Can You Read This? - A Cambridge University Research

[Bobbieo]

Do you have a strange mind? :-)

Cna yuo raed tihs? if yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid, too.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulatcly 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 hhu? Yaeh, and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Qoestuin -
Can thsi be doen in ohter lnagugues? Snapsih, Fenrch, Iatilan, Gerek, Rissuan. Chenise, Jaapense, Herbew, Aaribc?

[flor de jasmim]

1. I've seen it in Portuguese and Danish. It works in other languages, too.

[Glorfindel]

2. I guess I'm strange, then

I can read it with no difficulty. Very interesting indeed.

[Juche]

3. You misspelled something

You wrote 'doen' instead of 'dnoe'. That was the only part that tripped me up.

[BlooInBloo]

4. It's a fun, but well-known information theoretic aspect of most natural languages: redundancy...

Natural languages are about 50% redundant. That's not per se a flaw, as it provides a great deal of "fault tolerance", even for entertainment purposes, like crossword puzzles.

Here's a decent article on the information-theoretic basics (which have been known for decades) that aims to specifically talk about their application to spelling.

http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j2/knowles1.php


EDIT: Slightly more technical information at wikipedia and other related sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_entropy

[zeemike]

5. I have no problem reading it

But then I am a horrible speller. I can read my own writing or others with many misspelled words and never notice it.
And I know that some people are driven nuts by even the slightest misspelling.
Thank god for spelling checkers.

[pansypoo53219]

6. dyslexia helps for once.

also helped for shakespeare.

[Nevernose]

7. That's why we use the Whole Language approach

Rather than focus on phonics.