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

I just have to share this with you. It makes perfect sense to me and I'd love to get more details of the research.

"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 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."

Absolutely fascinating, of course! Obviously it wouldn't make as much sense if the words weren't in context as well. Many a set of words might fit the overall pattern and still be indistinguishable from each other because they use the same letters in the same general order.

This may be linked to the human mind's ability to create patterns out of disorder or randomness; kind of like seeing a face in a carpet pattern.

Perhaps we are all born proofreaders?

Go on, Fords give it a go! See if we can read a whole load of unrelated words...

I remember seeing animals in clouds one night after a few bevvies on the Gt Barrier Reef : not sure about faces in carpets. But I know what you mean. I'm not sure it is our innate need to see order in the world. Isn't it the fact that we recognise the outline shape of words and can therefore interpret the word - especially in relation to those that go before and after it?


F/b

Absolutely! It's probably why so many misspellings get past us wehn we proorfaed our own stuff.

Clouds and carpets are good examples, but how many times have you heard of people seeing Jesus' face in woodgrain, the devil's countenance in billowing smoke, and images in busy floral patterns? I've heard of young children being afraid to go into a bathroom because of some face they've seen leering back at them from the wallpaper.

I precieve a virataion wehre a piatner deicdes to use coulor to caerte a wrok taht han'st a porepr sbuecjt, but lveeas the mttear to iprnteeraoitn.

There's a niche there. Get your house decorated with a difference. There are really people in this mad world who would pay for that, I'm sure.

It's interesting that if just one word in mspillesed, it's a lot harder to interpret it, than if the entire sentence is mixed up. Why's that then?

And as for a jumble of unrelated words: see what you make of this -

Msater ipmssibole daed lnutihcme pnig pnog gdraden alsppes plcniel otoduros


F/b

That sure is a lot tougher! Took far too long, but let's see how I did:
Master, impossible, dead, lunchtime, ping pong, garden (with two d's?) gaddern?, apples (with two s's?), pencil (with two l’s?), and I’ve got this one: outdoors.

Fascninating! Yes, I'd be interested to hear more on this.

Hey Fords! I think you've shown up my lousy spelling!!!

Spelling is a lot harder when the letters are all jumbled up. Yes, you got them all: well done!

I'll do some searching and see if I can find the source of the research and more information about it.

I'll be bcak.



F/b

Actually, jumbled up spelling out of context is used to teach children how to spell, although they may not start and end with the right letter.

Granted, there is usually a theme, so they have to find words to do with, say a particular story.