Mixed messages: the first and last letters

Post Reply New Topic

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 toatl 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.

How funny! I could read that perfectly easily. How about everyone else?

Let's post on this thread in the above style. To enable our brains to read the mixed messages, remember to position the first and last letters of each word in the correct place.

I wlil go fsirt.

I mhgit try dinog a ncie lnog wrod, scuh as "atnidisetsbailshmnetairnaism."

Did taht wrok? Cuold yuor brnias raed it poreplry? Did you konw waht taht wrod was wtiohut hvanig to fgiure it out?

I am itnreseted in tihs pheonmonon. Wehn cihldern leran to raed, tehy raed lteter by lteter. At waht satge in our ltirecay dvelepomnet do we bcemoe cpaalbe of raednig wrods as a wohle?

The hmuan mnd wokrs in myessteius wyas, yes? Seplling, schmllnig, its all so orevtrated! Makes you wnondr thuhogh, do people thnik bfore teyy acytlly raed?



<my note....whew! Mis-typing was even harder than spelling properly!>

It olny wkros plerorpy if all the ltretes are trhee. It dsonet seem to wrok for too lnog wdros.

It definitely slows me down and makes the reading rather jittery. Not smooth at all.

I have no idea what that word was meant to be. Are you sure you kept the first and last letters unchanged? Maybe my brain just can't read it properly. I was able to read all the other words you wrote.

Yes, I aerge wtih you taht it's vrey tmie-cnousimng and hrad to wirte lkie tihs. I had to dvesie a mtehod of diong it. I tpye all the wrods poreplry, tehn go bcak and cahgne tehm by ivnreitng two lteetrs at a tmie wtiihn ecah word, wihle kepenig the fsirt and lsat ltetres ucnhnaged.

Wow! That took me a long time. This writing style challenges my brain.

If you ever need a lawyer, you had better hope that he/she knows how to spell correctly and use punctuation properly.

For example, if your lawyer draws up a contract for you and a word is misspelled that creates any ambiguity at all, that ambiguity can be used against you.

Off of the top of my head, I can't remember reading about any such problems with spelling in a contract, but I have certainly read about where punctuation problems in a contract -- too many or too few commas, to be specific -- resulted in major problems.

eric76: indeed.

Divorcing your spouse on the grounds of extra-marital sex would not be the same as divorcing him or her on the grounds of extra marital sex.

The former means s/he cheated on you; the latter means s/he was demanding marathon sex from you all the time. It would be wise to find a lawyer who knows the difference.

The difference is all in the hyphen.

(Lesson: punctuation matters).

That is absolutely stupendous. Thanks for the laugh.

Well, I didn't make it up on my own. I remember reading it in a book by Lynne Truss. It's a book all about punctuation called "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves." If you like laughing and you like punctuation, you would like that book.

"Slow moving traffic" bwa ha ha! Without the hyphen, that turned into an oxymoron.

The pickled herring merchant! Ha ha ha ha ha! I've never seen a merchant who was a pickled herring.

As for members of the Conservative Party: I've never met one, but most of them do tend to strike me as rather odd.

If only two hundred of them are odd, that means the rest are normal. I wonder how many members there are in total?

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/aoccdrnig-to-rscheearch

Apparently, this study doesn't actually exist.

That does not surprise me. The text I quoted above in red was written rather badly. Either it wasn't written by a native English speaker, or it was written by somebody who clearly hasn't been to Cambridge at all. Still, the principle appears to be true, even if no such study has been carried out, and it makes for a fun thread.