“Acocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry sutdy the oredr of letetrs in a wrod dsoen’t mttaer, the olny thnig thta’s iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat ltteer of eevry word is in the crcreot ptoision. The rset can be jmbueld and one is stlil able to raed the txet wiohtut dclftfuiiy.”
Franklin Veaux's Journal
Working toward the heat death of the Universe, one joule at a time!
very interesting as i had no problem reading what it said 🙂
very interesting as i had no problem reading what it said 🙂
i’m pretty sure that’s how things look when i skim, anyway. 😉
i’m pretty sure that’s how things look when i skim, anyway. 😉
so if only the first and last leettrs in eervy word need to be in the cceorrt oderr, tehn taht ieilmps taht the ieinortr leertts cloud be in aaabcehilptl oderr, or reersve-aaabcehilptl oderr and tehre wdlnou’t be any dceeffinre in our abiilty to uadennrstd the sceennte or paaagprrh.
was that aabccelpte?
not qitue. i think iimnposg an aaddiiontl eaenrtxl odeinrrg (the aabehlpt) on the wdors maeks it haderr to dgiiinsstuh the oagiinrl oderr of the leertts in the word.
on the oethr hnad, jublimng the itnerior leretts only a shrot dinstace (by syallble or itno neraby sllyeblas) maeks it much mroe lgebile. also, keeipng two- or tehre-letetr phnoeems (‘ch’, ‘ph’, ‘th’, ‘sch’) jmubled only so that they are stlil touhcnig thier phnomee bolck hleps keep the slylbale easy to raed.
so what do you think?
I think that’s what my Civ Pro reading assignment looked like at midnight. Yes, you can read it, but who would want to?
Lovely. Yes, I think your theory works.
I agree with you. Furthermore, there are limitations on the number of consonants and vowels that can be placed near each other and still remain readable. That’s governed by English pronunciation norms.
Last is the problem of words like “reverse” and “reserve.” Add to that “severe,” and you’ve got a highly likely mix-up. I imagine those are mucked up in reading regular text, as well.
maslucoiily
Back in April I sent this to a friend of mine who (also) has a Cognitive Science degree. He had also worked for a while at Thinking Machines, working on a massively-parallel OCR system that worked by recognizing word-shapes, instead of letter shapes.
Me:
A few months ago someone sent me the following which I found to be
very cool: “… 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.”
He replied:
If you keep the first and last two letetrs the same, only words
with more than five leettrs are aftcefed, and even six letter
words won’t change if the middle letetrs are the same. So there
is no effect at all as long as you stick to little words.
Coeersnvly, reiitngocon of seadeiilpqsan vgrabeies derraeittoes sitgaciifnly.
To which I wrote back:
Boy, you sure said it – and how.
Now I’m wordening if one could maslucoiily arnarge logner words
to make it detraibleely inphreenombiscle.
There was a long pause in the conversation, and finally I got this:
Re: maslucoiily
Even in cotnext, that one had me cosnufed for a copule mitunes.
Alouthgh in represtoct, it’s oboivus.
—
Clearly, there’s some interesting basic research to be done here.
Wheee! Brains!! Fun!!!
so if only the first and last leettrs in eervy word need to be in the cceorrt oderr, tehn taht ieilmps taht the ieinortr leertts cloud be in aaabcehilptl oderr, or reersve-aaabcehilptl oderr and tehre wdlnou’t be any dceeffinre in our abiilty to uadennrstd the sceennte or paaagprrh.
was that aabccelpte?
not qitue. i think iimnposg an aaddiiontl eaenrtxl odeinrrg (the aabehlpt) on the wdors maeks it haderr to dgiiinsstuh the oagiinrl oderr of the leertts in the word.
on the oethr hnad, jublimng the itnerior leretts only a shrot dinstace (by syallble or itno neraby sllyeblas) maeks it much mroe lgebile. also, keeipng two- or tehre-letetr phnoeems (‘ch’, ‘ph’, ‘th’, ‘sch’) jmubled only so that they are stlil touhcnig thier phnomee bolck hleps keep the slylbale easy to raed.
so what do you think?
I think that’s what my Civ Pro reading assignment looked like at midnight. Yes, you can read it, but who would want to?
Lovely. Yes, I think your theory works.
Your own translator
http://www.jwz.org/hacks/scrmable.pl
Re: Your own translator
Now THAT’S amusing…
Your own translator
http://www.jwz.org/hacks/scrmable.pl
I agree with you. Furthermore, there are limitations on the number of consonants and vowels that can be placed near each other and still remain readable. That’s governed by English pronunciation norms.
Last is the problem of words like “reverse” and “reserve.” Add to that “severe,” and you’ve got a highly likely mix-up. I imagine those are mucked up in reading regular text, as well.
Also, can you cite a source for this?
There was a recent discussion on slashdot, but I believe I first saw this in New Scientist this past Spring. Since they’re not a primary source, presumably there’s a “real paper” out there somewhere, too.
Some more leads…
Also, can you cite a source for this?
maslucoiily
Back in April I sent this to a friend of mine who (also) has a Cognitive Science degree. He had also worked for a while at Thinking Machines, working on a massively-parallel OCR system that worked by recognizing word-shapes, instead of letter shapes.
Me:
A few months ago someone sent me the following which I found to be
very cool: “… 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.”
He replied:
If you keep the first and last two letetrs the same, only words
with more than five leettrs are aftcefed, and even six letter
words won’t change if the middle letetrs are the same. So there
is no effect at all as long as you stick to little words.
Coeersnvly, reiitngocon of seadeiilpqsan vgrabeies derraeittoes sitgaciifnly.
To which I wrote back:
Boy, you sure said it – and how.
Now I’m wordening if one could maslucoiily arnarge logner words
to make it detraibleely inphreenombiscle.
There was a long pause in the conversation, and finally I got this:
Re: maslucoiily
Even in cotnext, that one had me cosnufed for a copule mitunes.
Alouthgh in represtoct, it’s oboivus.
—
Clearly, there’s some interesting basic research to be done here.
Wheee! Brains!! Fun!!!
There was a recent discussion on slashdot, but I believe I first saw this in New Scientist this past Spring. Since they’re not a primary source, presumably there’s a “real paper” out there somewhere, too.
Some more leads…
Re: Your own translator
Now THAT’S amusing…