MediocreMan

Typoglycemia · 15 February 2025

Can you raed tihs? Of course you can.

It is interesting that we make up words to describe phenomena that we observe. Typoglycemia is a term that somebody made up to describe the phenomenon that at least some (dare I say most) people can read words even when you scramble the letters. Especially if the first and last letters are in the correct places. (By the way, apparently when you make up a term for a phenomenon, it is called a neologism. Who knew?)

Now, I had heard of the phenomenon before. The phenomenon that people can read words where the middle letters are scrambled. It makes sense. People’s minds are incredible. They can decipher all sorts of crazy things. Sometimes just by looking at them. They recognize patterns without really thinking too hard about them. It is just amazing.

At any rate.

I learned about typoglycemia after I wrote about correctly spelled words looking like they were misspelled. (By the way, “misspelled” is truly spelled with two of the letter s. I used to misspell it as “mispell” until I figured out that it was misspelled. But it does not really matter if I misspell “misspell” because the computer often fixes misspelled words for me. It certainly tries to correct “mispell” everytime I misspell it on purpose. Sheesh.)

I am not sure why whoever made up the term typoclycemia named it typoglycemia. It seems strange. After all, hypoglycemia is a medical condition where a person’s blood sugar levels go too low. And hyperglycemia is a medical condition where a person’s blood sugar levels are too high. So to me, typoglycemia would be a medical condition where a person’s blood sugar levels have been typed incorrectly, whatever that might mean. But I do not make up terms for normal human consumption. I just make them up for myself.

At any rate.

I suppose that I really just wanted to spell “misspell” a bunch of times and comment on the strange word and phenomenon called typoglycemia. Then, I was going to try and write a bunch of sentences with words where the inner letters are scrambled, but that would be way too much work. Especially since I am used to using simple words, often much less than the four letters required to scramble inner letters. Okay. Maybe not often much less than four, but often enough. You get the idea. (See, only one word in the last sentence had four letters.)

Wlel, I hpoe taht you ejoenyd my bolg psot tdoay. And if you conant raed the wdors in tihs lsat praapgarh vrey wlel, you may not be pvriy to the phenomenon claeld typoglycemia.

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Contempt for Spelling Words · 8 February 2025

Have you ever spelled a word correctly, but saw it so many times that you thought it looked misspelled? Nah. Me neither.

I recently wrote about the app and website, DailyPrompt. I sent a preview to the founder of the endeavor and he told me about a mistake that I had made. I had misspelled DailyPrompt in one place. I thanked him and told him I would fix it. Which I did. The interesting thing though is that I used DailyPrompt 17 times in the post. Which is a lot for any single word in one blog post. Unless, of course, that word is something common like “the” or “and” or even “or.” I was amazed that I had used the word that many times.

At any rate.

The interesting thing about the whole endeavor is not the fact that I misspelled the word only one time in those 17 times, but that when I was fixing the error, it started to look wrong. I knew I was spelling “prompt” correctly, but it looked misspelled. I used the computer to look for “Daily” then “DailyProm” then “DailyPrompt” as my final pass. I made sure that I counted the instances of “DailyProm” and “DailyPrompt” so I could make sure they were the same number. Thankfully, they were.

I say thankfully for two reasons.

The first reason is because the computer was more reliable than my eyes at that point. I was seeing “prompt” as a misspelling even though I knew it was correct. Apparently, familiarity does breed contempt. Even contempt for a word. Or maybe contempt is not the correct word. But I was definitely thinking that the word was taunting me or something. So I was definitely not happy with it.

The second reason I say thankfully is because the computer was giving me a red squiggly line underneath my one correction of DailyPrompt. The one that was previously “DailyPromt” but was corrected to “DailyPrompt” was still underlined with that hated red squiggly line. Even after I corrected it. (By the way, I went back to correct the post one more time and the corrected instance was still underlined with that red squiggly line. And it was the only instance of said squiggles.)

Normally, I would blame a certain large tech company that produces operating systems and productivity software and other things, but this was happening on my website software. The place where I post my blog. Which was interesting. I do wonder if I will still see it the next time I open the post. Probably. But that is okay. I can live with it.

Photo courtesy of Ryan Lindsey

I wonder about the phenomenon of seeing a word that is correctly spelled looking like it is misspelled. I thought maybe I would see if misspelled would look that way after a few instances on a page. Turns out that it does not. At least not the number of times in this post. But I am sure it happens with other words. Or maybe not. Maybe it only happens with words that have “mpt” in them. Think about it. There are probably on a few words that have “mpt” in them. I can only think of “prompt” and “tempt.” Okay. Plus words that have those words as their base. Prompter, tempter, tempted. You get the picture. Oh. And “empty.”

(Hmm. Seeing words with “mpt” cannot be the cause of seeing words as misspelled when they are not. After all, those words above do not look wrong. At least not with just a couple instances of them.)

Well, I am sure that somebody somewhere has a name for seeing words correctly spelled as words that are misspelled, but I am not going to look it up. It would not matter if I did anyway, for I would not remember. So for now, I will just call it contempt. (Hey. There is another word with “mpt” in it. Which, by the way, I just noticed as I spelled it.) I guess familiarity does breed contempt. Even with words.

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Again Amongst the Beach Detritus · 1 February 2025

[Note: This is a sequel to Amongst the Beach Detritus.]

The flashing blue lights and red lights are driving me crazy. But I cannot move from the beach detritus. It is safe here. And I can hear what is happening. I can hear the man in the uniform and Joey.

“My wife, Sophie, was sleeping in the sun, so I decided to clean up. I was doing my part and separating out the trash from the food garbage from the recycle. I just finished when Sophie screamed. I ran to where she was lying. Her ring finger was gone and she was bleeding everywhere.

“Look, I know it sounds crazy, but some blood-thirsty crab came and snapped my wife’s finger off to grab her wedding ring. I saw the crab go into that garbage that the tide brings in, the beach detritus. And if I didn’t know better, I would have thought that crab kept saying, ‘My precious, my precious,’ as he ran away.”

“And where is this crazy, talking crab now, sir?”

“I don’t know! I was taking care of my wife. I had to stop the bleeding and call 911. The EMTs and you got here about the same time. You watched me get her into the back of their truck or van or whatever you call that thing. They said if we can find Sophie’s finger, we might be able to get it sewed back on and restore at least some function.”

Uh oh. That means trouble. They are coming to get me. Me and my precious. I run toward the water from my spot in the detritus clutching the precious treasure in my claw. Clutching the finger which has the ring.

I hear them chasing me. And in no time at all, they catch me. The one with the uniform holds me up. I hold tight to the finger that has my precious.

“Well, I’ll be. A treasure seeking crab.”

Joey grabs at the finger. It is too soft and I have no way to keep hold of it as he pulls. I watch in horror as he takes the finger and my treasure away.

“Nooooooooo! My precious.”

The uniformed man smiles. “And a talking crab. Or what suffices for talking. Or screaming.”

He kneels down, sets me on the ground, and lets me go. I start toward where Joey has just taken the finger and the precious. The uniformed man steps in front of me.

“No sirree, Bob.” He puts his foot on top of me so that I cannot move. I reach up to claw and scratch him. “It’s time for some beach justice.” I see his face as he leans down one last time. “Sorry, crab. Tomorrow, you’ll just be part of the beach detritus.” He stands straight and I see him no more.

I feel the pressure of his foot increase. “No! My…”

[Note: No crabs or people were hurt in the writing of this piece of fiction.]

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