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.
© 2025 Michael T. Miyoshi
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