Hi all,
I'm so glad i've found this post, as 'alphabetising' is something i've been practising now for over 10 years.
For me it started when i was at school and learned to play the Piano, i was given finger exercises to stretch my fingers and i quickly turned this into a pattern game by where, starting with my pinkie finger and going up to my thumb, i would tap my fingers one by one against my thumb (when i got to my thumb i'd tap it on my palm) in the order 5-4-3-2-1, ending up with my middle finger, i'd then do it backwards ending up on my pinkie finger again. This then took on a variety of different forms, some using letters and some using melody. I'm a musician by trade so melody was something i was always fascinated in. I'd create melodies and split them into sequences of 5-4-3-2-1 (often adding an extra note to create a sequence of 16 notes, fitting into a 4/4 time signature) the first finger or note would always be the highest too, so if you think if it in musical notes, my pinkie finger would be an E and my thumb would be an A so the pattern would go E-D-C-B-A-B-C-D-E-D-C-B-C-D-C (adding in another D to get back to E to start the whole sequence again.)
Then words started to become more dominant in my mind, the 5-4-3-2-1 pattern that i practised stayed as it was and is something i still do today with my fingers, but a new practise of alphabetisation started to emerge; I broke the alphabet down into groups that satisfied my finger patterns and came up with a sequence that i now use to break down and alphabetise any word i fixate upon. The pattern is as follows;
A-BCD-E-FGH-I-JKLMN-O-PQRST-U-VWXYZ
Essentially i've split the alphabet into groups, each group being separated by a vowel. Each vowel is a group of it's own too so essentially you have 10 groups. Now for the sake of symmetry, i then took off the last group (thus creating 9+1 groups) (which you see is slanted) and that became a special group with each letter having unique properties. (I'll get into that later)
Now if you take the middle character from each group of letters, (groups with one letter you just take that letter) you spell a word which i consider to be the perfect word;
A C E G I L O R U X
(not sure how you'd pronounce it)
Each letter also had it's own hierarchical value in that depending on what word i was breaking down, certian letters (or groups) would have order priority over others. So for example;
LAPTOP in order becomes ALOPPT
But using my system, vowels take precedence over consonants so to satisfy my order;
ALOPPT becomes ALPPOT
This is because the 'O' is 4th in the order of vowels and as such should come after it's subsequent group of consonants (PQRST) if it is positioned before the middle of the word.
Let's look at another example.
CAT in order becomes ACT
This satisfies my order as the A should be at the start as it's the first vowel
If it was COT however (which is already in order) then i would change that to CTO as the O has to come after the middle. This however is a bit of a dirty word as O shouldn’t really go at the end of a word (U or Z should) so i’d change the O to U and then have a completely different word to play with
I was talking earlier about the last group in the sequence VWXYZ, these letters have unique properties in that i classify them almost the same as vowels A/V=1 E/W=2 I/X=3 O/Y=4 U/Z=5
so if there was a VWXY or Z in a word it would have to come in that portion of the word. For example;
TAX in order is ATX
but to satisfy my order, (X being the middle of it’s group) it would change to; AXT
Another;
VAN in order is ANV
but to satisfy my order it actually goes back to being VAN (although like COT before this is now a dirty word as you can’t have an A in the middle of an ordered word) so i’d change it to VIN.
Just like a poster a few comments back, this practise has been the cause of anxiety and depression for me, i’ve recently been put onto SSRI’s and have been referred to a CBT clinic which i have varying degrees of confidence will actually do anything.
I guess i don’t really want anything to change, i’d just like to have some freedom over when i practise this in my head as i feel as though i can’t control when it happens and as such i’m missing out on a lot of creative and otherwise useful thought time.
I hope this has intrigued some of you as this is the first real time i’ve had an opportunity to explain my ways to an audience that will appreciate and understand it for what it is.
Thanks for reading. If any one wants to get in touch to discuss then please feel free my email is **
Laurence
