Can You Raed Tihs?

An aoynmnuos raeedr sumbtis: "An interesting tidbit from Bisso's blog site: Scrambled words are legible as long as first and last letters are in place. Word of mouth has spread to other blogs, and articles as well. From the languagehat site: 'Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. ceehiro.' Jamie Zawinski has also written a perl script to convert normal text into text where letters excluding the first and last are scrambled."

Comments

Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK?

[inertia187]

Quick! Someone go register goaste.cx, micorsoft.com, ssdlhoat.org...etc.

Actually, does this work well with letter pairs like, "th ch wh sh qu?" I forget what those are called.

Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK?

[focitrixilous P]

I know! goaste.cx could be some kind of crazy ASCII based pr0n site! That would creep people out who were trying for goatse.cx!

Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK?

[shadowcabbit]

I personally find it more creepy that people would be trying for goatse.cx .

Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK?

[spongman]

tripthong: falling flat on your face after getting out of bed the morning after a particularly successful date.

Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK?

[Jucius Maximus]

So this explains how 'music' groups like the BLackstreet Boys came into existence.

Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mourning Blade said:

They're called dipthongs. There's also tri pthongs, though I can't think of any English ones right now. And no, they don't appear to work quite as well. I had trouble reading a few words that had split dipthongs.

Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK?

[kcurtis]

My neighbor weighed your argument. He used a beige scale, and decided it was probably the heinous act of a foreigner to make such a statement. And you're weird. So rein in yourself, and remove the veil of ignorance, ye feisty cad!

Thou should forfeit karma, but that is neither here nor there.

Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK?

[panaceaa]

I could feign a plebeian ignorance, but I inveigh your deceiving sleights. By seeing correspondence I've received, including eight receipts from my leisure activities and a weird lein on my sovereign freight sleigh, a weighty surveillance can be unveiled: SOMETIMES E COMES BEFORE I!

Now, where are my reindeer?! (for my sleigh!!)

Signed, der Weihnachtsmann

Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK?

[boojum.cat]

They're called dipthongs.

Don't you mean "dgnthpois"? You're right, it doesn't seem to work very well...

Re:Yes, a cat's got my tongue, OK?

[M. Silver]

SOMETIMES E COMES BEFORE I!

Yes, but those are "ei" pairs.

At Lsat!

[Urantian]

Bad splelnig no logner nedes to hlod aynnoe bcak!

Re:At Lsat!

[Hamstaus]

Bad splelnig no logner nedes to hlod aynnoe bcak!

As if that's stopped anyone on Slashdot before.

Re:At Lsat!

[scalis]

So it IS true! Dyslexics definitely has more fnu!

Re:At Lsat!

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

As if that's stopped anyone on Slashdot before.

Hehemmm. Taht solhud be: As if tath's stpoped aonnye on Sasldoht boeefr.

Re:At Lsat!

[Bob Wehadababyitsabo]

As if tath's stpoped aonnye on Sasldoht boeefr.

You cna't eevn get the fekucd up snleiplg rghit!!!

Re:At Lsat!

[The Old Burke]

You cna't eevn get the fekucd up snleiplg rghit!!!

Die speilnlg Tllor, die!!

Re:At Lsat!

[falzer]

Dyslexics of the world untie!

Re:At Lsat!

[Darth_Burrito]

Dyslexia, Cure found for.

Re:At Lsat!

[MikeFM]

I know you were joking but I do find this idea funny because I am dyslexic and it takes me a lot of effort to get my letters in the right order consistantly. The idea that non-dyslexic people are purposely getting their letters out of order when for years I've been trying not to is just funny to me. What next? Will we begin to see typefaces with characters turned upside down or backwards? Maybe we'll see normal people getting the order of words all wrong. At least from now on I can claim that my accidents were done on purpose as part of a code. :)

Grammer Nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

it slef

I think this should be "istlef". At least the capitalize the first letter of each sentance. I can't read those lower case comments.

--
From a wanna-be grammer nazi.

In the Sivoet Uonin

[tarquin_fim_bim]

WRDOS SBRCALME YOU!

Hangs head in shame

[Anonymous Coward]

What? L337 speech isn't really all that elite? Say it ain't so!

holy..

[the uNF cola]

Holy FCUK!

Re:holy..

[brian728s]

On the French Connection UK site (FCUK), it was asking for my screen size, and it said

FCUK.COM

Please Choose Your Screen Size

>FCUKSMALL
>FCUKLARGE

Automatically redirecting to fcuklarge in ten seconds

FINALLY

[Rathian]

Justification for the lack of spell checking on Slashdot...

Nwo, Teh Gebalrd Ptsos

[thatguywhoiam]

Why do I get the feeling that this particular thread will hvae a few mroe snpellig eorers tehn uusal?

