You’ve probably seen the email that says that you can mix up the letters in any English word, except the first and last, and yet it will still be legible. The email starts off by declaring:
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod…
No-one at Cambridge has owned up to the research, so I guess the actual research is not existent. Be that as it may, I was just reading the BBC sports forum and one of the commenters made the following comment:
RODNEYHODGEBOTTOM (U14186591)
posted 1 Hour Ago
Daer Bneire
Pelase don’t lsoe the Bitrsih Garnd Pirx. It’s a tlury tdaraniotil rcae and suohldn’t be lsot to ahnoetr bnlad, faresetlues criuict jsut bcseaue it stpums up the menoy. I tihnk you’ve lsot sihgt of the fcat taht it’s a srpot and NOT, as you say, ‘a bisnesus’. You’ve got engouh mnoey. Tmie to mabye clal it a day, eh?
It’s nice to see people using the technique in completely random places, though I’ve not yet figured out: faresetlues.
According to a blog post entitled Rscheearch Shmecsearch what we look at is the shape of the word rather than simply mixing up the letters in any which way. Certainly, the longer the word is, the harder it is to read.
Whatever, you have to admire anyone who can be bothered to write like that – it always amuses me.
