Can you read this? Only 55% of people can:

[begin_within]

if yuo can raed tihs, you hvae a sgtrane mnid, too.
Can you raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

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 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!

[Rambis]

1. 5 pints in still ok

Must mean another London Porter is in order.
Cheers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-MrUX03mWM

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. "Delineation". There is no discrimination in a grid.

Neat stuff.

[redqueen]

9. You reminded me of this skit

http://www.kithfan.org/work/transcripts/three/ascert.html

:D

Heh, I went looking for a clip of it, and found one of my old posts here. :P

[Fire Walk With Me]

27. That's a hoot! Thanks :)

The mind definitely wishes to process information in chains of chunks, not single endless streams. As well as size hierarchies (headlines are larger than story text). Imagine a newspaper with all one-sized text, no bolds, and no lines separating stories.

Edit: Phone numbers aren't singular, unbroken chains of digits for very good reason.

[femmocrat]

3. No problem.

Because that is how I type before spell check! ;)

[blogslut]

4. feraky

:)

[supernova]

5. Ha Ha! I ca read it

:D

[applegrove]

6. I've seen this before. Neato.

[flvegan]

7. Even after 3 drinks, yep.

[av8rdave]

8. Even after 3 beers, I can read it!

Or perhaps it's because of 3 beers!

[motely36]

10. yep

:hi:

[graywarrior]

11. I can speed read that sucker

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. No problem...

I think like that, too.

[Systematic Chaos]

13. I nac raed it elsiay.

My barin wkors tihs awy msot of teh tmie.

[Jamastiene]

14. Courtney?

[harmonicon]

15. I can

there were a few words that I stumbled over, but I'm surprised how clear most of it seems.

[ZombieNixon]

16. Apparently, I have a mind in line with the statistical mode.

55%? Doesn't make me feel too special. :shrug:

[LisaL]

17. I sure can. No problem whatsoever.

[justabob]

18. I can

even though I have had a whole bottle of wine to myself... plus some bourbon. Then again, maybe that is the secret to being able to read it :)

[SallyMander]

19. The data here do not support the 55% figure

I can read it too. :hi:

[begin_within]

20. I think DUers have mental capabilities far above the general population

[SallyMander]

24. Ah. Good point.

:toast:

[begin_within]

25. And minds in the gutter

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. That's because the '55%' was made up

The actual message of the text was that everyone can read it, not '55%'. I suppose what this may prove is that "only 55% of people read both the title and the text, and consider if they actually contradict each other".

Snopes says the origin of the whole thing seems uncertain, so all of it may just be made up. But I've seen this elsewhere, and have never seen a lot of people saying "I can't understand it!"

On edit: following through the Snopes links, it seems there was a bit of research, by a PhD candidate at Nottingham University, which may be where this came from, because he wrote a letter to New Scientist about it:

Reibadailty

29 May 1999 by Graham Rawlinson, Aldershot, Hampshire

You report that reversing 50-millisecond segments of recorded sound does not greatly affect listeners' ability to understand speech (In Brief, 1 May, p 27).

This reminds me of my PhD at Nottingham University (1976), which showed that randomising letters in the middle of words had little or no effect on the ability of skilled readers to understand the text. Indeed one rapid reader noticed only four or five errors in an A4 page of muddled text.

This is easy to denmtrasote. In a puiltacibon of New Scnieitst you could ramdinose all the letetrs, keipeng the first two and last two the same, and reibadailty would hadrly be aftcfeed. My ansaylis did not come to much beucase the thoery at the time was for shape and senqeuce retigcionon. Saberi's work sugsegts we may have some pofrweul palrlael prsooscers at work.

The resaon for this is suerly that idnetiyfing coentnt by paarllel prseocsing speeds up regnicoiton. We only need the first and last two letetrs to spot chganes in meniang.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16221887.600-reibadailty.html

And, after the claim that Cambridge University was involved, someone there did the snooping, and got a comment from Rawlinson:

...

My conclusions, and these are open to question of course, were that:

Letter features are processed through a route of letter classification/identification.

Middle letter identification proceeds largely independently of position.

Higher level units seem to be significant only for the beginnings and endings of words.

Information from the middle letters may operate via a sampling/probability system (rather than absolute accuracy). That is, you can have sufficient letters, even though in the wrong position, for the brain to 'recognise' the word.

http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/rawlinson.html

[bigwillq]

21. I could read it (nt)

[baldguy]

22. You mean I've been struggling with correct spelling all these years and IT DOESN'T MATTER?!?

[Zoigal]

23. Fun. No problem reading it. z

[SeattleGirl]

26. I could read it with no problem.

Rather fascinating, though, that our minds can do that.

