Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer
in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is
taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae
the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a
wlohe."
You've probably received this email or seen it posted on Facebook: the
claim that the brain reads whole words, not individual letters. It's
interesting how quickly we can read it, though of course many of the
words in the paragraph are still in their original forms. See
this article for more on the limits of this thought experiment.
I'm reminded of Lewis Carroll's brilliant nonsense poem, "
Jabberwocky."
Though most of the nouns and verbs are neologisms or derivations, the
reader can still get much of the sense of the poem due to
universal grammar, poetic technique, and similarities to existing words. It's an excellent poem to read aloud. Wikipedia has a great
entry guessing at some of the word meanings in the poem.
Are there words you like? Do some words make your flesh crawl? I have
always liked endoplasmic reticulum, epiphany, postprandial,
onomatopoeia, archipelago. I love the names for
animal groups:
a murder of crows? an exaltation of larks? a parliament of owls? a
pride of lions? But verb a noun, and it's like fingernails on a
chalkboard to me: we have an impact--we do not impact others; we use our
knowledge as leverage--we do not leverage our knowledge. I'm looking at you, Andy Stanley!
What delights you about words? Which words get your hackles up? What do
you think about the idea of universal grammar? What poems do you like to
read aloud? What on earth is "Jabberwocky" about? I'd like to read your
thoughts about language, letters, words, and grammar.
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