The wodners of lagnauge

[mahnmut]

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Comments

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

They might have a point. I could read your post just fine.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

You konw rihgt.

[ghoststrider.livejournal.com]

Thsi si odl nwes.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

No no you hvae to keep teh frist and lsat letetr in thier rghit plcaes.

[ghoststrider.livejournal.com]

Dno't crae, siltl old nwes.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Strangely enough, when I see a sentence like that I am usually about half way through before I realize it, but have just one word like taht in the middle and it jumps out.

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

I'm the same way. I wonder if it's got something to do with subconsciously being on the lookout for common misspellings like "taht", or maybe that t and th are different things in English.

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

The new 1337speak?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Lolcats know best!

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I think it's close to true, but not quite. Its very true that we don't read all the letters and in fact are looking at patterns both in word forms and in the order of words (we expect certain words to come next and gloss over one we recognize as fitting), for instance 'ltteers' makes sense mainly because of context, the wordform itself is messed up and would be hard to make sense of without that context.

'lsat' is actually hard to read because there's lots of things that could contextually follow. 'pcleas' also is vague in context and the wordform doesn't give a good indicator.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

So it's not as simple as it looks. You can't just mess the inner letters in any random manner. It still has to make some sense. And that's an art of some sorts.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Yep! It is interesting to look at things like this we take for granted though! -how we make sense of words.

This is one reason I wish I knew how to read sanskrit type characters, I bet it takes a completely different set of recognition skills.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Yes, hieroglyphs are fundamentally different. And that makes them the more fascinating.

[alphistia.livejournal.com]

Does that work in Dutch? All those double letters and "ij" clusters might make many words incomprehensible...

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Don't know, might have to try.

[hannahsarah.livejournal.com]

I think it only took me a fraction of a second longer to read that, than if it were in the proper order. My daughter is 7, and it's fascinating watching the process of her learning to read "fluently". Every now and then, if she doesn't know the word exactly, she'll substitute the nearest word in her vocabulary that has a similar sound.

"Frank was 21 years old when he murdered Janet."
"Murdered?" I read over the page. "No honey, MARRIED. Nobody gets murdered!"

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Ha! HAHAHA! I better buckle up for more lulz in the near future. When did she start reading?

[hannahsarah.livejournal.com]

She started reading pretty early, but she's just now being able to read chapter books independently, and figuring things out (mostly, LOL) on her own.

She's full of great moments. When we were at synagogue a few weeks ago, I went into the restroom and asked her if she wanted to come in also. She said "No, I think I'll just wait here, but if you come out and you don't see me, then that means I'm somewhere else."

OK, good to know! 0_o

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

LOL. They're full of brilliant moments, those sweeties.