My daughter forwarded this to me:
Only great minds can read this
This is weird, but interesting!
fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty 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 huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it
FORWARD ONLY IF YOU CAN READ IT.
I'm one of the 55 out of a hundred who was able to read it, so I'm forwarding it to "Wounded Bird" readers.
This is great. It also explains why some of us -- moi même included -- make terrible copy editors. My eyes will glide over most words with inverted letters. I was actually able to read this out loud with only one or two minor stumbles, which explains why proofreading is such a chore for me! I actually had to look at "huamn" twice to make sure it was really misspelled...
ReplyDeleteWow! Is this true? Only one out of 55 can read it? Hard to believe, because I sailed right through it. So, guess that explains why I'm a lousy proof reader too.
ReplyDeleteI found it readable, but I also can "slip on" a copy editor mind, as required.
ReplyDeleteThat was amazingly easy to read! Does this prove that bloggers have "odd" abilities? (Redundant question) 5 out of 5 (counting you, Mimi) so far. . .
ReplyDeleteYes, we're at 100%. I'd say something strange is afoot here. Jan, I think it is beyond "odd".
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a copy editor mind that I could slip on that would warn me about my typos.
Actually Firefox has an automatic spell-checker, which has been a big help to me, but which serves to further the atrophy my brain spell-checker.
Vrey wried! I'm usually pretty good at spotting spotty spelling, but I could read this without any difficulty at all... Facsniantig!
ReplyDeleteAnd ditto the Firefox spellcheck - though sometimes it does make me laugh - like it wanted to turn my mangled fascinating into Argentinians... not sure they'd be all that flattered, somehow...
Mike, I could read you easily, too. No problem.
ReplyDeleteI can read that with absolutely no problem and am also a good copy-editor/proof-reader so what does that mean? Don't all chime in at once ;)
ReplyDeleteDoes it help that I am left-handed?
Caminante, it means that you're even odder than the rest of us. The left-handedness is icing on the cake.
ReplyDeleteI could read it with no problem and I am a PROFESSIONAL editor! (Or so they say...)
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be out of a job soon, aren't I?
Well, I'm used to being the odd one out, so I'm not sure how I feel about being in the 55% majority. What scares me is that I zipped through it so quickly that it made me wonder whether I could read it better all scrambled. Not sure what that means. But I am, indeed, a lousy copy editor, at least of my own text, because my mind reads onto the page what is missing without my eyes catching it.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of people am I attracting to my blog? I might have to start comment moderation.
ReplyDeleteDoxy, who is your boss? If I follow my conscience, I may have to contact him/her.
Klady, I'm the worst with my own writing, because I see it as it should be, not as it is.
Hence the popularity of word scramble puzzles.
ReplyDeleteSo we all can read it. But could we read it in handwritten form?
NancyP
I oto am lfet hnaded, and I oot cloud raed it. Mmh.
ReplyDeleteNancyP, can you supply us with a handwritten sample of scrambled words?
ReplyDeletePat, what truly worries me is that I could read your comment despite its ultra-scrambled character.
I could read it easily but then I AM dyslexic--can't spell for sour apples and do absolutely bizzare things with numbers. But I DID teach jr. high for many years and it does make your ability to sus out things fairly sharp!
ReplyDeleteMimi, if you can tell MP that I can't comment on his blog presntly, it would be a boon. Thanks.
I have never fonud left-handedness to be more than an occasional minor nuisance with few advantages.
ReplyDeleteMimi, what kind of poeple hang here; do you really want to know?
Wonderful people.
Muthah+, MadPriest shut down his comments.
ReplyDeleteWhen my husband first looked at the passage of scrambled words, he said, "That's Old English." I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. But then, he proceeded to read the "Old English" without too much trouble.
I'd put him on the fence.
Johnieb, I agree. My commenters are the the most wonderful people in the world.
nearly one hundred percent of readers can understand this. It is based on complex pattern recognition, not whole word learning - you could do the same thing with jumbled up pictures of famous people and most people would also get it. your brain is just incredibly fast at shuffling clues and it decodes the words very quickly. if it was based on whole word recognition and the first and last letters then we would always be confusing matter and mother.
ReplyDeleteif you want I could share a long boring talk from psychophysiology and neuropsych classes on the machinery involved (basically the left temporal lobe, the ventral and dorsal pathways from the occipital lobe, plus or minus a few other areas between your ears) but I won't.
Other variants of this internet hoax have the purported research based at Harvard, Oxford and/ or other places.
my guess is that somebody typed it to show off complex pattern recognition to a friend or to their students in Psych 101 and the damned thing got changed a few times into its current version.
think of it as the modern version of the famous "Neiman Marcus" hoax $500 cookie recipe - revised for cognitive processing and neuropsych.
oh and by-the-way,
ReplyDeleteI was at work all day and unable to blog. I came home for lunch, took an easy pot-shot at "jeffersonian" and then had to leave for work. I came back and found the whole conversation gone and MP having shut down his comment board. What happened today? What did I miss?
Dennis, Do you want the long version or the short version?
ReplyDeleteNot much. (That's the short version).
