pinfruit is for memorizing numbers, such as credit card numbers and bank identifiers. It acts as a word sequence generator for numbers, automating the laborious part of mnemonic major system, an old mnemonic technique. It all works on the principle that it is easier to remember words than numbers.
On the most basic level, the major system is a method of translating numbers into words and words back into numbers. There are usually many ways to translate a number into words, but there is always only one number that corresponds to a given sequence of words. For each of the ten digits there is a set of one or more phonemes. The digit 0 is remembered by the phonemes 's' and 'z', as in yes and zoo. Here is the complete list as supported by pinfruit. The last column features an explanation by which to remember the association.
| Digit | Phoneme | Examples | Hint |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | s,z | yes, zoo | zero starts with z, s sounds similar |
| 1 | t,d | toy, day | t has similar shape to 1, d sounds similar |
| 2 | n | wing | n has two downstrokes |
| 3 | m | home | m has three downstrokes |
| 4 | r | ear | last letter of four |
| 5 | l | whole | L is the roman numeral for 50 |
| 6 | j,sh,ch | jaw, show, issue, witch | - |
| 7 | k,g | ok, guy | capital K contains two sevens |
| 8 | f,v | few, view | f resembles 8 |
| 9 | p,b | happy, bath | p and b resemble 9 |
Note: Mnemonic Major System is a phonetic system. Phonems usually correspond to letters but not always. For instance the word ice is pronounced with the sound s, so in the Mnemonic Major System it encodes the number 0. Another example is big issue which encodes 976 (9-b, 7-g, 6-sh), not 9700.
pinfruit helps in finding the right sequence of words for a number. It knows about more than 100 000 words and their pronounciations, and can find all possible words encoding a prefix of a number in a blink of an eye.
For almost all numbers there are hundreds if not thousands of possible sequences to encode it. The best sequences of words depend on the cotext of the number, for example what it is for, and your personal preferences. It also helps if the words in the sequence are easy to visualize. You, the user, are building the sequence from the multitiude of options offered.
pinfruit lets you pick your sequence word by word. Each time you select a word, you encode a part of the number, and a list of words good for the remainder of the digits shows up. You can backtrack any time using the backtrack arrow.
The words are color coded according to their part of speech. There are three highlight classes: verb, noun and words that work in either role (an in-between color). On top of that, adjectives are marked bold. Some words are not colored due to missing information.
The superscript denotes the length of the digit sequence encoded by the word and shows only if it is three or greater.
Let's assume that you want to memorize '92841'. Type it into the entry field in the app. As you type, pinfruit is already searching for possible words to encode the beginning of the number. You will see many words to choose from, one of them will be pin -- it encodes 92. Once you click pin, you will see words for encoding the remaining digits: 841. Next, click fruit and you are done. There will be no more words showing up because the whole number is encoded already as pin fruit. 92841 is a relatively short number, usually it will take more than 2 words to encode a number. You can click on the back arrow to backtrack, that is, to undo the last word selection.