Btetrr tahn the uusal ibnox jnuk.

posted 17 Sep 2003, 8PM | 13 Comments

One of the more interesting email forwards I've received recently:
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but raethr the wrod as a wlohe.
One of those rare ocassions with email when form reinforces content. Funny how quickly I can read that paragraph - word shape coupled with context seems to do the job. I wonder if it's an entirely different experience for people with different sorts of learning and language processing disabilities?

There are 13 Comments

1

17 Sep 03 at 09:14PM Trip said:

I received this email also and asked my dyslexic gf to attempt to read it. She found it quite difficult. In fact, my final year comp. sci. project was writing an app for a client who was a researcher into reading problems associated with the Whole Word technique. You can find an article of his on the UK Reading Reform Foundations site or see his new software on his own site.

2

18 Sep 03 at 12:43AM Adam said:

I'm really interested in where this started... because I'm fairly sure it had nothing to do with Cambridge University.

3

18 Sep 03 at 05:46AM Sirkku said:

Oh :-) Another email going around the world..

I received this yesterday in german and english - and was amazed how fast I was able to read and understand them both - being a native finnish speaker :-))

4

18 Sep 03 at 02:32PM Jeff Croft said:

Does it work it the letters are all uppercase? Just curious, since word shape plays a big role here and uppercasing would effectivley negate the shape of the letters.

Jeff

5

18 Sep 03 at 04:37PM Lisser said:

Something random that everyone should see and enjoy.... Watch the "Isabel Moves in" video footage a ways down the page...you will be on the floor laughing precisely 2:59 minutes into the video. I will never understand live news reporters....
My favorite quote: "They were just trying to make a reading on that wind...when he got PHYSICALLY BLOWN AWAY. He's ok, he's ok..."

6

18 Sep 03 at 10:03PM katia said:

I got that email too and was glad to know that all my accidentally dyslexic typing woudln't matter that much. Hopefully... One hand just seems to be faster than the other sometimes!

7

19 Sep 03 at 07:36AM Lisser said:

Oopsies. Forgot the link: http://www.wnbc.com/index.html
Go to that and scroll down to "Feedroom Video" and watch 5 minutes of hilarious Hurricane coverage.

8

19 Sep 03 at 10:06AM dan said:

I could see this as useful as a type of subliminal messaging, you could have most of the words be random arrays of letters but have some that tell you something. You would read it without thinking it said anything.
Hnjnraf jaljngl kjdjfik Rayn Gntaz kjljljad blwos mnkoyes for peslarue and pofrit njdnf jnbfdj uisdfg. Mmmhhh tstay mnkoey.

9

22 Sep 03 at 03:20PM ryan said:

Huh. After reading your two lines of complete ADSGDGFAS gibberish, I suddenly have an urge to go to the zoo. I wonder why?

10

23 Sep 03 at 08:54AM Peter said:

That is very interesting. My English isn't horribly bad, but not my native tongue. Still, no problems at all here, I could read the paragraph at the same speed I would normally.

Sweet.

11

24 Sep 03 at 06:17PM tony said:

i remember reading something once about how dyslexic people see things more like frogs or horses do. It would certainly be hard to verify such a thing, but it does make me wonder if this disadvantage has some advantageous uses (despite social order requires another breed of person).

Like schizophrenia. These things are not necessarily disadvantageous, say like broken legs would be.

12

28 Sep 03 at 09:41AM Chris said:

"It would certainly be hard to verify such a thing"

Yeah -- good luck getting a horse to read the sentence.

13

28 Sep 03 at 01:28PM ryan said:

Great. So much for allowing anonymous comments.

Comments are now closed for this entry. May spammers burn in firey brimstone.

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