Tuesday, December 13, 2011

I fuond tihs fasctianing

"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."

I got as far as the word "wrod" before I realised anything was wrong. Which just proves the point. But then I'm a dreadful skim reader. One of my very bad habits.

I wonder if that's why middle children are so screwed up. The parents are just concentrating on the first and last ones. (Hey, I'm a 3rd child out of 4. I'm allowed to be rude about middle children.)
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11 comments:

  1. nappy valley girlDecember 13, 2011 at 4:16 PM

    I can understand it but it immediately looked wrong to me - too many years of sub-editing copy!
    I wonder if it's a bit like Spanish and Italian people being able to understand each other - you just need to get the general gist, even if everything's not quite the same?

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  2. NoraDecember 13, 2011 at 5:44 PM

    That's probably why the Dutch speak Germand and English so easily.

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  3. Expat mumDecember 13, 2011 at 7:39 PM

    Well, I read the title of this post on my blog roll and immediately thought, "Oh no, Iota's been at the Merlot again".

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  4. Expat mumDecember 13, 2011 at 7:39 PM

    Not as funny as the time you e-mailed me from your brother's French computer with the French keyboard. Now THAT was hilarious.

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  5. FranDecember 14, 2011 at 1:08 AM

    Is was so easy to read, it has made me ponder about dyslexia. I think I'll copy it to our special needs teacher and ask her opinion, it's a topic I'm looking at this year. And yes, I really will email you very soon :-)

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  6. CassandraDecember 14, 2011 at 3:27 AM

    It's so funny!! I'm italian and even if english is not my native language, i could understand what you wrote! :) And i can tell spanish and italians understand each other simply because we both speak latine language and lot of our words are very similar... I don't know if is the same for german and english people... what do you think?

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  7. Expat mumDecember 14, 2011 at 7:58 AM

    With German (which I have never studied), I get about one word in ten, and when i see it written down I'm immediately overwhelmed by the gigantic long words!
    Now Scots - I can almost understand!

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  8. Paradise Lost In TranslationDecember 14, 2011 at 2:41 PM

    it looks just like my normal typing:o)

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  9. rosiescribbleDecember 15, 2011 at 10:50 AM

    Brilliant. I got to the three word in your title before noticing that something was amiss! I was concerned at first you'd slightly lost it when I spotted it in my Google reader. What a relief to read this post. I maen waht a releif ot rade thsi psot.

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  10. Muddling AlongDecember 20, 2011 at 9:33 AM

    I'm a skim reader so can read it - trouble is that for work we have to be able to proof read so every wrong letter was making me twitch!

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  11. ButMadNNWDecember 21, 2011 at 4:32 PM

    This floats past my cybergaze every couple of years, and it never fails to annoy me. There's a TYPO in it!

    "Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy..."

    Look at "rscheearch". Count the letters. Rearrange them. It comes out as "research".

    So that properly reads as "According to a research at...." - "a research"?

    It needs to be "Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy..." OR ""Aoccdrnig to a rsceheearchr at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy..."

    Gah! YEARS this has been around, and no one has ever fixed that! *EditorBrain implodes*

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