How do people memorize things? It works in a strange way. Not all of it is based on length. Other factors such as: repetition, grouping, association, rhyming, sensibility (how much it makes sense), and the content of the poem affect how easily a thing can be memorized.
Length probably plays the biggest role, however 20 words with equality of the other factors compared to 24 words might not be any different. On the other hand, memorizing 60 words with minor small word mistakes is over 100 times harder than 5 word of exact precision, simply because memorizing one sentence is nearly as hard, or even easier to memorize than a single word.
Repetition plays a relatively small role, but it can make two lines seem like one. If a whole poem only changed a single word on the end (with all the other words staying the same) then it would be as easy as if it was a simple list. One big example is "If" by Rudyard Kipling.
Grouping actually does the most when it is not used to much. One word per line (with many lines) is only slightly harder that one single long line. In small amounts, simply moving words around while making the poem seem longer is very easy to increase the difficulty a notch. In the end though, not that much of a difference.
Association, the next one is all about how you can relate to it which ties into the content of the poem. One example is if you know a phrase, and that phrase appears in the poem you unlock the gate with one word and the other words just come naturally: effectively decreasing the poem's length.
A poem that does not make sense is super hard to memorize. If a poem was entirely written of Old English or a language that uses the same words in different ways, or written from slang. Once you do understand you can use the story to direct the poem or memorize the front words and Associate the words with each other. You can easily memorize poems!
Length probably plays the biggest role, however 20 words with equality of the other factors compared to 24 words might not be any different. On the other hand, memorizing 60 words with minor small word mistakes is over 100 times harder than 5 word of exact precision, simply because memorizing one sentence is nearly as hard, or even easier to memorize than a single word.
Repetition plays a relatively small role, but it can make two lines seem like one. If a whole poem only changed a single word on the end (with all the other words staying the same) then it would be as easy as if it was a simple list. One big example is "If" by Rudyard Kipling.
Grouping actually does the most when it is not used to much. One word per line (with many lines) is only slightly harder that one single long line. In small amounts, simply moving words around while making the poem seem longer is very easy to increase the difficulty a notch. In the end though, not that much of a difference.
Association, the next one is all about how you can relate to it which ties into the content of the poem. One example is if you know a phrase, and that phrase appears in the poem you unlock the gate with one word and the other words just come naturally: effectively decreasing the poem's length.
A poem that does not make sense is super hard to memorize. If a poem was entirely written of Old English or a language that uses the same words in different ways, or written from slang. Once you do understand you can use the story to direct the poem or memorize the front words and Associate the words with each other. You can easily memorize poems!
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