The code
| Digit | Consonant sounds |
|---|---|
| 0 | s, z, soft c |
| 1 | t, d |
| 2 | n |
| 3 | m |
| 4 | r |
| 5 | l |
| 6 | j, sh, ch, soft g |
| 7 | k, hard c, hard g |
| 8 | f, v |
| 9 | p, b |
Vowels and the letters w, h and y have no value.
The two rules
- Sound, not spelling. "Knee" is 2, because the k is silent; "phone" is 82, because ph sounds like f.
- A doubled letter counts once when it makes one sound. "Butter" is 914.
Every consonant sound you pronounce counts, so a word must contain exactly the right sounds - "palm" is 953, not 93.
How it is used
Practitioners usually learn one fixed word for every number from 00 to 99. A long number is then split into pairs, and each pair is already a picture that can be placed in a memory palace or linked into a short story. It is used for PINs, phone numbers, dates and, in competition, for strings of hundreds of digits. The PAO system extends it by giving every pair a person, an action and an object.
Where it came from
Systems that turn digits into letters go back to the seventeenth century. The phonetic version used today took shape in the nineteenth century and has been refined by many teachers since, which is why word lists vary while the code itself stays the same.
Memory Palace - Brain Training
Number training with the Major System and PAO, with a full 00-99 list, on Apple TV. · Apple TV