P.S. Did you have to come and spoil Mimi's fun? Now what do we do? Mimi's got too much class to bring out the boobies or their cousins, the turquoise-footed breasticles (or whatever PJ called them).
ReplyDeleteit all looks like my typing before i fix all the transpositions and other problems.
ReplyDeleteno I want the long version!
ReplyDeleteDennis, this is not a serious post and is was never meant to be taken seriously.
ReplyDeleteBut look at the number of comments! I should find something like this to post every day and not bother to do serious, time-consuming posts with links and all the trimmings.
About MadPriest. I see that Klady gave an answer already. The thread had stretched out to over 100 comments, and folks were giving serious answers to J's arguments. IMO, it's a mistake to take commenters like him/her seriously, because they are like robots programmed to give packaged answers. I think that the hurling of Bible verses back and forth is pretty futile, too.
I played with him/her a little and at the end of the thread, J even showed a spark of humor when I asked him to prove s/he was not a robot.
MadPriest got tired of the whole mess and shut the comments down. I don't blame him. I don't consider my blog a free-speech zone, either, and I would not hesitate to delete comments in which folks made threats or personal attacks on me or my visitors. I would be ruthless about that.
I don't discourage differing opinions as long as people remain courteous and don't venture into ad hominem arguments.
Klady, breasticles and boobies are OK. There are limits to my language tolerance, too. Don't ask me what they are, because I'm like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who said about pornography, "I know it (the limit to my tolerance) when I see it."
ReplyDeleteI wondered if we could talk about breasticles and boobies here!
ReplyDelete;)
Not that those are exactly my favorite topic of conversation. But don't get that KJ started...
so MP got a thread to go over 100 without saying f*ck? I guess that shows his theory (or was it Eileen's theory?) doesn't always apply.
ReplyDelete=====
Now that I hear what happened I am very glad I missed it. I can hardly keep up with Fr Jake's when he gets over 50 posts!
Harry Potter was a Supreme Court Justice????? He was into porn?
ReplyDelete;)
Dennis, you naughty boy, are you testing the limits of my tolerance?
ReplyDeleteSigh.
ReplyDeleteAsshats and their asshattery, never shall the two be separated.
I think we should all just start asking them if they like the sensation of banging their heads repeatedly on hard objects, like for fun, or if they are just plain stupid.
(don't mind me, I'm just cranky that Dennis had to remind me about all that cognitive processing shit, when Tobias had given me a perfectly acceptable reason that I am such a lousy proofer. Hmph.)
Breasticles....hee hee.
Eileen, I liked it better the other way, too. What do they call folks who do things like what Dennis did here? Oh, yes, I've got it. Spoilers!
ReplyDeletehow about calling that person "a student", so lost in their copy of a horrible 1000+ page textbook of neuropsych assessment that they forget that all of the world isn't having to suffer through this stuff....
ReplyDelete(sniff)
and I only come here looking for understanding from friends... that's all
(sniff)
;)
I've had enough fun with the little winking emoticon, by the way.
ReplyDeletejust assume that anything I say is in jest and we'll be alright.
Dennis - eeeeeeeeew.
ReplyDeleteIt's bad enough I'm having to rehash an abnormal psych text this summer with the undergrads, and it's easy reading!
I suppose I can forgive you this transgression this one time, because I have empathy, and also because I may travel that path myself at sometime, into PhD land - I'm just not sure which subject to study...religion/psychology/english - What's a girl to choose?
Off/ topic(?): prayers request for JohnieB as he goes to tell his therapist he's really OK.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see what she thinks.
Prayers for you johnieb...
ReplyDeleteMimi---I am my own boss. So I guess you have to rat me out to myself.
Should I fire me?
Dennis, I'll miss the little winking emoticon.
ReplyDeleteJohnieb, prayers going up. God bless you.
Doxy, you'll have to take it into your own hands. Just do it.
I'm late to this conversation. As Dennis indicated, that '55' number would be really low.
ReplyDeleteThe more reading we do, the more fluent we become as we begin to recognize words as opposed to needing to break them up into their individual syllables and/or sounds. Most of my students require more exposure to a given word as compared to "typical" readers before the word is atuomatically recognized. And prior to that, they typically require a great deal of training in the ability to break words up into syllables and/or sounds in the first place. Hard work, but well worth it in the end.
It's just one of the many nice things I do in the course of a typical day. :-)
KJ, you are doing good work. God bless you.
ReplyDeleteUpdate: Dee says I'm doing very well, which I thought as well, but wasn't prepared to go only with my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThanks be to God and to all y'all for all the prayers of support & other acts of kindness.
Johnieb, I'm so happy for you. Thanks be to God.
ReplyDeleteI have encountered it before and remain fascinated. As a possible side effect of being left-handed (and thus in my right mind), I can read and write in mirror image but this scrambled stuff amazes. The human brain is a marvel.
ReplyDeleteMrcei, gnard-mree!
gnard-mree!
ReplyDeletePaul, I don't think I like this. It sounds naughty.
My 7-year-old grandson is in remedial handwriting class this summer. He is close to being ambidextrous, and he sometimes writes perfect backwards letters and becomes angry when you tell him that they are backwards. Something different is going on in his brain.