[Drunken Irishman]

28. Notice it uses small words, though?

I mean, imagine...

tnrtratsibintsuoan

Can you read that as quickly as you read the above paragraph?

[begin_within]

29. transubstantiation?

5 seconds

[Drunken Irishman]

30. 5 seconds? 4 seconds longer than a typical word.

Now imagine a whole paragraph of larger words?

It works well with smaller words, but if you're going to read a more complicated paragraph, it's going to become extremely taxing.

[begin_within]

32. Yeah it works very well with 3-letter words

because the first and last letters have to remain in place

[Drunken Irishman]

33. Exactly.

It's still very interesting, but I'm sure they perfectly worded it so that most anyone could read the paragraph.

I guess it's an intellectual confidence boost, since I've yet to see someone who can't read that.

[begin_within]

31. how about

adliesibsanienmtansitistharm

[Lyric]

42. Antidisestablishmentarianism

3 seconds

:P

[Lucian]

34. I can raed taht jsut fnie.

[TieDyedDad]

35. wow,,im hammered

and I can still read it..

[sohndrsmith]

36. Okay, thoroughly readable for me, which I didn't expect because

correct spelling is something I'm fussy about (in myself) and notice when I see it elsewhere. My daughter even makes fun of me because I'll use proper punctuation and spelling in text messages - though I've tried to relax on that some because it is so bloody tedious in the first place. I make mistakes all the time if I'm not paying attention or if I'm too emotionally invested in something that I'll leave out whole words, so I figured reading your paragraph would give me a headache, but it was pretty effortless.

If I can do it, that makes me tend to think most people probably can because my brain isn't all that versatile at times... : )

This sounds similar to the way kids learn to count - by seeing things as a group and being able to group them, as opposed to individual or unrelated objects.

I remember my daughter looking at the raisins on her plate and saying how many there were and my mother was over the moon - you know how educators get - because she'd made that leap into visual grouping. Who knew raisins could be so mathematically meaningful? : )

[bridgit]

38. Like, E-yeah!

[Iggo]

39. I've yet to meet anyone who can't read it.

I think they pulled 55% outa dey pooper.

[struggle4progress]

40. related 2003 lounge thread:

NEW RULE: NO MORE POSTS ABOUT READING SCRAMBLED WORDS
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x203452

[struggle4progress]

41. If you really enjoy doing this, you can produce longer texts here:

http://www.hakank.org/reading_scrambled_words/r_words.cgi

Example:

Psers Biienrfg 1/30/09


Prses Bfneirig by Prses Srteaecry Rbeort Gbibs

Jeams S. Badry Prses Bierfnig Room
1:55 P.M. EST

MR. GBIBS: Hppay Fadiry. How's evoenyre toady? I hvae my tsrtuy week ahaed -- tuoghh it's not taht detliaed, you'll fnid out. (Ltghaeur.) Srtdauay, I hvae. We'll get it out a ltlite bit leatr. Aaign, I alpoiogze, I'm siltl a lltite unedr the wehaetr.

Let me gvie you a colpue of qcuik aontcneunmens and gvie you a bteetr asnwer to a qseiotun taht was aksed yersedaty taht I ddin't hvae any ifimotnaorn on, and souhld hvae.

Frist of all, Drtoceir Balir cntdoeucd his frist PDB tihs minrong wtih the Psneidert. So we're gald to -- gald taht he's been cimeronfd and gald to hvae him orbnoad. The Obmaa ansmidioiarttn tadoy aunnenocd an emnercegy cnbtrtuioion of mroe tahn $20 molliin to reielf eotrffs in Gzaa, as prat of the Ecemnegry Reufgee and Mitoirgan Asctassine Fnud. Taht was auceonnnd by Soenatr Mleithcl in the rgeion tihs mnionrg.

The Pneedrsit has caelld and tlaked to Pideesrnt Hu Jtiano of Cnhia, and we wlil hvae smoe mroe irtfanomion and a reouadt on taht a lttlie leatr tihs arnoefotn.

And tehn laslty, let me go touhgrh jsut quklicy the DTV qsuoeitn form yraseedty, wichh as I siad, I shulod hvae been btteer pprareed for.

I tinhk you all hvae cieops of lertets taht wree snet form the ttarniison to btoh Heuoss of Crnogses in Januray. The trotnsiain, ouobvilsy, in an aencgy -- in the agcney reveiw pecrsos dmeertined waht it bvelieed to be shftlloars in pnninalg for the DTV trtiasnoin. For innatcse, it fonud taht the copuon paogrrm for cetrrnveos had 3.3 miiolln rusetqes sttiing on a winaitg lsit, and taht the FCC tlod Coegnrss taht the clal cenetr taht it had esstblahied cluod not hlande the rtae of ioinncmg clals ...