals'=6. Thus, a 4-word phrase may contain the historical year in which its details happened! I had to look for surrounding information of the 1066 event so that I could create a suitable sentence for it which uses words that form 1066.

I still prefer knowing 1066 off-by-heart rather than to know an acrostic. However, in situations such as cramming for an exam or a simplified introduction to a subject, a memory technique such as an acrostic may be useful.

Representing digits as acrostics is perhaps better than using the BLOKES system to store each digit of a number at a mental location such as a bath tub.

However, there will be times where the use of an image to represent a digit will be useful.