h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can you raed this? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

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

I bleivee I hvae now seen tihs enugoh tmeis taht it is stanritg to bmecoe sapm. My gut rcietaon is taht it is prtaly to do wtih ceelvr loayut of the ragrrenead ltteres (I cterinlay had to sawp a few oevr wilhe tpinyg tihs), and plarty the fcat taht tehre are sfiuecfnit two and tehre-lteteerd wdors to mkae snsee of the wolhe tinhg.

Awnyay, 2elgs weitrs lkie tihs all the tmie.

B

even foreigners can read it. I must admit that the "iproamtnt tihng" did confuse me a bit.

surely the plepoe in Cmabrigde don't write like this? not all of them?

I know that anagrams are much harder if the letters are rearranged into alphabetical order. I haven't time to try this with the additional element of the first and last letters being in the right place.

I thought it was interesting that (to me, anyway), B's was harder to read than the original. Of course, this could be that I've seen the original a fair few times now and am subconsciously remembering some or all of it.

nah, the story is a bit of an urban myth - seems that the actual mixed up text is from a psychology paper on language units (from uni of notts I think).

After all, there are actually words which have the same first and last letters and the same middle letters but in a different order so we must use context as well as word form to determine the word to be read. Reading is a tad more complicated than the story suggests. And there's more than one way of doing it. Certainly word shape does play a part for advanced readers. But we also don't read a sentence sequentially, the eyes jump ahead and jump back to build the meaning up.

some something about the history of this particular meme...
http://www.bisso.com/ujg_archives/000227.html
there we go.

Uoy ddni't hvae ot go to teh trouble of craeting a massege in a spaceil Mu Beta from taht mekas it eesiar fro ouy to undarsetnd. Sreluy ti wulod hvee bene eesair to hvae upt me dwon in pilan Egnilsh.
Wot nad tehre-lteteerd wdors hvae bene jeblmubd pu ot csat smoe dubot on yuor tehory.
It would seem that there are degrees of ability to read such presentations just as there are degrees of capability to present plain English.
Srroy fro nay icnieenvnocne.

Hmm, that seems to prove MB right, I had a much harder time reading AB's post than any of the other jumbled parts. Mind you, I'm farmiliar with the first post, and had some context to assist with the others.

I agree, it's probably the being familiar with AB's text as well as the context which are important. I had trouble with Hapi's out of context posting of the word iproamtnt - I had to go back to the original post to see what it meant.

I find all of those things extremely easy: I've taught English as a Foreign Language for over 40 years.Spelling is generally easier than grammar, so it's worth getting one bit right to be polite.

I've seen the same writing style used as a poster in railway stations about verbal and physical abuse of staff. This wasn't the standard description text that was given at the top of this thread but an original piece of writing, so couldn't be learned phrasing, but I still managed to read it quite easily.

I also found it quite easy to read - the only issue was the three letter words = e.g. wot for two ,which doesn't start and end with the same letter, thus breaking the rule! Also I saw this at Uni (studying Psychology), and wanted to base my Dissertation around it, and typing skills, but got knocked back because of software costs involved...

Mind you I'm also pretty good at gnidear sgniht sdrawkcab, certainly if the words are in the correct forwards order.

!tluciffid erom tib a steg ti sdrawkcab si gnihtyreve fI

Your all talking In welsh cantoneese or some other utterly unintellgible (to me) language Mind, it has of me been said often that sometimes it isn't necessarily the case that by which in how it is said that conveyed verbally via written worss necessarily indicates therein to those that do to it view that which might or at least have once been necessarily intended as that that was as described before given as to have been or been intended to be that which was in itself given as that through the scripts diploid. or something.

Jsut a liltte tset ti fnid out weehhtr or not sagnrte txet can be rceeignosd - and tinryg Gmnnoo's seggiostun auobt aaabcehilptl oderr - tghouh I'm not srue it's mroe dcffiilut to be pceeflrty henost...

That looks just as easy to read to me.

You probably need to cut down on the lager, in that case.

B

>> Jsut a liltte tset ti fnid out weehhtr or not sagnrte txet can be
>> rceeignosd - and tinryg Gmnnoo's seggiostun auobt aaabcehilptl
>> oderr - tghouh I'm not srue it's mroe dcffiilut to be pceeflrty
>> henost...

I deciphered all of those words at regular reading speed except 'sagnrte', which - even in context - required more than a few moments thought

Meta-strange?

The caceihml cmnoopud, pilnovyyl aacette, is a celloorsus, waetr-ibllnosue reisn begilnnog to the failmy of oaginrc pelmorys, paeeprrd by taeinrtg its memnoor,
ilnvy aacette wtih pdeiorxe caalsttys.

More difficult, but not significantly so. Probably due to unfamiliarity of the words rather than the rearrangement.

Plain English still helps

Before
Hgih-qtuliay etneimronns are a ncsreseay porecnoidtin for foaicilitatn and ennmancehet of the oniongg lneiarng pscoers.

After
Ceidhrln need good slhocos if tehy are to lraen ploepry.