BS: Can you raed tihs?

Subject: BS: Cna yuo raed tihs?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 08:30 PM

This is one of those silly forwards, but it's more interesting than the usual ones I get. I don't have any way to check the percentage this mentions. Anyone know anything about this?:

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh, and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 08:31 PM

Yse, I cna. No Prolbem.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: bobad
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 08:33 PM

I can but what about someone who is dyslexic, I wonder how they would do.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Sorcha
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 08:34 PM

No prob for me, but I also speak (written) Drunk 'Ullish!! :D

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 08:43 PM

Yeah. It seems pretty readable to me. That's why that 55 % seems off. Seems more people could read it.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 08:46 PM

I find that easy to read.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 08:58 PM

If you spend any amount of time in chatrooms with people of MY typing abiliy , reading stuff like that becomes second nature !

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Bert
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 09:10 PM

But the research was done by Cmabrigde Uinervtisy. My guess is that their subjects were Cmabrigde Uinervtisy Students.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST,olx
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 09:19 PM

waht a laod of ruuoiilcds nnneosse!

Qaud eart ddseoaunrtnmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 09:24 PM

As pointed out in the other thread on the subject recently, research shows that nearly everybody (who can read at all) will have no real difficulty reading anything where:

1.) all of the letters of the word are present, and
2.) the last letter of the word is in proper place at the end.

In the most widely reported recent research, the 55% figure probably would have refered to the fraction of people who didn't, at least immediately, notice there was anything wrong.

My own observation, - not reported by the researchers - is that most random scrambles of letters work okay. If one groups all the characters with "ascenders," OR all with descenders, at one end, it can be very difficult to get the meaning in longer words (>6 or 7 letters).

All it proves is that most reasonably proficient readers don't read "letters." They read "word shapes." It does support that the last letter of a word is a critical cue to getting it right.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 09:30 PM

I thought we needed the first and last letters to do read scrambled words easily?

Anyway, "because we can" is not enough justification for me to actually waste my time doing it.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 09:32 PM

That's what chellspeckers are for.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: artbrooks
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 09:32 PM

is is sposed to bee hrad?

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 11:18 PM

Isn't this about the fourth of fifth go-round on this damn thing?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 11:23 PM

Yeah WYS, but the last thread went a lot longer.

The problem is: I acn't erebmeebr ohw hte rhtaed itle aws pseleld.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Slag
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 11:25 PM

After wading thru all the whorrendus speling on th intrnt, I'v gottn 2 abowt wher i cn rade enyting, evn sirillyian and greke

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 11:28 PM

It's like the story Kendall told-- just because someone posts this crap doesn't mean we have to reply in Dylsexic!

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Slag
Date: 10 Dec 06 - 11:47 PM

Y knot? eye'd re ply in ree bus if eye cud.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Cluin
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 01:50 AM

All it proves is that most reasonably proficient readers don't read "letters." They read "word shapes."

That's right. That's a good reason not to post in ALL CAPS. It's the lower case letters that give words their shapes. It's why long messages in ALL CAPS are hard on the eyes. You have to read every letter.

Advertising Art 101.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Slag
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 02:02 AM

Hey, I like this post! I find it interesting from several point of view including philology. I do genealogy and spelling was never a precise business until Mr. Webster created the American English Dictionary. Sometime you'd find several different variants of spelling in the same text. This is important when you realize that there have been many unintentional name changes. For example, Koontz in my family became Counts in some place, Koonts in others and Kants in yet others. Braun became Brun, Brown and Baron. That makes tracking down old family members somewhat difficult.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 02:28 AM

Slag -

Compounded by the requirement that census takers (in the US at least) were expected to write nice copperplate, but were quite obviously not required to be able to spell and often made up names if the individual being entered didn't oversee closely.

Of course, one side-branch-by-marriage of my family had a running argument going over the family name a generation or two back that was never settled. Three brothers and pappy in one clump split four different ways, with two additional spellings advocated by aunts and uncles.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST, ...
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 06:40 AM

In the first post the only word I couldn't read was 'sgtrane'.
It wasn't until I had read the second section and reached the explanation about first and last letters that I could go back and solve the anagram.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 06:46 AM

Now I did stuggle a little with sgtrane then but I found it easy in the first post. I suspect this is because "strange" was a word I might have expected in the context of the sentance.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 07:28 AM

Wyh nto jsut og fcuk yuor onw slef?

Sspw

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST,jOhn
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 07:51 AM

looks ok to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 08:00 AM

Interesting in light of the French Connection UK campaign (FCUK)

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 08:48 AM

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht 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 the wrod as a wlohe."

