Making Sense of Letter Mix-Ups Through Typoglycemia亂碼中的規則：解密“字母亂序理解力”

In today’s digital age， typing is a part of our daily routine， from school assignments to casual text chats. Despite frequent typos， our messages still make sense to others. This isn’t due to some mind-reading magic， but a phenomenon known as typoglycemia.

在當今的數字化時代，用鍵盤打字已成為我們日常生活的一部分，從學校作業到隨意的文字聊天都離不開它。盡管經常打錯字，但他人仍然能理解我們的信息。這并不是因為有讀心術的魔法存在，而是因為一種被稱為“字母亂序理解力”的現象。

What exactly is typoglycemia？ In 2003， a widespread Internet meme claimed that we can still comprehend scrambled English words. This term， a blend of “typo” and “glycemia”， was coined to describe this phenomenon， even though it has no connection with blood sugar. It claims， not entirely accurately， that our brains have the ability to understand words when the internal letters are mixed up， as long as the initial and final letters remain in place. The idea is our brains can divide up the information into easily comprehensible parts. Understanding individual words as complete units helps us recognize the word’s shape and predict it based on context.

那么，字母亂序理解力究竟是什么呢？在2003年，一個廣為流傳的網絡梗聲稱我們仍然可以理解被打亂字母順序的英文單詞。這個術語，是“打字錯誤”和“血糖”的混合詞，被創造來描述這種現象，盡管它與血糖毫無關聯。它聲稱（并不完全準確），我們的大腦有能力在內部字母亂序的情況下理解單詞，只要首尾字母的位置保持不變。這個概念是我們的大腦可以將信息分解為易于理解的部分。將單個單詞作為完整的單位來理解有助于我們識別單詞的形態并根據上下文預測其意思。

However， most mixed-up words can’t be understood. There are specific conditions necessary for typoglycemia to work. For example， shorter words are simpler to read when mixed up. With large words， there are too many variables. What’s more， linking words like “and” “the” and “a” usually remain intact， helping maintain sentence structure. In addition， it’s easier to grasp swapped adjacent letters， turning “problem” into “porbelm”， rather than non-adjacent ones to make the trickier “plorebm”. Finally， scrambled text must still be reasonably predictable， with words resembling their original pronunciation.

然而，大多數亂序的單詞是無法被理解的。字母亂序理解力需要特定的條件才能發揮作用。例如，短單詞在亂序時更容易閱讀。對于較長的單詞，則會變出太多錯誤形式。而且，連接詞如and，the和a通常保持不變，有助于保持句子結構。此外，對調相鄰字母更容易被理解，例如將problem變為porbelm，而不是將不相鄰的字母調換成更難辨讀的plorebm。最后，被打亂的文字仍必須能夠被合理預測，單詞要與它們原始的發音相似。

Now that you’re acquainted with typoglycemia， future typos may simply seem like playful brain puzzles waiting to be solved.

既然你已經了解了字母亂序理解力，未來打錯的字可能只會像是等待被解開的趣味腦筋急轉彎。

Word Bank

scramble /'skr?mbl/ v. 擾碼，倒頻；擾亂（思維）

adjacent /?'d?e?snt/ adj. 與……毗連的；鄰近的

acquainted /?'kwe?nt?d/ adj. 熟悉；了解

The students are already acquainted with the work of Shakespeare.