Spelling matters?

[Baker, John]

        Ah, but you cannot scramble a 2- or 3-letter word without changing the first or last letter, which the message describes as important.

        There are some scrambling mistakes, but I don't know that they mean the message was written by a non-native.  Unscrambled, the message includes "researchch," "importent," "letter" (should be "letters"), and "total" (left unscrambled).

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: Laurence Horn [mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 11:04 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Spelling matters?

That's the version I've seen, at least the beginning, which made me
wonder if this was penned by a non-native speaker/writer.  Or is "a
research" possible in British (or other non-U.S.) English?  Note also
that the conclusion from the paragraph must be closer to the
proposition that letter scrambling doesn't wipe out interpretation
for four-and-more-letter words.  I suppose "hte" wouldn't be
impossible to "correct" in context either, but it does help that none
of the two- and three-letter words are scrambled below.

larry

>
>"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't
>mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny
>iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the
>rghit pclae The rset can be a total 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".