It is debunked here

I am such a spoilsport, I know!

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 09:11 AM

I don't think it debunks it fully but it does support my 6:46AM post. With his example, I got the wrong word for "teird" which casued me a problem but after a few seconds of looking at steecennd, I found it quite easy.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 09:40 AM

Who really wants to know the state of the art:

Rayner, K., White, S., Johnson, R., Liversedge, S. (2006). Raeding Wrods with jumbled Lettres; There is a cost. Psychological Science 17(3), 192-193.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 09:54 AM

Why should I want to bother? If the ignorant bastard wants people to read what's been written, he should become literate.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 10:06 AM

You mean you find that hard to read, Greg?

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Teribus
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 11:06 AM

I would have been very surprised if frequent visitors to this forum would have encountered problems with this, after all we have been reading posts by jOhn and Bobert for years.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 11:53 AM

A linik to some details of the study Wolfgang mentioned:

http://blogs.msdn.com/fontblog/archive/2005/11/16/493452.aspx

And some more debunking:

http://blogs.msdn.com/fontblog/archive/2006/05/09/594050.aspx

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 12:06 PM

I tried this with the google toolbar spellchecker, and it missed ten words. Whereas I got them all - but then I'm reading for sense and context.

I wonder why some people seem to find this annoying? Is it that they take it as undermining the importance of correct spelling?

I don't think it does. I see it as a useful reminder that most of the time we aren't using spelling, as such, as our primary way of reading once we've got into the way of reading. Rather the same way we don't think about the notes when we are playing or singing, but that doesn't mean that it isn't important to get the notes right.

That rule there - "the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae" (spell it how you will) is obviously oversimplified, since, as that "debunking" link showed, it's pretty easy to produce text that fits that rule and yet isn't easy to read - but the basic assertion, that we can make sense of jumbled up words most of the time, is obviously true. And I think it is interesting as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Emma B
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 12:55 PM

As someone who is dyslexic I have always read words by their "shape" - The first and last letter are important for recognition but so is the shape and context; for example pool and pond might be "transferable" and marital and martial can only be differentiated when read in a sentance.
I can't "do" anagrams atall!

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 12:58 PM

I started this thread. Didn't know it had been addressed before. Was just curious about the 55% figure. I wondered what criteria were used to arrive at that figure. I'll check out the debunking link and the stuff from Wolfgang and bagpuss later. Should satisfy my curiosity. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Scoville
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 01:14 PM

Doesn't even slow me down that much.

I can read upside down and backwards, though, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST,Marion
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 08:04 PM

Here's another little test:

Count the number of times the letter F appears in the following sentence:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS

OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE

EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.






(just giving you some space here so you don't see the answer before solving the problem)




















There are 6, but many people only find 3 at first. If you only found 3, try it again. If you still can't find all 6, keep trying until you do. There isn't a trick in the instructions; there really are 6 "F"s in the capitalized sentence.









I find this puzzle intriguing because I found 3 at first, then when I was told there were 6 I went over the sentence very carefully (I thought) and still didn't find the others. I'm curious to know how many you find initially, and if it wasn't all 6, how difficult it was for you to find the rest of them.

The explanation I've heard for this is similar to the opening post: that highly literate people don't look at every letter but at word shapes, especially for short words. So when you see "of", your brain refuses to see an O and an F, even when you're going slowly and deliberately looking for an individual letter.

Marion

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 08:17 PM

I missed the 3 OFs. It took me some time to realise where I was going wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 08:18 PM

"Braun became Brun, Brown and Baron. That makes tracking down old family members somewhat difficult."

Sometimes that's the reason old family members changed the spelling of their name in the first place ...


About the scrambled letters: bear in mind that, except for the scramled letters, the text is error-free, whereas when you encounter scrambled letters in "real life", they're usually in the midst of scrambled grammar, scrambled syntax, scrambled thinking, and, as often as not, scrambled eggs.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: Slag
Date: 11 Dec 06 - 11:44 PM

We should all be great on the Jumble Puzzle(s) in the newspapers.

"Railroad crossing, look out for cars!" Can you spell that without any "R"s??

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 12 Dec 06 - 05:25 AM

(try again)

6 'F's first time - which apparently proves I can spell 'OF'.

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: GUEST,shaneo
Date: 12 Dec 06 - 06:22 AM

That

Subject: RE: BS: Can you raed tihs?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Dec 06 - 07:11 AM

whereas when you encounter scrambled letters in "real life", they're usually in the midst of scrambled grammar, scrambled syntax, scrambled thinking, and, as often as not, scrambled eggs.

Not really - more often than not they are just typos, where someone, typing carelessly, hasn't checked.