The vagaries of the mind

[Judy G. Russell]

Fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs?
i 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 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 mcuh fo 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!

[Lindsey]

I guess all those CS2000 folks were onto something, huh?

--Lindsey

[Mike]

LOL!

[davidh]

I wonder if redundancy in the language affects the results. For example, in Hebrew, the vowels are usually left out, could be a problem.

And how you would even perform this experiment with written chinese, I have no idea.

D.H.

[Judy G. Russell]

I guess all those CS2000 folks were onto something, huh?U bet. C2l8r.

[Judy G. Russell]

I suspect this works mostly with English and similar languages.

[chm]

I once found this as "Spelling doesn't matter." and linked it to my site. The fact of it fascinated me, especially since correct spelling was so emphasized in my formative years.

Note this, however - how glaring and grating a misspeling can be. It's the spinach in the teth of the writen word.

Hey, speaking of English, did anybody else notice that Bush calls himself a "decider" these days? "I am the decider, " he said. What happened to the perfectly good - and much more presidential - word "decision-maker"?

Not one to cut Bush slack,

Carolyn

[Judy G. Russell]

With Bush, anything with fewer syllables is better...

[Peter Creasey]

The vagaries of the mind

Judy, This strikes me as similar to the mind handling mono-vision which is what I utilize. (Mono-vision is where the primary eye is used for distance and the other eye for up close/reading.)

[Lindsey]

Hey, speaking of English, did anybody else notice that Bush calls himself a "decider" these days? "I am the decider, " he said. What happened to the perfectly good - and much more presidential - word "decision-maker"?
That's the sort of construction that a small child makes, and it seems to me that Bush does that sort of thing fairly frequently, or at least far more frequently that you would expect from a graduate of Yale and Harvard Business School. I don't know if he has some sort of language disability or what. There's a video (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1019.htm) out on the Internet, though, contrasting footage from a (1994?) debate when he was running for governor of Texas with footage from one of the debates with Kerry in 2004. The difference is striking, though it's hard, I think, to make a judgement just from that. Still, there was a physican who wrote an article for the Atlantic in 2004 speculating that Bush was suffering from pre-senile dementia.

Geez, I know he wants to pattern himself after Reagan, but that's taking it a bit far...

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

Still, there was a physican who wrote an article for the Atlantic in 2004 speculating that Bush was suffering from pre-senile dementia. Geez, I know he wants to pattern himself after Reagan, but that's taking it a bit far...ROFL!!! Mean. Funny, but mean.

[Lindsey]

ROFL!!! Mean. Funny, but mean.
I know. :D

--Lindsey

[davidh]

The idea of trying to make sense out of things that might not or might make sense reminds me of the research recently published about babies supposedly showing empathy by trying to help adults who pretended to drop things, etc.

Maybe the babies are just frustrated by the "stupidity" of the adults and try to help out because they are impatient to have what the adult is doing to make sense.

I realized that I just shot myself in the foot because one can use this as ammunition to argue that belief in a higher being or principle is just a matter of "impatience".

David H. <-- impatient blind faith

[davidh]

So God is pretending to screw up the world to see how the babies will react?

[Judy G. Russell]

This strikes me as similar to the mind handling mono-vision which is what I utilize. (Mono-vision is where the primary eye is used for distance and the other eye for up close/reading.)It wouldn't surprise me at all if it's related, though I suspect it's somewhat easier for the brain to say "okay... close up it's this eye and far away it's that eye" than it is to supply missing letters.

[Judy G. Russell]

So God is pretending to screw up the world to see how the babies will react?Pretending? Pretending?

[sidney]

Vaguely related, my thesis supervisor was telling me yesterday about someone he just met with who is using MRI scans of the brain to research dyslexia. She said that unlike speech, which seems to have been around long enough that the brain has evolved specific speech centers that are in the same place for everyone, some people use the right half of the brain when reading instead of the more common left brain, and they are the ones with severe dyslexia. The implication is that reading is too new to show up as more specific physical evolution of the brain.

-- sidney

[rlohmann]

And how you would even perform this experiment with written chinese, I have no idea. You couldn't. Chinese isn't alphabetic; the characters are complete within themselves.

[rlohmann]

Now, now.... :)

[rlohmann]

Just keep it up....

<sneering ominously>

[chm]

I saw Reagan give a speech once when he was campaigning for his second term.

It was kinda scary how incoherent he was. Seriously.

I liked him why the heck better than our current president, though.

Anyway, on the subject of "The Decider", Jon Stewart noticed this same English oddity that I did and ran with it, making Bush into a comic-book super-hero called "The Decider" - tights, cape, and all. Let's see if I've got the link right:

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/jon_stewart/index.jhtml?playVideo=61850&rsspartner=rssyahoo

Works for me - hope it works for you!

Carolyn

[Lindsey]

I saw Reagan give a speech once when he was campaigning for his second term.

It was kinda scary how incoherent he was. Seriously.
Really? And here I was just thinking that no matter how bad off Reagan might have been when he was in office (and we know now that he must have been in the early stages of Alzheimer's before the end of his second term), he was always quite articulate.

Anyway, on the subject of "The Decider", Jon Stewart noticed this same English oddity that I did and ran with it, making Bush into a comic-book super-hero called "The Decider" - tights, cape, and all.
I saw that!! I love Jon Stewart's show!

--Lindsey

[Lindsey]

Just keep it up....

<sneering ominously>
:p :p :p

"Because the — all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those — changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be — or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the — like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate — the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those — if that growth is affected, it will help on the red." —George W. Bush, explaining his plan to save Social Security, Tampa, Fla., Feb. 4, 2005

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." —George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 (http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushism-propaganda.htm)

"I'm the commander — see, I don't need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." —as quoted in Bob Woodward's Bush at War

--Lindsey