Page 264 - Use Your Memory

USE YOUR MEMORY
In those very rare instances when you do have to memorise an
entire speech word for word, the process can be made easy by
applying everything discussed so far in relation to speeches, and
then, for the finishing touches, applying the techniques outlined
in Dramatic Parts and Poems in this chapter.
Jokes
The problems and embarrassments associated with the memori-
sation and the telling of jokes are almost endless. In recent studies
of business people and students, it was found that of the
thousands of people questioned, nearly 80 per cent thought of
themselves as not particularly good joke tellers, all wanted to be
good joke tellers, and all listed memory as their major obstacle.
The memorisation of jokes is actually far easier to deal with than
the memorisation of speeches because the entire creative aspect of
the work has already been done for you. The solution is in two
parts: first, to establish a basic grid to categorise and capture the
main element of the joke; and second, to remember the main
details.
The first of these areas is easily dealt with by using a section of
the Major System as a permanent library for the jokes you wish
to file. First, divide the kind of jokes you wish to tell into general
categories. For example:
Sexual jokes
Animal jokes
National jokes (Irish, Japanese, etc.)
Rhyming jokes
Toilet jokes
Kids' jokes
'Intellectual' jokes
'Saying' jokes
Sport jokes, etc.
List these in numerical preference order and then devote sections
of your Major System to these categories. For example, you might
have the area from 1 to 10 or 1 to 20 for sexual jokes, the numbers
from 10 to 20 or 20 to 40 for national jokes, and so on.
The second area is equally easy to handle; once again it involves
your use of the Link System. Let us take, for example, the joke
about the man who went into a pub and bought a pint of beer.
Having been given his beer, he suddenly realised he had to make
an urgent telephone call, but he knew that some of the characters
in the pub would swipe his pint before he returned. In order to
152