Cna Yuo Raed Tihs?

[Maeve]

Daniel's post today is a lot of fun: Cna Yuo Raed Tihs? (http://www.dailywritingtips.com/cna-yuo-raed-tihs/)

Rhonda's comment on this post got me thinking. The words in the selection are all very common ones and the context is clear.

Let's see how easily we can read this random selection from Eco's The Name of the Rose.

Notice how we rely on the little words we're sure of to get through it. Some of what we're doing is reading, but much is deducing or guessing.

Bsceaue if tihs new lnraieng tehy wntead to pcduroe wree to cluaircte flreey odutsie tsohe wlals, tehn nhitnog wulod dngssutiih taht secard pclae any lengor form a cheatadrl soohcl or a ctiy utveriisny. Rneminiag ilotaesd, on the oehtr hnad, it miaiatned its pgrsetie and its sgttnerh ictna. It was not cupruertod by dattsipuoin, by the qibloiudecatl ceinoct taht wluod secjubt erevy mtrseyy and erevy genaretss to teh stunciry of the sic et non. Tehre, I siad to mleysf, are the roanses for the seinlce and the drakesns that snoruurd the lrarbiy: it is the perrvese of linnerag but can mianiatn tihs lireanng ullisuned olny if it preenvts its rincheag anoyne at all, eevn the mnoks temshelves. Liarenng is not lkie a cion, wcihh rianems plyachsily wlohe eevn trughoh the msot ifanumos tintranocsa; it is, rahetr, lkie a vrey homandse desrs, wichh is wron out torhugh use and osantotiten.

[Mez]

Oh man! Maeve, that was much harder to read than the one Daniel got in his e-mail!

[Most Moon]

It's difficult for me to understand the above sentence unlike daniel's post 'Cna Yuo Raed Tihs?'. because of my poor abilities in vocabulary. Moreover, a little complicated context seems to be the chief obstacle to understanding. In my opinion, how well we can understand scrambled words depends on how easy the words and the contexts are.

[DanielScocco]

Yeah that is more difficult to me as well.

About the general concept, though, I think it is related to those speed reading techniques. They also encourage you to read words in bulk, and paragraphs as a whole, right?

Actually I will start a thread about it on "Writing Basics."

[Ali]

That does rather bring it home that it's not JUST the general shape of a word and the start/end letter that allow us to read it! And it's a very good demonstration of why we can race through easy material (newspapers, magazines, "airport" novels) whereas literary works take much longer.

Thanks for posting it, Maeve!

Ali

[adetunjiyomi]

Its not that those words are not common,they are well known words.but what makes it uneasy is the time taken to unscamble the words.
It is a very good idea,I think an individual to recognise words without looking deep or wasting much time.

[EpikEric]

This one is a lot harder to read then then the last one.

[mistergenius]

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 deosnt mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt