Reading Comprehension

[Deleted member 4993]

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch

at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the first and last ltteer be

in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it wouthit a porbelm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed

ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh? ​

 

[HallsofIvy]

Yes, Amzanig! Though my mind had trouble with "aulaclty uesdnatnrd". It took some thought before I could "actually understand" them.

 

[Dr.Peterson]

This also illustrates why proofreading is so difficult! Your mind can easily skip past a mistake.

In adition, it sugests that those of us who are horified by mispellings should liten up a little. They usally have no efect on comprehention. (But not awlays!)

And a third thought: this is not true of symbolic math, where there is very little redundancy.

 

[HallsofIvy]

Especially proofreading your own work! I suppose it would be churlish of me to point out "liten". Or was that intentional?

 

[JeffM]

Especially proofreading your own work! I suppose it would be churlish of me to point out "liten". Or was that intentional?

I think that was a joke along with a few others.

My rule on rewriting and proofing (when I have the time for it) is to wait at least one day. It is amazing how much more you pick up after a night's sleep. Of course, the best editor is another person, and an automated spelling and grammar checker is, despite its annoyances, a help provided you turn off the "auto-corrupt" feature.

Before automated spell checkers, I used to put a squiggly line beneath the words the spelling of which I was uncertain about. That was a signal to my secretary to check the spelling. It worked fine until I had a temporary secretary, who sent out things with all my misspellings carefully underlined.

 

[Dr.Peterson]

Especially proofreading your own work! I suppose it would be churlish of me to point out "liten". Or was that intentional?

Was "liten" the only "mispelling" you saw in there? I only put that one in to make it utterly obvious.

 

[HallsofIvy]

You have a secretary? That's cheating! And I usually can't wait a day to proofread because I wait until the last possible minute to start.

 

[HallsofIvy]

Was "liten" the only "mispelling" you saw in there? I only put that one in to make it utterly obvious.

Your point is made!
"In adition, it sugests that those of us who are horified by mispellings should liten up a little. They usally have no efect on comprehention. (But not awlays!)"
I missed "adition", "horified" "mispelling" and "awlays". Any others?

 

[Dr.Peterson]

There were nine misspellings in that sentence.

 

[JeffM]

sugests, usualy, efect (or did you mean afect) and comprehention

That gives us 9.

 

[Otis]

… proofreading is so difficult …

Proofreading is not that difficult, for me.

Now, where are my glasses …

\(\;\)

 

[Otis]

… the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to rscheearch …

… the first and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae …

… a taotl mses, and you can still …

… This is bcuseae …

I've inserted missing punctuation, above.

Additionally, those words appear to be "misspelled".

 

[Dr.Peterson]

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has seen this many times before. Out of curiosity (both as to its origin, and whether words like "first" and "last" were spelled correctly in the original), I searched for articles about its history.

Cambridge Word Scramble Study: It's Fake Already!

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