Re:Don't thank a teacher

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Those that can't post moderate!

Microsoft calls that

[Penguinshit]

"encryption".

In Svoiet Rsusai

[Anonymous Coward]

In Svoiet Rsusia, seplling bdas yuo!

So in other words...

[Valar]

It's a perl script to format normal text into text that looks like a perl script? I think my head is spinning.

Re:So in other words...

[gdchinacat]

I any language were to program itself, perl would be it.

Take that 9th grade English teacher....

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Throw out the I before E rule once and for all.

Eggs

[vevva]

Agrlhit cleevr clogs - see if you can sbarclme eggs

Re:tahn, you fool!

[Lord Bitman]

TAHN!

Yes I could read it but...

[mark_space2001]

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. ceehiro.

...but it's like reading a post by a 12 year old on a forum someplace ... or like playing an online game with a bunch of l33t doodz. I hate it.

Don't ever do this again, Slashdot.

Cool

[retro128]

And to think I was about to apologize for my last typo-ridden post.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: the middle letters aren't necessary to get your point accross, but the middle finger still is.

Excuse?

[theolein]

I wonder if the origins of this trend aren't in the terrible spelling and bad grammar that many internet age children employ, having gone through a school system that accepts MS Word's spelling correction as normal?

The bset prat

[kuwan]

The best part of the pearl script is the copyright notice:

# Coyprgiht (C) 2003 Jamie Zawinski
#
# Premssioin to use, cpoy, mdoify, drusbiitte, and slel this stafowre and its
# docneimuatton for any prsopue is hrbeey ganrted wuihott fee, prveodid taht
# the avobe cprgyioht noicte appaer in all coipes and that both taht
# cohgrypit noitce and tihs premssioin noitce aeppar in suppriotng
# dcoumetioantn. No rpeersneatiotns are made about the siuatbliity of tihs
# srofawte for any puorpse. It is provedid "as is" wiuotht exerpss or
# ilmpied waanrrty.

Re:The bset prat

[Anonymous Coward]

# Coyprgiht (C) 2003 Jamie Zawinski
#
# Premssioin to use, cpoy, mdoify, drusbiitte, and slel this stafowre and its
# docneimuatton for any prsopue is hrbeey ganrted wuihott fee,

He didn't scramble the word "fee" very well...

Re:The bset prat

[piranha(jpl)]

The variable and subroutine names are also sreamblcd.

my $porgnmae = $0; $porgnmae =~ s@.*/@@g;
my $vresoin = q{ $Revision: 2.1 $ }; $vresoin =~ s/^[^0-9]+([0-9.]+).*$/$1/;
...
sub scrmable {
...
sub usgae {
...
sub mian {
...

Re:The bset prat

[Poeir]

He swapped the "e"s.

What?!? No "Frist Psot"?

[momerath2003]

I can't believe it! I was assuming that someone, someone out there (especially the first poster) would do it!

Come on, you slacker trolls!

(ethighy-ftifh psot!)

Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"?

[RobertB-DC]

"Frist Psot" was rejected by the Lameness Filter, which was specially audjestd for this story. Note that the Slashdot spell-uncheck program was also adjusted to aollw the correct spellings of the non-scrambled wdors in the story to be let thourgh.

(tihs siht is too mcuh fun! sotp me!)

Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"?

[Dirtside]

What?!? No "Frist Psot"?

Given the nature of the story, I'd expect the trolls to end up posting a properly spelled "First Post" message. :)

Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"?

[Guppy06]

We were all too busy looking at pron.

Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Let's see if I can get this over with in one fell swoop:

all your bsae are boleng to us
In Seviot Rsuisa Words Srcmable You
Imangie a sbcramled bwelouf ctsuler
Tihs mhigt be big eunogh to hold all my mp3's if I smalrcebd tehm (remmeber that one?)
cehck out this lnik.

Did I miss any?

Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"?

[optikSmoke]

You only missed one obvious one (to me): i gesus it deonst mtaetr taht sashlodt eidorts cnat selpl !

Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"?

[Lord_Dweomer]

I, for one, wcelmoe our new dyselxic oervlrdos!

Re:What?!? No "Frist Psot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. You msiesd the ovboius one.
2. ???
3. Porift!

ynlo gcramblins eht tirsf dna tasl setterl

[vevva]

Eht sbviouo txperimene ot monfirc eht yheort si ot ees thaw sappenh nhew uoy ecrambls ynlo eht tirsf dna tasl setterl dna eeavl eht eiddlm setterl eht eams. Eompletc Kobbledegoog.

