Do you have a strange mind?

[southernbob]

Cna yuo raed tihs? fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulatcly uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Azanmig huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

[footprintsinconc]

it is pretty interesting. i've seen this before. if i had known this while i was in school, i would have had lots of fun with this in english class.

[cwithboat]

That would really screw up a computer.

[Alex Franke]

ah -- tehre's hpoe for me and my fat fignres atferall!

[jackellis]

Well, maybe. I do a lot of reading in the course of my work and if something is written badly (or even not-so-badly), words are misspelled or misused, or there are grammar errors, I get distracted immediately to the point where I start focusing on how the piece is written rather than the author's message.

For example, I understand engaging in a dialogue with someone. I don't understand what it means to dialogue with someone.

Now what were you trying to say earlier?

[Hellrazor]

I don't have any problem reading that. Kind of amusing that doesn't cause problems..

[Ed62]

In my drinking days, I used to read like that all the time. I thought I just got used to it.

Ed

[Russianwolf]

My mind, like most of the wood I work with, is Warped. Not Strange.

[docrowan]

I believe our minds look for patterns in everything to deal with what would otherwise be information overload. Because of this we're very good at filling in the blanks to make rapid sense of it. While this talent is extremely useful, it can lead to trouble.

Earlier this week when I was getting on the highway outside my neighborhood I almost pulled out in front of a motorcycle. My vision was somewhat obstructed by some tall weeds and for some reason the headlight seemed extra bright to me. My brain didn't recognize it as a motorcycle, I remember thinking it looked like a truck much further down the road that had sun reflecting off the rear panel. Fortunately it was to the left and I always look left, then right, then left again. The second look with my foot already on the accelerator told me it was a motorcycle.

[crokett]

My wife looked at this thread and says yes, I have a strange mind.

[messmaker]

I think thats about how I spell most of those words anyway!

[vaking]

Actually - this is one of deliberate features of human languages.Computers operate with binary code and changing one digit makes it a different number or word. Human language was deliberately made inefficient to contain extra letters. Think of it this way - Shakespeare's vocabulary had about 12000 words. English language has 26 letters. In order to make 12000 words with 26 different letters you need just 3 letters in each word. That gives you more than 17000 different combinations. If we wanted to make language as short as possible - we would have introduced a new word every time we change one letter. Then we would have only had 3-letter words. Every time we use words longer than 3 letters - we waste space. We do that intentionally. By using longer words and not making every possible letter combination a valid word we protect ourselves against mistakes. If not for that - every time you made a typo you would have had another valid word with different meaning. If somebody makes a typo in a finacial report where all entries are digits - can you spot a typo right away? In a text you see a typo easily. In financial world people use what we call today double-entry accounting. Every number is recorded twice and you need to constantly reconcile your records. Any typo and reconciliation fails to make you start looking for errors. That presumes that you did not make same typo twice. Double-entry accounting was invented by catholic monks in 15th century and that was a method to deal with human error with digits instead of letters. It is either this or deliberately bloating the language. Which would you rather have?