Reading words by the "whole-word-shape" method

[pne]

Seen in linguaphiles:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh 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 are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

(Some comments added that readability is improved if you keep together small morphemes [such as word-final -ed]. And separating digraphs such as sh would probably also make things more difficult. But I was still surprised how fluently I could read that text.)

Edit: See also jwz's entry and the comments on that.

Comments

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen something similar elsewhere - surprised me too!

[pthalo]

Taht is aosmwee

[(Anonymous)]

We can read it because we are very familiar with the the correctly written words. Let’s not mess our children’s future because with something like this. This is decadent.

not an approximation at all

[(Anonymous)]

Just imagine if we can write approximately aormaetpixlpy amtelpaoixrpy axpariopletmay amtelpoirapxy. Does it approximate at all?