Fascinating research fnidnigs

Aoccdrnig to 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.

So all you people who, like me, are prone to typos, just aim to get the first and last letters in the right place and you don't need to wrory too mcuh
?? *g*

I'd be interested to know what DGers who don't have english as their first language think of this...

English is my first and only language and I had no trouble reading that which amazes me Pliho. Was it hard to tpye?

I could read it pretty easily, even if English isn't my mother tongue.

A bit same is when sometimes our umlauts, Ä and Ö are marked as ? or { in some texts in the internet, we can read them without problem even if we don't know which letter there should be. Don't know if you understood.. maybe.

Ä and Ö are important to us, the two dots aren't there just to make the letters look nicer or, A and Ä and O and Ö are all different things. Spelled different way. I know I've told this many times, but just to make sure. :)

well I did not tinik it was that hard to read > it wemt a bit slower but i don't think i want it to become a trend here :-)

Thank you ! Now I won't have to proofread my posts !

evaH lla'y reve deirt ot od siht??

(Hold yer monitor up to a mirror to decipher the above question)

TC...

To my dyslexic brain it all looks like that at first glance anyway :~)

LOL Zany
I didn't type it all out though No - only the title
Hats off to you tc!
Interesting that you didn't have a problem with that Evert
Yes, I hope it's not going to catch on troy lol, but just watch those first and last letters Honey ;)

Even though English is not my mother tongue (I'm Californian) I *could* read it normally - ie. scanning.

What an amazing discovery! Now Ill nevar baather weth spelchkerz agin!


;)

Yes, I was counting Californians as having English as a second (or even third or fourth) language ;) Pelased you cloud raed it eslaiy...

Ah but you need all the letters there Loph - in the wrong order, with the first and last letters in their rightful places. I think that's more difficult than writing properly LOL

Sitll, i'ts fun otuiwttnig the seplclhcereks, or at lsaet tirnyg to :oD

Oooops too mnay ltetres in Pelased - croretecd now :)

This message was edited Sep 12, 2003 10:30 PM

I found this text from internet - someone had written it in Finnish. Due to our grammatic system anyway, I can't read it as well as the English one..

Egnanlitialesn ytsliopion tkeämen ttumikmsekn mauakun ei ole vläiä slilä,
msisä jrjesästkseysä snaan kriiamjet oavt, knuahn emämnsiinen ja vienimien
krijian oavt oaillkea pkaillaoian. Lppou voi olla tyättä stkoua, ja tskeäiä
voi sliti lekua ialmn omleinga. Tmää jutohu sitiä, että imhsiet eviät lue
josiakta krijtiana eeeirksn vaan snaan kanakoon.

Jnnäää, ekiö ttota!

I've seen other versions of this phenomenon in various emails from friends and family - it is pretty amazing.

For several years now, I've volunteered to tutor elementary (K-3rd grade) readers who need some extra help with reading, and this makes me wonder about future generations of readers: will our ability to decipher mangled words and sentences continue to adapt even as our ability to write and read properly continues to decline? (A glance through popular literature, advertising, and listening to television dialogue demonstrates that our society doesn't put the same emphasis on grammar, spelling and proper sentence structure as we did in the past...)

Terry, you bring up some interesting points which I have been thinking about for a long time. On the one hand I am painfully aware of the 'downhill' slide in written and spoken English in this country. On the other hand, I think language is a living, dynamic structure that should grow with and reflect the current time. If language did not change, we would be speaking the 'English' of centuries past which I think would sound stilted and be far too limited for modern times. I also at times end a sentence with a preposition (sp?) which in my school days was a big no-no but frankly it sounds better. For example, "Do you know which hospital your son is going to?" sounds better to me than "Do you know to which hospital your son is going?" I guess a lot of the change reflects the fact that our society is much more informal now. I prefer it that way yet I too have my limits and hate to see the language mangled. But I guess I would rather see it mangled occasionally than have it become rigid and lifeless. It is an interesting topic, in any case, and I suspect one that splits along generational lines! It is fun to think about. It is kind of like graffiti in my mind. I debate on whether it is vandalism or art. I know many people would say it is vandalism plain and simple but everytime I hear of a cave that has drawings in it that are thousands of years old I think "Is this the graffiti of an ancient culture? If a 'vandalized' wall from 2003 were found in 3003 would it be considered art or a crime?" I know, I know, I need to find more constructive ways to use my time! LOL

NOH20, I agree - and when we look back at the documents from our forefathers, they couldn't agree on how to spell broccoli. It seems for several generations the pendulum swung to the concept of "there's one right way" to spell words and construct sentences; now we're swinging back the other way. (Difficult to accept for those of us who LIKE knowing the proper spelling of each and every word in our vocabulary ;o)

To tell the truth, I prefer a more informal writing style - in fact, I "pioneered" it several years ago when I took over writing our company's employee benefit communications (the subject matter is boring enough - does it have to sound like dictation from a lawyer as well????) We had very positive reactions to our efforts to make the information more readable and accessible. (I think employees thought we were trying to hide "gotchas" in all the legal parlance...)

Is graffiti equivalent to ancient cave drawings? I don't know; I do know that "mature adult content" is arguably as old as man, and yet I haven't really heard of many cave drawings that depicted the same sentiments I often see painted on buildings and train cars!

This is such an interesting discussion! My grandparents were both English teachers and I grew up having my grammar corrected. Yet grandma could not for the life of her NOT say warsh instead of wash. ;)

As far as graffiti goes, I think it depends on the culture when it comes to the graffiti; the ancients in India had some pretty risque things to say in the Ajanta Caves, though, and that was in 3D.

GW I know someone who cant say digital. She says digical.

I think spasketti is maybe the word a lot of kids get wrong or an adult I know.

Interesting comments on Language. NoH2O makes a good point about the need for language to change with the times, and Terry makes a valid point about what will happen to future readers (if future generations will even read!) as we neglect proper usage of grammar and sentence structure in our society.

A common topic in my house is using the correct words to convey meaning instead of assuming the Listener will intuit what the Speaker intends as opposed to what the Speaker says with the words. Both of us are educated, well-read, and intelligent. Nevertheless, language communication problems still exist in our household.

I'm not even touching the subject of local idioms!

Computers, the internet and forums like this are to blame for bad grammer because we can get away with it.

Still, people used cute little shorthand missives long before the internet was around:

UR 2 GOOD
+ 2 BE
_______
4 GOTTEN

Thanks for all your input
So interesting that it doesn't work as well in Finnish Evert

Fascinating discussion!
Watching languages evolve is interesting too. Going back to old texts here, there has always been an enormous variation in the spelling and grammar used. Even place and personal names had no consistency, which is amazing, but then there were only a minority who were educated to any high degree, so spelling was a case of guess work very often, and grammar was a distillation of the local spoken dialect

Should we let mark get away with spelling 'grammar' as 'grammer'??
This is a small example of how useage may change the written word over time. It hasn't happened to this word yet as far as I'm aware lol. However,when a number of people continue with a new spelling it becomes accepted and then not thought of as 'wrong' - as we see from differences in spelling between english and american english - e.g. 'color' and 'colour'. Noone would say one was correct and the other wrong, but being British I shall continue to spell it colour, while accepting that Americans will miss out the u.

ah an intented mistake to see who would pick up on it. I did go to a Grammar skewl

or was that 'school'??!!!
lol

Or 'intended'?

LOL