Pen-Elayne on the Web

Here's One For Snopes

The "jumbled letters meme" has spread all over the blogosphere like wildfire. I got it from Julia H (link at sidebar). It goes like this:

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.

Julia has "Cmabrigde" substituted for "Elingsh" but it's essentially the same meme. I was fascinated because English and linguistics were my two majors in college and because Robin and I have discussed the phenomenon of people reading words as essentially shapes, so it seemed to make sense-- only, curiously, a Google search fails to pinpoint the actual source of this particular bit of research. Language Hat points to Uncle Jazzbeau who thinks he might have found the source. I'd still love to see Snopes nail it, though.