Comments on: Word Salad

By: p mac

p mac — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

It’s much simpler than that. It’s well established (since 1950 or so) that there’s only about 1.2 bits of information per character in an English word.

So throwing all the letters in a bag, especially when conserving the first letter, is more than enough information for people to puzzle out what the words are. It certainly takes me a lot longer to read the scrambled text.

See http://math.ucsd.edu/~crypto/java/ENTROPY/

for some history and a cool demonstration.

By: Diane Patterson

Diane Patterson — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Excellent.

(I think you messed up the (admn) though, no? Shouldn’t it be (dman)?)

By: John Isbell

John Isbell — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

The initial extract I do near reading speed, with little focus, catching almost every word. Your long text I do slower than reading speed but still flowing, paying real attention, missing about 25% but still able to process. I got the last two of your isoolated words at that speed.
FWIW.

By: Laura in DC

Laura in DC — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

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By: Laura in DC

Laura in DC — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

By: John Isbell

John Isbell — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

So good she posted twice.

By: Laura in DC

Laura in DC — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Sorry about that. I must have clicked the button twice! Sorry!

By: somayya

somayya — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

interesting research. could you please tell me where i can get more information on this research as my slef and my group at uni wish to research into this as part of our psychology coursework. if any one knows any sites where i can get more information and similar research and theories on jumbed up passages could you please let me know on my email adress.
many thanks
somayya

By: Inert Ramblings

Inert Ramblings — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Aoccdrnig to rsereach…

Aoccdrnig to rsereach 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 ltteres are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl…

By: I protest.

I protest. — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

So much for that.

Kieran Healy deconstructs the latest “fact” going around in “Word Salad.” The short version: Most commonly-used English words are short and any word of three or fewer letters cannot be scrambled, leaving quite a bit of context from which we…