Try reading this

>>> Jim Bennett 11/24/04 01:22PM >>>
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 deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are,
the
olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit
a
porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas
thought
slpeling was ipmorantt.

This must be why Sheri and I understand each other's instant messages! Neither one of us bother to spell words correctly but each of us has no problem understanding the other!

I don't get it. What's the point?
It is a short essay on the human mind. Is there something odd about the way it is written?

Gil, just goes to show that those reading challenged among us are not so dumb as we thought!Read fine to me, too!

Me thinks that was written in legalese! Notice who had no problem decifering it! :D

Well, the other point here is that syntax is critical to understanding what's going on. An entire branch of linguistics-cum-philosophy (partially started by Foucalt) exists to understand the the implications.

Lawrence, Could you further elucidate on what you said?

Lawrence......unsinkable Molly Brown here.....HUH????

Lawrence, are you saying that if the grammar were as bad as the spelling we wouldn't be able to understand it so easily? I'll buy that. I have a hard enough time understanding properly spelled but grammaticaly incorrect passages.

Disclaimer: I've never studied any of this stuff so take anything of what I say with more than a grain of salt and probably a bottle of cabernet sauvignon to boot.

Colleen - I think you're right since good grammar necessarily involves proper syntax (word placement). If you look at the original sample Andi provided, the passage is grammatically and syntactically correct but spelled incorrectly.However, it is possible to have proper syntax without absolutely proper grammar (e.g., use of punctuation, prepositions, etc).

Apparently (as seen in the example provided by Andi), the human brain deciphers words through 2 filtering mechanisms.

The first is to look at the entire word, with the first and last letters as well as key "anchor" sounds being most important. Another example of this beyond the passage with the mis-spellings would be to strip out all non-essential vowels because it's consonants that tend to define words phonically. I think a number of rapid communication transcripts used by the military in the 50's and 60's did just this.

The second is to look at the context of the words relative to each other. The niceties of correct punctuation and use of prepositions are less important than which words are placed next to each other. I think that in many languages word placement is paramount to conveying meaning, rather than grammar per se. This is, after all, one reason why we can learn other languages that are outside our "genetic" language tree (e.g., Indo-European vs. Altaic vs. Semitic etc.) that have radically different rules of grammar. But this is also why it's difficult to learn languages in different branches - idioms / idiomatic phrases are typically the hardest aspects of language to learn. And of course idioms/ idiomatic phrases are most dependent on the placement / context of the component words. Perhaps another example of this mechanism would be the infamous word-association exercise. No word is really "alone" in our understanding and perception of it.

In any case, this is where linguistics becomes philosophy. One could argue that no single word has an absolute meaning unless it is in the presence of at least one other word. It's akin to the notion in quantum mechanics that reality does not exist unless you actually observe that reality (in other words the act of observation causes reality to occur).

Well, that's my useless thought for the day.

This is probably why so many strong readers and writers are poor spellers...

I think so. Spelling is pretty low on the totem pole for conveying meaning. Maybe the obsession with spelling is an outgrowth of that National Spelling Bee they show on ESPN (and since when is that a sport?).

Editing to add that it also seems to indicate the importance of phonics - as long as the word can be sounded out it makes sense.

Interesting -
May prove Lawrence's point about context - when this was posted in the Joke of the Day back in October, it garnered nary a comment. As a separate posting without the connotation of being funny, it has sparked a somewhat scholarly discourse.

hahahahaha!!! omg I just spit my seltzer at the screen i was laughing so hard. Ok have to go clean it up. <img border="0" alt="[rofl]" title="" src="graemlins/rofl.gif" />

Hmmm - I had no problem with the original passage, but what Lawrence said:
SAY WHAT?

Can't take you anywhere!

Oh goodness...we are spending Saturday with you two. No spitting at dinner and work on your phonetics and spelling before we get together.

I knew we had work to do with Gil, but I thought we could count on you, Arlene, to set him straight!!!!!!!!!! :pass:

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and Schroedinger's Cat in linguistics?? I love it! :D

Masaki

Glad you liked it! It's possible for me to talk for hours on end about quantum so I should stop now. But...since you mentioned Heisenberg, I will add one thing. It looks like there is actually an exception to the Uncertainty Principle as demonstrated by scientists at IBM. Under normal circumstances, observation prevents a precise measurement of both position and momentum at the same point in time. However, if you utterly destroy what you're trying to measure, you can capture, at the moment of destruction, position and momentum of all sub-atomic particles. In theory, you could collect all of the exact quantum information necessary to reconstruct what was destroyed (does the Star Trek transporter come to mind anyone???). Obviously all the computing power in the world couldn't handle the amount of data yielded by a single bacterial cell, but it does show that good ol' Gene wasn't so far-fetched!

BTW, I'd recommend John Gribbin's "In Search of Schrodinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality" as an excellent layman's primer on quantum mechanics. He does a good job of explaining the history as well as the science of modern physics without any ugly math.

fear not. I'm always a lady in public. As for setting him straight? Not sure it's possible. <img border="0" alt="[bang]" title="" src="graemlins/banghead.gif" />

Lawrence - didn't know about that. But you're right - it's ... fascinating. ;)

Seriously, with the advances in computing power (Moore's Law at work), who knows what might be possible in the future with the data? Gene Roddenberry, indeed!

Masaki

I didn't expect that silly diversion to have become so erudite. I'm impressed with my cruising buds....