poor spelling is a real bugbear of mine. the odd minor mistake is fair enough, but when people blatantly do not bother to read over what they’ve written is extremely irritating.
Check this out:
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer inwaht 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 thought slpeling was ipmorantt!
what’s even more amazing is that my 6 year old daughter can read it!
Sometimes when I read messages posted by people from English speaking countries other than the USA, I have to wonder if they spelled a word incorrectly or if that is how the word is spelled in their country.
I am sure United States English looks odd in other countries. (Then again United States English can look odd depending on where you are in the U.S.)
Bothered by mistakes, no. I make many, and understand making mistakes. Or…what if the person just doesnt know the spelling. I cant be bothered by that, because if they dont know its wrong they cant have fixed it. But what I am BOTHERED by… is people who write in that stupid new slang. Like, not even slang just “gangsta” talk. It bothers me.
Not meaning to belittle people with too much free time at Cambridge university but I’m not really convinced… yes you can read it at pretty much the same speed, but it takes more effort to do it. You can’t skim that little lot and still take it all in like you could normally.
I have to say:
It doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
Personally, I try to read over everything I type, but I’ve had to correct nearly every word in this post due to typos and just not being able to get all the letters in the right order. And, sometimes I really can’t be bothered…
I agree totally Phil- what prompted me to start this thread was the the fact that it could be read by a six year old which astounded me. I also hate the research they do into how soggy breakfast cereal gets, etc etc etc. (can’t remember the other ones. I could rant about useless surveys instead!)
Unfortunately, the claim that this little exercise in random letter positioning is from actual research at Cambridge University is probably bunk. Just urban legend. Snopes has this story as undetermined: Can You Raed Tihs?
Here is another page in the internet by an actual researcher at Cambridge University that cannot confirm that such research was done at Cambridge. An actual Cambridge researcher speaks up. He presents some cases where rearranging the letters in this manner makes the result very difficult to read. It all depends on the words and the actual position of the rearranged letters. Things are not so simple as the original claim in the Snopes article would make it to be.
Let’s face it, the English language is a bit daft with all those silent letters, I think a new dictionary needs to be made which over time we can all start using. Although it could lead to alot of arguments when playing scrabble.
