(no subject)

[davywavy]

Back in Ye Goode Olde Dayes, when schools were a constant frenzy of beatings and brutality*, children would have lengthy poems drummed into them as part of the education process. It wasn't unusual for people to be able recite the entirety of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner or The wreck of the Hesperus at the drop of a hat.
This was probably a good thing as training the brain young to process, store and recall large amounts of information has long-term benefits in life.

The thing about the brain when you're young is that it doesn't know what is important and so tries to remember everything, just in case. Without the sort of training above, the brain just acts as an information sponge and soaks up whatever it can - which explains why I can recite the lyrics to Ian Gillans No laughing in heaven at the drop of a hat almost 30 years after it came out. I used to be able to do a fair stab at reciting the entire script of Jean-Claude van Damme's Bloodsport as well.
This is a pretty damning indictment of how I spent my youth.

So there's the question for the day: What can you recite from when you were a kid, having learned it off by heart before you realised what a waste of time and brain-space doing so was?

*By the teachers, that is. These days it's by the pupils, and on YouTube.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

"My Gallant Men are Ready," which is the poem that Joe recites to distract a guard in "Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy."

I believe your brother may know this one by heart as well.

H

[song-of-copper.livejournal.com]

"'Is there anybody there?' said the traveller, knocking on the moonlit door..."

[I am now having a flashback to Upper II's poetry-themed assembly... we had sound-effects and everything. Coconut shells, the full works!]

Also, Blackadder scripts. ^_^

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Oh gods...

I think I know that one too.

"and his horse in the silence chomped on the grass, of the forest's ferny floor" is how it continues, I think?

I LOVED that when I was a kid.

[song-of-copper.livejournal.com]

Pretty much! I've found the text of it here ...

[caseytalk.livejournal.com]

I can recite Jaberwocky (The Lewis Carroll version, not the film) by heart. While it's not that long, learning nonsense is trickier than learning regular speech.

I can also recite nearly the complete rock opera Jesus Christ, Superstar which just reinforces that I am a very old person.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Sister can make a fair stab at reciting Jabberwocky in French.

[caseytalk.livejournal.com]

And unlike me, you can spell it correctly.

[rssefuirosu.livejournal.com]

I can sing the opening libretto by Judas and most of the chorus songs, but that's because I was in it lol.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

American Pie. All of it. Every single verse.

I learned it for a choral competition and it's never gone away.

Puck's speech at the end of a Midsummer Night's Dream as well, and a few other of Shakespeare's final speeches. I used to be able to do Prospero as well, but that's faded a bit.

I've got a big chunk of Rudyard Kipling's poetry stuck in my brain as well, but I think that was self inflicted rather than teacher inflicted. Ditto my capacity to recite huge chunks of Lord of the Rings.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Gosh, yes I can recall the intro speech to Romeo And Juliet as well, come to think about it.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Totally randomly, when the list of the nation's favourite poems was announced it was suggested (by a variety of snotty critics I think) that people hadn't voted for the best poems they had ever heard or known, but mostly the poems they remembered best from school.

Having seen the list, I suspect they may be right, but feel there is nothing necessarily wrong with that.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It's like people getting married in church after not having been there in years and the hymns are always things like Morning has broken, and We plough the fields and scatter as those are the only ones they know...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I like that, tho!

I hate weddings where the bride and groom have chosen some obscure hymn because it's got one line they like, and no one knows the tune. Then what you get is this hideous wheezing noises as lots of guests try and sing along, whilst always being half a beat behind the organ.

And then (if you're me) you want to cry.

(very very tragically I worked out which hymns I'd have at my wedding years ago. But then, I really like hymns. I think they are much underappreciated as a form of music.)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Should I get married I shall have hymns like Fight the good fight, just because it'd be funny.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I was very disappointed to be told that my favourite hymn - Lord of the Dance - is traditionally played at the funerals of suicides. Then I decided not to let that stop me!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Song requests for funerals are a subject for another post, methinks?

[caseytalk.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I know nearly all of Alice's Restaurant by heart. See comment about being old above.

[nicnac.livejournal.com]

Large chunks of Macbeth and a rhyme to remember pi to 21 decimal places.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, that remind me - the mnemonic to remember the first twenty elements on the periodic table.

[akcipitrokulo.livejournal.com]

0294 67418.

Learned it at about 3/4 years old - my granda's number at the time. First thing I recall deliberately committing to memory!

[akcipitrokulo.livejournal.com]

The Nicene creed... just through repitition!

[rssefuirosu.livejournal.com]

Pi to 20 decimal places is pretty much the only thing I pull out as a stock response to this question. There must be other stuff, but I prefer to let it happen whenever so I don't look quite so smug when it happens. I do enough of that the rest of the time. :D

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

The only thing that requires exact memorization that I'm sure I remember is my aunt's phone number from after her first move... She's not lived in that house (or even the state) since the early 1990's. Unfortunately, large things I had previously memorized that could serve me much better (The Declaration of Independence, Amendments 1-10 of the US Constitution, the entire musical score to Cats... Wait, strike that last one.) are gone to the wind.

At this point I can't even quote my favorite quotes properly. (I botched Ben Franklin during History class last night because I keep getting a quote of his mixed up with a quote from Churchill...)

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

Jabberwocky, and the first couple of verses of "The Lesson" by Michael Rosen.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Perhaps worryingly, I discover I can recite both The Devil came over to yorkshire and Scooby Doo, burning bright by heart, which is a bit sad considering that I wrote them.

*brutality?

[applez.livejournal.com]

*This strikes me as mere sub-contracted brutality, with free market perverted-Whuffie aspects.

To answer your question, Poe's The Bells. Useless other than a cadence which serves during hard cross-country walking or cycling.

Re: *brutality?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I've suggested sub-contracted school discipline on these pages before, and got little but witless abuse for my trouble: http://davywavy.livejournal.com/208786.html

Re: *brutality?

[applez.livejournal.com]

Haha, abnormal deviants indeed. ;-)

For some reason or other, I can't help feeling that a significant portion of your population might find the cane more of a reward than punishment...but then, I'm just carrying on. ;-p

[fonnparr.livejournal.com]

The number plates of cars that I have owned, I tend to use them for passwords.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

My PiN number is still the last four digits of a girl I was seeing at university.

[(Anonymous)]

She doesn't read this does she?

D

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Phone number, dammit!

[(Anonymous)]

well that's your PIN out in the public domain

D

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

If she can remember the last four digits of her number 15 years ago, and also is aware of which girl, then I reckon she's welcome to it.