Hi! I’m Maike. A few months ago, I posted my 3-digit Major System with fictional characters. I hadn’t filled my list of objects, though, so today I want to share my full Major System containing both people and objects.
Some important observations:
- The phoneme /h/ encodes the digit 4 together with the sound of the letter “R”.
- People’s honorifics are ignored and don’t encode digits (Mr., Mrs., etc.)
- For objects, prepositions don’t encode digits (of, in, etc.)
- The parentheses in front of the people’s names contain the game/movie/show/anime that the character comes from.
- The parentheses in front of the objects’ names contain synonyms or things that look similarly.
- The names of objects in red mean that they were chosen for my personal list. Sometimes an object appeared in multiple cells because of synonyms, so it helped a lot to know whether or not one of its names had already been chosen.
- Some objects are sculptures, which may be represented by either its name or the artist’s.
- My mother language is Portuguese, so some names aren’t in English.
The excel spreadsheet contains two tabs. The first one displays 0, 1, 2, and 3-digit PO lists (yes, I have images representing nothing as well); a complete description of the phoneme-digit relationships of the Major System used; and a few instructions in Portuguese, which I translated above. The second tab contains my personal Major System, i.e. the list of people and objects that I chose to represent each number. They were picked in order to be the most distinguishable and memorable as possible.
If you’re a Portuguese speaker, please read this post where I explain my changes to the Major System and their implications in more detail.
Some possible questions:
-
Why are there only fictional characters?
Because they are more memorable and more distinguishable than real people. For instance, can you distinguish Brad Pitt from Leonardo DiCaprio in your mind’s eye as well as you can, let’s say, Sonic from Bowser? Moreover, fictional characters are more consistent because they often always wear the same clothes. This makes it easier to review and build a solid image in our head by visualizing the same appearance over and over again. -
Are there exceptions to the rules?
No, there aren’t. If you find one, please let me know. -
Why does H represent 4 together with the R sound?
I did this to adapt the Major System to Portuguese, my mother language. Later, this made filling the fours a lot easier, so I’d recommend it to English speakers as well. However, this makes it impossible to use the shadow system, but you can still use alternatives, like the Double-2-Block System. -
How can this list be useful if I don’t know most of the images?
For most cells, there are multiple options, so it’s likely that you’re going to know at least one. However, if you don’t know any, you can still use the most memorable one. I myself didn’t know most of those characters and a good number of objects, but they were still memorable because of their striking appearance. Remember: you’re going to see those images so many times that all of them will become familiar to you anyway. Of course, it’s better to pick an option that is both already familiar and distinguishable, but there is no need to limit yourself, especially when building a 3-digit system. -
Is the list family friendly?
The list of people is family friendly, except for a few characters from horror movies. The list of objects, however, is a little bit less age-appropriate for children, but it doesn’t contain anything that you wouldn’t already find in sex education or biology classes.
OK, I won’t waste your time any further. Here is the list:
Feel free to ask any question!
