How's your memory? Er…what were we talking about?

Do you remember the quiz? You just took it a minute ago.

Here are the answers.

1. Spencer Silver developed a 'solution without a problem'. Five years later, Art Fry 'stole' the solution – a low-adhesive glue – to make a Clever Thing. And it's a memory aid. What is it? A Post-It Note.
2. Drawing a map of ideas can help you remember. What's the word for these drawings with circles and lines? (It's a bit creepy.) A spidergram.
3. You can use h2g2 or other online places to build up your memory. What do you call those tricky puzzles people pose to stimulate your thinking? Brain teasers.
4. Can't find your way around town? (I can't, and I don't have memory problems, just a lousy sense of direction.) It's relatively cheap, it's electronic, and it's way irritating. What is it? A Satnav. (GPS, Yanks.) (Bossy, bossy.)
5. Most people keep their most important reminders here: calendars, notes, grocery lists, you name it. Where is this important place in your home? The fridge, of course. You remember now: you wrote that phone number down, on the butcher paper that's wrapped around the bologna...
6. The ancients used this technique, too. It's a mnemonic device, like 'My Very Eager Miss Jones Slipped Upon Nancy's Potato' to remember the planets. (Don't talk to us about Pluto.) What did the ancient Romans call this sort of memory trick? In Latin or English, doesn't matter. A pons asinorum, or 'donkey bridge. (The Germans still call it that.)
7. Back in the 15th Century, you will recall, memory techniques really impressed people. They sometimes got suspicious when somebody's memory was too good. Petrus de Ravenna came under suspicion for having too much memory. What did they accuse him of? Necromancy. Sheesh, some people.
8. The ancient Greeks and Romans – yes, and Sherlock – use this mnemonic technique, also called the 'method of loci'. What do we call it? The memory palace. (Because Sherlock's pretentious like that.)
9. One way to practice the locus technique is to play a memory game involving a trayful of objects. What do we usually call this game, and why? Kim's Game, after Kipling. Spies and other liars need good memories.
10. You want to sell Chevrochrysler cars. You put a very pretty girl on the car in your advert. What are you trying to get people (well, okay, men) to do with their memories? Associate sex with Chevrochrysler cars. Association is a memory technique often weaponised by the advertising industry. I blame Don Draper.

Of course you knew all that. You have a phenomenal memory. You even remember the day Nighthoover showed up. See? h2g2 is also a mnemonic device.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

29.02.16 Front Page

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