August 20, 2018

F s a s y a o f b f o t c, a n n, c i L, a d t t p t a m a c e. N w a e i a g c w, t w t n, o a n s c a s d, c l e...

"How to Memorize Verbatim Text."

I'm reading about this subject because I've long been interested in paraphrasing, and, writing the previous post, I encountered one of those "quotes" that are virtually always remembered in paraphrase form. You know, like "Play it again, Sam" (For "Play it, Sam"). Why do we do that? Does it happen when there's something off about the verbatim quote, and we're really fixing it, making it what it would be if we were writing the screenplay and expecting an actor to say it?

The misremembered quote I ran into this morning is "Why can't I just eat my waffle?" I can tell you for a fact, based on watching the video about 25 times just now, that the verbatim quote is: "I was wondering why it is that, like, I can't just eat my waffle. Just gonna eat my waffle right now."

Why did I watch 25 times? Because I found myself forgetting the word order almost as soon as I heard it even when I was trying to get it verbatim. It was incredibly hard to remember exactly where Obama said "like." Also, the first 3 words are garbled... because he is literally eating the waffle. That's why the word "just" is so important. He's not wondering why he can't eat his waffle. He is eating his waffle. He wants to eat his waffle without having to do something else at the same time.

The difficulty of discerning "I was wondering" might cause listeners to begin the sentence with "why it is that," which sounds odd. I myself, trying to get a verbatim quote, kept switching to "why is it that." There seems to be a strong instinct to switch words into a more natural order, which might say a lot about how language develops and how babies learn to speak in a way that follows established rules (and long before they have any awareness that there are rules that many adults believe in and take pains to enforce).

So if you're looking to memorize verbatim text, it will be easier, I think, if the text you choose follows the natural pattern of speech. And — to continue in the same line of thinking — if you find a particular text strangely hard to memorize, you might want to think about why it was put in that form. Is the speaker/writer hiding something or trying to affect an elevated style? Is there something humorous? Something meant to exclude less intelligent listeners? What's going on?

Did you understand the post title? You will if you read the linked article... the linked... link... ... linc...

That's a technique for memorization. I remember reading, long ago, about papers left by an old woman who couldn't talk and who was assumed to have lost her language ability. It was considered sad that her notes looked like this: o f w a i h h b t n t k c t w b d o e a i i i h....

But then it was understood, and they realized what they were seeing and felt overwhelmed by their failure to understand her.

42 comments:

Nonapod said...

I've been slowly improving my guitar playing over the past 8 months with targeted practice sessions. Advanced playing is about memorizing patterns on the fretboard and committing the complex hand motions to muscle memory which takes a great deal of repetition. But I've found that there's points of diminishing returns with repetition, and a point where repetition can be detrimental. You have to section off time periods for each exercise and know when to stop.

Sleep is an important factor too. After a good night's sleep I've found that I can suddenly flawlessly execute a difficult arpeggio that I was struggling with the evening before. It's fascinating.

traditionalguy said...

IIR,Reading does not create memory of a chain of words, but speaking it out loud does create one, after about 20 repetitions over several days.

My name goes here. said...

YES! To Nonapod, that is.

Many many many times, I have applied a great deal of thought to a subject or a task, and then I sleep, and then next day the task is easy (or able to be done) when it was not the day before.

I assume the brain continues to process specific things why you sleep, essentially there is learning that occurs in slumber.

Freeman Hunt said...

That's how my husband memorizes things.

Otto said...

OBE

Roger Sweeny said...

Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style is partly about how sentences can be written so they are easier to understand or harder to understand. He strongly advocates writing so it is easy for the reader to extract the meaning (see how you had to hesitate there to decide whether "writing" referred to what someone has written or to a person writing?).

Kevin said...

I'm a huge opera fan, and I simply cannot imagine what it takes to memorize the roles. Not only the words, but how to sing each part of them. There was an event that happened in 2014 or so when Kristine Opolais had her role debut as Madama Butterfly at the Met on Friday evening and got to sleep around 4, then was awoken at 7 with a call for her to sing Mimi in La Boheme for the Saturday matinee, which typically starts around 12:30 or 1. She did it. Of course the utter exhaustion made her very convincing as a dying person.

But just that effort that must have been expended to commit a role to memory for the first time in the largest opera house in the world, and 14 hours later having to sing a role that you haven't sung in months or even years, with no warning, and barely even enough time time do makeup and costume. Just amazing.

Stephen said...

The first three texts I learned were before I was 5. They were all prayers (Mother today is still very religious): Now I lay me down to sleep, grace before meals, and the Lord’s Prayer. I remember all of them.

