Making Sense of Letter Mix-Ups Through Typoglycemia乱码中的规则：解密“字母乱序理解力”

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.

在当今的数字化时代，用键盘打字已成为我们日常生活的一部分，从学校作业到随意的文字聊天都离不开它。尽管经常打错字，但他人仍然能理解我们的信息。这并不是因为有读心术的魔法存在，而是因为一种被称为“字母乱序理解力”的现象。

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，字母乱序理解力究竟是什么呢？在2003年，一个广为流传的网络梗声称我们仍然可以理解被打乱字母顺序的英文单词。这个术语，是“打字错误”和“血糖”的混合词，被创造来描述这种现象，尽管它与血糖毫无关联。它声称（并不完全准确），我们的大脑有能力在内部字母乱序的情况下理解单词，只要首尾字母的位置保持不变。这个概念是我们的大脑可以将信息分解为易于理解的部分。将单个单词作为完整的单位来理解有助于我们识别单词的形态并根据上下文预测其意思。

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，大多数乱序的单词是无法被理解的。字母乱序理解力需要特定的条件才能发挥作用。例如，短单词在乱序时更容易阅读。对于较长的单词，则会变出太多错误形式。而且，连接词如and，the和a通常保持不变，有助于保持句子结构。此外，对调相邻字母更容易被理解，例如将problem变为porbelm，而不是将不相邻的字母调换成更难辨读的plorebm。最后，被打乱的文字仍必须能够被合理预测，单词要与它们原始的发音相似。

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

既然你已经了解了字母乱序理解力，未来打错的字可能只会像是等待被解开的趣味脑筋急转弯。

Word Bank

scramble /'skræmbl/ v. 扰码，倒频；扰乱（思维）

adjacent /ə'dʒeɪsnt/ adj. 与……毗连的；邻近的

acquainted /ə'kweɪntɪd/ adj. 熟悉；了解

The students are already acquainted with the work of Shakespeare.