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Can You Raed Tihs?
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Sep 15, 2003 06:12 PM
from the you-have-for-years dept.
from the you-have-for-years dept.
An aoynmnuos raeedr sumbtis: "An interesting tidbit from Bisso's blog site: Scrambled words are legible as long as first and last letters are in place. Word of mouth has spread
to other blogs, and articles as well.
From the languagehat site: 'Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. ceehiro.'
Jamie Zawinski has also written a perl script to convert normal text into text where letters excluding the first and last are scrambled."
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Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, does this work well with letter pairs like, "th ch wh sh qu?" I forget what those are called.
Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK? (Score:4, Informative)
Digraphs? [reference.com]
Parent
Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK? (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason it DOES work well with those letter pairs is that they aren't familiar at all in reverse. You're more likely to udnerstand their juxtaposition as what it's supposed to be, because you're used to it being one way.
Where it DOESN'T work as well is when you begin breaking up complex phonemes or diphthongs in short words. Konw what I'm sayin'?
Parent
Bit of a simplistic article... (Score:5, Interesting)
Turhgoh = Through
A topic that does not seem to have had much coverage in this article is the actual iconic visual recognition that our brains appear to use in word recognition.
Obviously each word approximates a patterned rectangle (serif fonts emphasize this further) with occasional outliers (ie. t, y, l, and any other letters that protrude above or below the base rectangle).
People with poor eyesight rely on this fuzzy but fast recognition frequently. In fact there is a classic psych experiment based around displaying a word that iconically is very similar to another word, while simultaneously presenting a context that implies the second word, and asking the subject to record the word. The subject mis-records the word roughly 90% of the time.
Q.
Parent
What?!? No "Frist Psot"? (Score:5, Funny)
Come on, you slacker trolls!
(ethighy-ftifh psot!)
Parent
Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"? (Score:5, Funny)
(tihs siht is too mcuh fun! sotp me!)
Parent
Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"? (Score:5, Funny)
all your bsae are boleng to us
In Seviot Rsuisa Words Srcmable You
Imangie a sbcramled bwelouf ctsuler
Tihs mhigt be big eunogh to hold all my mp3's if I smalrcebd tehm (remmeber that one?)
cehck out this lnik [gaotse.xc].
Did I miss any?
Parent
Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK? (Score:5, Interesting)
[anthonym@uniblab scrbameld]$
[anthonym@uniblab scrbameld]$ gzip g*
[anthonym@uniblab scrbameld]$ ls -l
total 304
-rwxr-xr-x 1 anthonym staff 63830 Sep 15 16:33 genesis.text.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 anthonym staff 84945 Sep 15 16:36 genesis.txet.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 anthonym staff 1396 Sep 15 15:56 scrmable.pl
[anthonym@uniblab scrbameld]$ gunzip g*
[anthonym@uniblab scrbameld]$ zip genesis.zip g*
adding: genesis.text (deflated 70%)
adding: genesis.txet (deflated 60%)
[anthonym@uniblab scrbameld]$
Interesting. Anyone have an explaination for tihs?
Parent
Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK? (Score:5, Informative)
Huffman compression would be unaffected though, as it works on a per character basis.
Parent
Compression worse... (Score:5, Informative)
Now, after you scrmable it, it's got equal quantities of begat, beagt, baget, baegt, bgeat, and bgaet. It's not so easy to compress any more.
Essentially, you're increasing the entropy of the file by a fair amount. Truly random data is not so easy to compress as english, because english has lots of order. Added disorder or entropy means compression is just not as easy.
Parent
Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK? (Score:5, Funny)
Thou should forfeit karma, but that is neither here nor there.
Parent
Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Rmiends me of... (Score:5, Funny)
Cna't beileve I was the frist to say it...
Parent
At Lsat! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:At Lsat! (Score:5, Funny)
As if that's stopped anyone on Slashdot before.
Parent
Re:At Lsat! (Score:5, Funny)
As if tath's stpoped aonnye on Sasldoht boeefr.
You cna't eevn get the fekucd up snleiplg rghit!!!
Parent
Re:At Lsat! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
The bset prat (Score:5, Funny)
# Coyprgiht (C) 2003 Jamie Zawinski
#
# Premssioin to use, cpoy, mdoify, drusbiitte, and slel this stafowre and its
# docneimuatton for any prsopue is hrbeey ganrted wuihott fee, prveodid taht
# the avobe cprgyioht noicte appaer in all coipes and that both taht
# cohgrypit noitce and tihs premssioin noitce aeppar in suppriotng
# dcoumetioantn. No rpeersneatiotns are made about the siuatbliity of tihs
# srofawte for any puorpse. It is provedid "as is" wiuotht exerpss or
# ilmpied waanrrty.
Parent
yeah... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
impruvd inglis (Score:5, Funny)
The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).