I absorbed information like a sponge till I was nine, then, like Sherlock said, the attic became cluttered.

I Use Computers to Write Words said...

I take "Play it again, Sam." to be a conflation of your clip and this quote, later, from Rick: https://youtu.be/bAlzmRjixr0?t=1m40s which I'd transcribe as "You played it for her, you can play it for me [...] If she can stand it, I can! Play it."

That's where I think the "again" comes from. He never actually says the word "again," but that's the essential meaning of the quote; Sam should play the song for the second time that day. Rick doesn't say "Sam" in this quote (although he does say "Sam" in the full 2:38 minute clip), which is I think people grab "Sam" from your clip, "again" from mine, and "play it" from both. (She also says, "Play it once, for old times sake" immediately before your clip, which I think implants the idea of an adverb after "play it.")

As an aside, I think it's remarkable how many immensely quotable lines there are in under three minutes in this clip

Eleanor said...

That was interesting. I had to memorize the Gettysburg Address for a ceremony in 1968. I don't remember how I did it. I also never thought about whether I could still do it. Using the first letter method in the article, I only had to look back once to be able to recite it from memory again. I'm not sure why it's still stored in my brain 50 years later. It's not something I've ever needed to use in all those years. Sometimes I wish there was a tool for learning how to forget things, too.

Fernandinande said...

remembered in paraphrase from...
Why do we do that?


We have two 'selves.' The experiencing self and the remembered self.

Oh wait, no we don't.

etbass said...

Great, Althouse. Thanks for that. Never heard of it before. I memorize a lot of scripture for personal enjoyment and use and this is a great tool.

J. Farmer said...

Wow. This Reuters article from 22 Apr 2018:

“Why can’t I just eat my waffle?” Obama replied.

Oops.

Ann Althouse said...

"remembered in paraphrase from"

Thanks for the typo alert. Fixed.

Fernandinande said...

"Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no yogurt."

"Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find a way to misplace them."

"Remembering is easy. It's forgetting that's hard, unless you have Alzheimer's."

"The past beats inside me like a bad burrito."

Jupiter said...

This also supposed to be a good way to make passwords that are easy to remember but aren't in any dictionary.

Darrell said...

J. Farmer said...
Wow. This Reuters article from 22 Apr 2018:

“Why can’t I just eat my waffle?” Obama replied.

Oops.

8/20/18, 10:59 AM


You just proved that Reuters is a pack of fucking liars. Remember that for next time.

James K said...

I'm a huge opera fan, and I simply cannot imagine what it takes to memorize the roles. Not only the words, but how to sing each part of them.

Not to disagree with the thrust of what you're saying (I'm a big opera fan as well), but I think it's much easier to memorize words set to music than just plain speech. I'm even more impressed with someone performing, say, Hamlet. (Also, the big opera houses have prompters.)

rhhardin said...

Hearing speech requires automatic forgetting of restarts and other dysfluencies that automatically go into producing speech.

So you literally don't hear them and they're insanely hard to transcribe.

rhhardin said...

I listened to Monteverdi's L'Orfeo every night doing homework in high school (Krebs version) and even today know every note and harmony. When a modern performance changes anything I hear it as glaring. So 2 hours of literal memorization.

But not the words.

James K said...

There's a long list of famous movie/play misquotes, starting with "Play it again, Sam." People seem to remember the sense of the line better than the line itself. "Houston, we have a problem," "Do ya feel lucky, punk?" and so on. Also Shakespeare ("Gild the lily," "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well," etc.

Otto said...

Great anachronistic advice however not that important with the advent of AI.What's more important is memorizing key words or phrases.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I think it's much easier to memorize words set to music than just plain speech.

That's mnemonic memory, the same reason we will never forget the words to "Twinkle Little Star" because we hear the tinkling music and it triggers that area of the brain. Same tune for "A-B-C..." too. Same result.

I still posit (from an earlier thread) that the whole Alex Jones suspension from Twitter is for a bastardized quote of his linking the term "gun" to the term "media," and not based on what Jones actually said. Because he's a hated figure, no one* cares to correct the record.

*In the enemy of the people media

Yancey Ward said...

Reading aloud helps with memorization- don't know why, but it does.

madAsHell said...

"Play it again, Sam"

Although it never did well at the box office, this line was uttered in the sequel "Casablanca II".

James K said...

I still posit (from an earlier thread) that the whole Alex Jones suspension from Twitter is for a bastardized quote of his linking the term "gun" to the term "media," and not based on what Jones actually said. Because he's a hated figure, no one* cares to correct the record.