Re:ynlo gcramblins eht tirsf dna tasl setterl

[SmackCrackandPot]

Complete Googledekobb - I am going to use that word in my thesis.

This is Slashdot...

[Osrin]

people here don't read just the first and the last letters of a word... we generally don't read anything at all, we just hit reply and dive right in.

Re:Here you go

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not too bright, are you?

SPAM?!?!?!?

[mcrbids]

Ok, so now they discover that randomizing the text within words doesn't detract (too much) from readability - does that mean we'll soon be seeing:

ELNRAGE YUOR PNEIS!!!

on the subject lines of emails received? How would any of the pattern matching anti-spam methods out there deal with this one?

And, we just gave them the tool do use!

-Ben

Re:SPAM?!?!?!?

[Dirtside]

ELNRAGE YUOR PNEIS!!!

Wow, when I first read that, my brain parsed it as "ENRAGE YOUR PENIS!!!" Which sounds like a really bad idea.

Round 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Wi not trei a holiday in Sweden this yer?
See the loveli lakes

And for those of you who remember murf.com...

[Mattcelt]

F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a drn.

Someone has to say it...

[mog007]

I, for one, wlecmoe our new msispleegin ovrelrods

yeah...

[commodoresloat]

and I, for one, wlcemoe our new dslyxeic ovlrerdos!

impruvd inglis

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the proposed UN English language modifications to make English easier for everyone to learn!

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by " v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

Compression?

[PotatoMan]

Does this suggest we can compress English text by retaining first, last, and length? Given that we can represent chars with 5 bits, and use another 5 bits for length, we should be able to pack words into two bytes, including a parity bit.

Does this work only for English? Or only for Romance languages? Or can we find a similar scheme for any language?

We use short words

[craw]

Is this an incommensurable phenomenological hypothesis or the manifestation of the inteligibility of idiomatic individualistic intercommunications?

Want me to scramble this?

Re:ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

the same stuff your generation is selling to us.

The Definitive Misspelling Post

[The Monster]

I think your post is proof that we definately do need the middle letters.

But it's apparently not so definite which letters we need.

<sigh>

Re:ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

clearly teh doesn't maintain the first and last letter.

You lose.

Rmiends me of...

[TamMan2000]

Pron

Cna't beileve I was the frist to say it...

Come get me RIAA

[Apreche]

Let's see if they search for

Led Zlepneipn - Sriawty to Hvaeen.mp3

hahahahah!!!!!

(applies pearl script to mp3 directory)

bah! real men only need 1 line

[d_i_r_t_y]

perl -pe 's/\b(\w)(\w{2,})(\w)\b/ @a = split m||, $2; $1 . join("", map { splice @a, int( rand @a ), 1 } (1 .. length $2)) . $3; /ge'

Re:bah! real men only need 1 line

[d_i_r_t_y]

i think you missed the implicit sarcasm tags. :-)

Re:bah! real men only need 1 line

[Anonymous Coward]

d00d g\/3ss y0\/R j\/sT n0t l33t

I downloaded the script - the copyright is no good

[NotQuiteReal]

I got the perl script. The first thing I notice is that the copyright is tllatoy unecnofirble...

A sample sentence

[Azureflare]

Context is used to determine the actual meaning of the word. A word can be spelled randomly as another valid word. I think given a sample sentence, the true meaning can be derived.

"Tikang garet crae, I septped bihend the gril, and fdnoled her basters"

Um, that is a little hard to read isn't it. Well, ok, I think you're right. Notice "gril" and "basters" in the same sentence, make you think of cooking.

And yes, this statement could be offensive. Well, I'm male. I can't really help it.

Re:Hmmm

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Argh! VB Flsahbcak!!

Re:Bit of a simplistic article...

[Biffer4810]

In fact there is a classic psych experiment based around displaying a word that iconically is very similar to another word

Ironically, this word is very similar to another word... ;)

I am dyslexic

[revividus]

Yuo inesnsivite cold!

CmdrTaco?

[smyle]

Hey Taco,

There's no need to make up "news" to justify your poor speeling.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you just rediscovered ancient Hebrew!

New Tool for Spammers

[panda]

So, am I really the first to realize that spammers would love this? Now, they can get a message through that a human can decipher, but that a computer would have a very hard time deciphering. You probably now need to attach a spell checker to your spam filter and if there are too many misspelled words, then trash the message. 'Course, I'd lose a lot of mail from my /. friends! :-)

Binary doesn't work!

[e03179]

I'm guess this stuff wouldn't working in Binary. 011001101000110101111000

Perl script

[O.M.A.C.]

Does the perl script actually jumble the word, or does it just scan Slashdot for a misspelling that contains the same letters?

Now I now where the word

[Anonymous Coward]

pron came from