Re: A stupid text trick - Example of the redundancy of English text

From: Richard Heathfield (dontmail_at_address.co.uk.invalid)
Date: 09/16/03 

Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 21:57:50 +0000 (UTC)

LVB wrote:

> On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 13:53:07 -0700, John A. Malley wrote:
>
>> This is such a marvelous example of English language entropy/character I
>> must share it with sci.crypt. A friend sent me this today:
>>
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Subject: Dslyecixs taek haret
>>
>> Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deson'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 lteetr by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.
>>
>>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Isn't that great? :-)
>>
>> Native English speaker/readers should have no trouble parsing the text
>> because of the redundancy of printed English. Only the first and last
>> letters of each word remain in their expected positions.
>
> Well, although I can understand the text, it takes me stncigflinaiy
> longer to do so than when reading the unscrambled text. I wonder how much
> is actually due to our understanding of the context, rather than the
> redundancy mentioned above?

Let's find out, with some semi-randomly chosen text. (Hint: people like Doug
Gwyn will recognise this easily, even in its mangled form.)

The need for a sgilne caellry deefind saadnrtd had aeirsn in the
cimmnotuy due to a radilpy eadinnpxg use of the pagimmnorrg laaggnue
and the vaeirty of deffiinrg taalnorstr iaeeilmmnnoptts taht had been
and were being deeelopvd.

I don't know about you, but I find that quite tricky to read, even though
quite a few of the words happened to come out unscathed. 

-- 
Richard Heathfield : binary@eton.powernet.co.uk
"Usenet is a strange place." - Dennis M Ritchie, 29 July 1999.
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