That goes double for Trump's words after the Charlottesville riots. It was obvious that "good people on both sides" was referring not to white supremacists and antifa, but the people on each side of the monuments issue.

sparrow said...

My Dad said for his med school exams he'd recite his notes aloud. There's inherent reinforcing repetition in reading, speaking, and hearing the same data.

Ray Fowler said...

This is the method I use to memorize passages from the Bible. I find it works great and is also great for reviewing the memorized text. I even created a Bible Memory Version that uses this method in ebook format. http://www.rayfowler.org/digital-books/the-kjv-bible-memory-version/

Sebastian said...

"What difference, at the point, does it make?"

narayanan said...

Yancey Ward said... Reading aloud helps with memorization- don't know why, but it does.

because Your "remembered self" is the "acting self - speaking role"

tcrosse said...

I have no difficulty remembering song lyrics I learned 50 years ago, but have trouble remembering what I had for supper last night.

tim in vermont said...

My sister once sent me to the store to get some thyme, rosemary, and parsley and I simply could not remember the list even for a second until she said it in the order of the song.

PatHMV said...

Professor, I'm fascinated by the story you reference at the end of the post. Can you provide a link (I presume not, since you didn't include one already), or any more details that we might be able to use to track down the article you remember?

Ann Althouse said...

"Professor, I'm fascinated by the story you reference at the end of the post. Can you provide a link (I presume not, since you didn't include one already), or any more details that we might be able to use to track down the article you remember?"

I'll try some more, but I did try to find it. I feel like I've blogged it, but I've looked through all my old posts the mention the Lord's Prayer.

Dave in Tucson said...

> Why do we do that?

I'm not sure I can express this clearly (or maybe it's just my own personal sensibilities?) but there's something kind of awkward about the phrase "play it Sam", that makes it feel unfinished, like it has an unresolved tension, while "play it again Sam" has a satisfying, complete feel.

sinz52 said...

"Does it happen when there's something off about the verbatim quote, and we're really fixing it, making it what it would be if we were writing the screenplay and expecting an actor to say it?"

Absolutely.
This is why you should always ask someone else to proofread some text that you've written rather than try to proofread it yourself. You know what you wrote and what it should say. And as you read it again, your mind is unconsciously correcting spelling and typographical errors as you go so you don't consciously notice them as errors.

sinz52 said...

Our own minds unconsciously edit the quotes of famous figures to make them conform with our own viewpoints.

Example:

"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
-- President Reagan, inaugural address, January 1981

President Reagan was speaking of the particular crisis of 1980-1981. He was NOT claiming that government was always the problem--at least not in that speech. But ever since, conservatives have omitted those first four words because they greatly restrict the scope of the claim.

Anonymous said...

I believe "Play it again, Sam" comes from the Woody Allen movie of the same name.

Sharc 65 said...

Any Masons in the room? Masonic oaths are memorized, but they cannot be written down (for fear that they will be intercepted by the profane). Instead, someone publishes little booklets for aspiring brethren who need to commit oaths to memory. The booklets are full of one-letter representations of each word. Goes back at least a century.

tim in vermont said...

But ever since, conservatives have omitted those first four words because they greatly restrict the scope of the claim.

So it’s only true if it is said the way Reagan said it? That’s like religious people claiming that Darwin believed in a Christian God, even if true, does it change anything?

loudogblog said...

"So if you're looking to memorize verbatim text, it will be easier, I think, if the text you choose follows the natural pattern of speech." As an actor, I can tell you that is 100% true. It's always much easier to learn your lines if they're written like realistic dialogue. I read that the cast of Star Wars had a terrible time memorizing Lucas' script because a lot of it wasn't written like dialogue that people would just naturally say. Also, I was taught that there is no such thing as good acting; there is only good reacting. Lines don't come from nowhere. As an actor, you have to understand why the character wants to say something and why they want to say it in a certain way.

tim in vermont said...

You know, it works with music. I just tried it with that B melody in New York State of Mind, I forget the term for the secondary bit in a song. Instead of listing the chords: Am7 G E7 D7, etc, I just listed the last note in each chord, so that it would be ambiguous and I would have to recall it, but would have a prompt: g d d c, or for a C9, d, etc, etc.

Then I sat down to play it after working with it for a few minutes of harder mental effort than I usually would put in, I admit, but way less time, and if felt like an old familiar piece of music I had played hundreds of times. The nice thing is that it helped me to remember the added tones, like the 9ths, etc, where as the old way, I would just try to remember the C part, and add the 9th if I should happen to remember it. There are a bunch of songs I think that I could do this on to help me finish them out.