In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by " v".
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.
Parent
Here you go (Score:5, Informative)
http://jeff.zoplionah.com/scramble.php [zoplionah.com]
In the Sivoet Uonin (Score:4, Funny)
holy.. (Score:5, Funny)
FINALLY (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Read: I think your post is proof that we definately do need the middle letters.
Parent
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
But we need the spaces, at least, for the word cues.
So how many "bits" of information can we strip from a sentence, on average, before we can no longer intuitively decipher it? The spaces give us information, but not as much as the letters themselves. Yet clearly the ordering of the letters contains much less information than the contents of a word's endpoints. This is odd stuff.
Parent
Microsoft calls that (Score:5, Funny)
So in other words... (Score:5, Funny)
Does this work for non native speakers? (Score:5, Interesting)
D
Re:Does this work for non native speakers? (Score:5, Interesting)
You did not mention if she is a fluent reader/writer, speaker, or both? From what you describe I would say that when you said "fluent" you meant as a speaker.
Parent
Re:Does this work for non native speakers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, since I'm not British, the final word of the canonical scramble threw me off:
Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. ceehiro.
I read the rest of the text correctly, but I had a devil of a time figuring out the reference to the Miyazaki film Spirited Away, also known as Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi [nausicaa.net]!
Parent
Take that 9th grade English teacher.... (Score:5, Funny)
grammar still not optional (Score:5, Interesting)
Normally I would never post a comment about grammar, but it is kind of startling that in a block of text that jumbled the absence of 'the', and the swapping of 'is' for 'are' still jump out at you.
Eggs (Score:4, Funny)
Yes I could read it but... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't ever do this again, Slashdot.
Only part of the answer.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So while it is possible to understand words that are not spelled correctly, it can still take a while to understand if the nxet few wdors are not qieut waht you epcext. It is aslo mcuh lses pbatldicree wehn you use lgenor wdros.
I hpoe tihs was an imuilntinag eplamxe!
Mclettat
Just english? and for all words? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also... what happen when the scrambled word is another valid word? Or a misspelled valid words?
Not entirely accurate (Score:5, Interesting)
If I type
sllpenig it's clear I'm typing "spelling"
but, if I type
slpenlig it's not so clear anymore.
What about: according
Aoccdrnig (as in the article) is ok but...
aocdrncig is not nearly as clear
There's a limit to how far your brain can stretch it. Some consonant pairs your brain DOES intepret much like a single letter, because it's an irregularity in english.
Words that use such consonant pairs and triplets like "tch" are much harder to distinguish when those pairs and triplets (which really sound like a single letter) are split.
Stewey
ynlo gcramblins eht tirsf dna tasl setterl (Score:5, Funny)
Ha! (Score:5, Interesting)
Please go and feed the the cat.
Bet ya didn't see that, did ya?
Re-read it slowly.
-dave-
SPAM?!?!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
ELNRAGE YUOR PNEIS!!!
on the subject lines of emails received? How would any of the pattern matching anti-spam methods out there deal with this one?
And, we just gave them the tool do use!
-Ben
Re:SPAM?!?!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
This is old news, here's the original (Score:5, Interesting)
Titled: Do Spellings Matter?
"... randomising letters in the middle of words [has] little or no effect on the ability of skilled readers to understand the text. This is easy to denmtrasote. In a pubiltacion of New Scnieitst you could ramdinose all the letetrs, keipeng the first two and last two the same, and
reibadailty would hadrly be aftcfeed. My ansaylis did not come to much beucase the thoery at the time was for shape and senqeuce retigcionon.
Saberi's work sugsegts we may have some pofrweul palrlael prsooscers at work. The resaon for this is suerly that idnetiyfing coentnt by paarllel
prseocsing speeds up regnicoiton. We only need the first and last two letetrs to spot chganes in meniang"
And if you liked *that* one so much, you might like this one too:
Read the sentence below carefully:
"I do not know where family doctors acquired illegibly perplexing handwriting nevertheless, extraordinary pharmaceutical intellectuality counterbalancing indecipherability, transcendentalizes intercommunications' incomprehensibleness".
This is a sentence where the Nth word is N letters long.
e.g. 3rd word is 3 letters long, 8th word is 8 letters long and so on.
And if you like that one too, here is another one you can try to kill your boredom...
While sitting, draw clockwise circles on the ground with your right foot. While doing that, try drawing the number "6" in air with your right hand.
Your foot will change direction.
Implications for Phonics vs. Whole-word Debate? (Score:5, Interesting)
Experimentally, a pure-phonics approach has proven to have the highest success rate. However, these results would suggest that whole-word approach *does* map onto some important cognitive structure . Perhaps this means that, once past the basic level, whole-word techniques would prove to be valuable in turning beginning readers into advanced readers.
Real world application (Score:5, Insightful)