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This page is about something that has been circulating around the
internet for a while now having to do with research from Graham Rawlinson
on "The Significance of Letter Position in Word Recognition".
Specifically, what's been circulating the web are thoughts about our
fascination with the fact that, evne wehn wodrs are horrliby misseplled,
we can still copmrenehd what we raed better than smoe of us may raelzie.
For starters, mine is not the first page on the internet about this and
I'm certainly not trying to claim any originality about it here. I'm
just as interested in it as the next person (well, perhaps more, since I
have at least attempted to make contact with the person that seems to be
the source of the related research).
As I was reading elsewhere about this issue, I decided to check the
"Urban Legends Reference Pages" (www.snopes.com) to see what info they
have on it. Here's the link to their page about it...
http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/cambridge.asp
I found out more info than what they have posted. So, that's the purpose
for this page.
I know much of these are likely duplicates of what others already have
seen and posted about it, but not all.
Here are links to what I found out there, including a link to something
that seems to be the original paper from which this springs and a link
to the author's website.
The text of this page exists on at least two websites out there. After
browsing for general interest, I suggest searching this page for the
name "Graham Rawlinson"...
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/matt.davis/Cmabrigde/
This is a link to a website for a group named "Next Step Associates"
lead by a person named "Graham Rawlinson"...
http://www.dagr.demon.co.uk/
Here's this Graham Rawlinson's contact info page on that site...
http://www.dagr.demon.co.uk/contact.html
On the following two pages (on sites referenced by others about this
issue), this "Graham Rawlinson" actually appears to join the discussions
and lay claim to the origin of the research.
http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000840.php
http://www.bisso.com/ujg_archives/000060.html
Here's a link to something about it on NewScientist's website...
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg16221887.600
Here's a link to what appears to be a copy of the paper by Graham
Rawlinson...
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/matt.davis/Cmabrigde/rawlinson.html
-or-
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/~matt.davis/Cmabrigde/rawlinson.html
Here is just another opinion on the matter from someone out
there...seems level-headed enough to me...
http://www.moun.com/Articles/oct2003/10-6-6.htm
Here is an Amazon.com link to Graham Rawlinson's book "How to Invent
(Almost) Anything"...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1904298877/qid=1105666951/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-6552236-1648768?v=glance&s=books
...and here is a link to other books by Graham Rawlinson on
Amazon.com...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Graham%20Rawlinson/104-6552236-1648768
I have sent an e-mail message to Graham Rawlinson asking for
confirmation of the origin of this reasearch as well as permission to
quote from his paper on this website.
I will keep you posted here on any developments in the future.
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