Scarmbled wrdos are sfipfy! Did you know...

[IMDWalrus]

that sabmclred wrods are lgieble as lnog as fsrit and last letters are in palce? I'ts aaminzg what you can leran on Sshadlot, ins't it?

Sorry 'bout that. I couldn't resist.

Slashdot has an article posted that I thought was interesting. If a word's first and last letters are in place, the rest of the word can be made out, even if it's a completely jumbled mess...like what I just posted.

Here's the link to the Slashdot article, which includes a link to a translator...

[Madison]

I think this a result of most people being utterly unable to spell or type.

[FotoPlasma]

Originally posted by M. Krass
I think this a result of most people being utterly unable to spell or type.

Yes. I'm sure that's the cause of this phenomenon.

Everyone, please make note that it is still NOT ACCEPTABLE to intentionally misspell words, exempli gratia, "because" shortened to "cuz" (even "'cause" is acceptable, though), "tonight" being shortened to "2nite", and so forth. I completely agree with Brandon, on this one: "ur" is most definitely not a word.

Even if you do (or don't, even) use AOL, it's not okay to be an AOLer.

(I'm kinda sorta joking. But not really.)

[Brandon Martus]

I cringe every time I drive by this haircut/nail place, cleverly named 'Nails 4 U'.

Thank you, AOL.

[Ryan Dognaux]

I'm just waiting to see an advertisement for a computer that says "|3|_|Y t3h |\/|()5T l33t C()|\/|p 3\/3r!!!!!1!1?!2!@!/!"

Maybe a Mac?

Then again...Gates could launch a "l33t campaign" to attract the people who think it's okay to type like this.

[Madison]

Originally posted by Brandon Martus
I cringe every time I drive by this haircut/nail place, cleverly named 'Nails 4 U'.

Thank you, AOL.

OMD. I once fell in love with this place not too far from my house. Their sign read,

"DELI."

!!

It had a period! Do you understand the sheer grammatical beauty of that? They shortened delicatessen and bothered to put a period at the end. It's Earth-shattering, I tell you. Simply Earth-shattering.

We need more people like that in the world.

[IsabelRinging]

Well uh, it took me a while to figure out that the word in the thread title was "spiffy".

[MissInformation]

So Slashdot is the reason this topic has shown up on several of the forums I frequent... And I don't know why I am slightly disturbed that I've had no problem reading all of the threads written like this, it could explain why I read so fast (don't ask, it's very, very fast...) So maybe I'm skipping letters...

Interesting. Of course, shorthand is based on leaving letters out of words.

I cringe every time I drive by this haircut/nail place, cleverly named 'Nails 4 U'.

Ick and double ick! I remember a craze in the 80s to subsitute numbers for words... oh the humanity...

Heidi

<==========>
Of course, then there's always M R ducks...

[srjjs]

I_________y, t_e l____s in t_e m____e a_e s___l n________ f_r u__________g t_e m_____e.

(Incidentally, the letters in the middle are still necessary for understanding the message.)

[EddieMcD]

Originally posted by srjjs
I_________y, t_e l____s in t_e m____e a_e s___l n________ f_r u__________g t_e m_____e.

(Incidentally, the letters in the middle are still necessary for understanding the message.)

He does have a point. I think we've gotten so used to typing faster than we write, that typographical errors are becoming quite common, yet we can still understand them, because we're so used to them.

::has never been to a deli, but I've been to a delicatessens (a place where they serve delicatessen. it's both singular and plural, lousy Germans) in my day::

I'm also wondering who uses the word robotnick these days (young whippersnappers and their robots...). But Brandon is right, UR is not a word, and I hate it when people think they're cool by typing that way.

[IMDWalrus]

One of the best things about CD is that the message boards are legible. It's nice to see that most of the people who use these boards can spell and know a few things about grammar.

It's a bit unfortunate that almost everyone was able to understand the topic title and the first two sentences, but I guess it just proves that the researchers were right. The Internet may have been the single worst thing to happen to the English language...

[Jeff Waegelin]

Originally posted by IMDWalrus
It's a bit unfortunate that almost everyone was able to understand the topic title and the first two sentences, but I guess it just proves that the researchers were right. The Internet may have been the single worst thing to happen to the English language...

Honestly, I don't think it has anything to do with the internet. It has everything to do with how the human brain recognizes words. When we look at a word, we focus on the first and last letter, and sortof glaze over the letters in the middle. As long as they're there, we can understand the word. So, that's the real cause, not people being used to misspellings because of the Internet. Now, not that you're wrong about the Internet being a bad thing for the English language... but this particular phenomenon is not really connected.

[Joel J]

Originally posted by Jeff Waegelin
Honestly, I don't think it has anything to do with the internet. It has everything to do with how the human brain recognizes words. When we look at a word, we focus on the first and last letter, and sortof glaze over the letters in the middle. As long as they're there, we can understand the word. So, that's the real cause, not people being used to misspellings because of the Internet. Now, not that you're wrong about the Internet being a bad thing for the English language... but this particular phenomenon is not really connected.

Ok, I can agree with most of what you have all said. However, I want to add a slightly different observation. We generally interpret a word based on its consonants. Vowels are used, after, to differentiate among words with similar consonants and to allow us to speak the words more easily. Or to better use 2 or 3 consonants (d,r: dare, door, adore, aired, arid, dire, [etc]). smthng vry ntrstng. Many scrambled words have vowels that have been moved around, but not many consonants; therefore, the general pattern of consonants can still be determined and from that the word itself. What percentage of the words we use in the english language have consonants as both the first and last characters? Which type of word is harder to descramble: ones having the first and last characters as consonants; the first character as a consonant and the second character as a vowel; the first character as a vowel and the second character as a consonant; or the first and last characters as vowels? Try moving around the consonants of a scrambled word and then look at how much longer it takes to figure out what the word is. Increase the length of the word and then, again, observe how long it takes to determine what the word is. Of course, we are assuming that these are words we have seen before. Most new words that are scrambled will remain a jumble to most people, but some new words with only their vowels removed can be deciphered. We are also assuming that the words are primarily composed of consonants, not vowels. And that the words are fairly short. Somewhat of a contradiction to a point I made, but thats ok. In conclusion, I just said something approaching nothing. Carry on.

crarhteacs = ?

[shyra1353]

Originally posted by Joel J.
crarhteacs = ?

characters...am i right?

[Elgin Clock]

Deja Vu?

I just got this following e-mail yesterday!!


Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttear 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 total 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.

Frkaeing amzanig huh?


I think it's actually true.. I had no trouble reading this the first time around!

But then there is the response from a former co-worker I sent this to:
"On the contrary, it does matter. Ever try submitting a resume or an assignment with spelling errors and expect to do well?"