So does it matter?

READ THIS FIRST: I suggest that you read this post line by line and that your eyes should not wander to other parts of this post if you want the full roller coaster effect. Scroll down slowly.

ANRCDCIOG RAEERCSH CDGMRBAIE UTSVREIIY, DNSOET MTTEAR LTTREES, IOANTRMPT LTTEER. BUAESCE LTETER ILSTEF,. POELPE

Are you able to unscramble these words with ease? No? Then please try the segment immediately below.

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AOCDRNDICG RSCHEEARCH CMABRIGDE UINERVTISY, DSENOT MTAETR OERDR LTTERES, IPROAMTNT TIHNG FRSIT LTTEER RGHIT PCLAE. BCUSEAE HUAMN ERVEY LTETER ISTLEF, WLOHE. PLEPOE

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Was it much better? The answer to the rhetorical question should be: yes. Let me make it even easier by paradoxically adding more words to complete the entire passage. Unscramble away as before, below.

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AOCDRNDICG TO RSCHEEARCH AT CMABRIGDE UINERVTISY, IT DSENO'T MTAETR WAHT OERDR THE LTTERES IN A WROD ARE, THE OLNY IPROAMTNT TIHNG IS TAHT THE FRSIT AND LSAT LTTEER BE IN THE RGHIT PCLAE. TIHS IS BCUSEAE THE HUAMN MNID DEOS NOT RAED ERVEY LTETER BY ISTLEF, BUT THE WROD AS A WLOHE. IF YOU CAN RAED TIHS, PSOT IT TO YUOR WLAL. OLNY 55% OF PLEPOE CAN

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NB: This entire passage is from a chain letter.

Strange. I thought Cambridge claimed that the only thing that mattered was the first and last letter. Shouldn't that mean that you should be able to unscramble any word with similar ease as long as the first and last letter remained untouched because you don't read every single letter by itself anyway?

Let me convince you further.

Unscramble this:

FALNKRY SENIKPAG POUIITVCDTRY PETMLUUMD WFCROOKRE RIUENTLSG DAEESRECD MITAOIVOTN GLIIUITLBY SIUIETLBTSGGIY ITATRIRE CTNOACTS FEOOABCK RSIOENTPG GBGARAE.

What do you mean you can't do it as quickly as before? Are you even able to do it now? I thought Cambridge said you could, as long as the first and last letters remained unchanged because you don't read every single letter by itself anyway? I think you may be dyslexic :(. That's alright, let me help you out:

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FALNKRY SENIKPAG POUIITVCDTRY PETMLUUMD IN THE WFCROOKRE RIUENTLSG FROM DAEESRECD MITAOIVOTN AND GLIIUITLBY AND SIUIETLBTSGGIY TO ITATRIRE CTNOACTS IN FEOOABCK BY RSIOENTPG TIHS GBGARAE.

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Not much better?! Really?! You may actually be borderline retarded then. Get diagnosed before it's too late.

Not really.

What am I going on about? Well, I'm just trying to say that if you actually believed that you were special and that you could unscramble any words with ease as long as the first and last letter are the same, you've been fooled. Many factors actually influence how quickly you can unscramble words even with the first and last letters unmoved. The length of the word for instance, is crucial. You can't unscramble 'dneiuenqlt' as fast as 'qiuck'.

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AOCDRNDICG TO RSCHEEARCH AT CMABRIGDE UINERVTISY, IT DSENO'T MTAETR WAHT OERDR THE LTTERES IN A WROD ARE, THE OLNY IPROAMTNT TIHNG IS TAHT THE FRSIT AND LSAT LTTEER BE IN THE RGHIT PCLAE. TIHS IS BCUSEAE THE HUAMN MNID DEOS NOT RAED ERVEY LTETER BY ISTLEF, BUT THE WROD AS A WLOHE. IF YOU CAN RAED TIHS, PSOT IT TO YUOR WLAL. OLNY 55% OF PLEPOE CAN

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In the chain mail above, you will find that lots of the words are TWO and THREE letter words that CAN'T even be scrambled without moving the first or last letters. FOUR letter words only scramble a tiny bit (for eg. 'fsat'). FIVE letter words scramble a bit more (for eg. 'hrury') and should be manageable even by 6 year olds. SIX letter words should still be easy enough as well (for eg. ltteer). The bulk of the chain mail contains these short scrambled words which are easy to decipher.

The degree of scrambling also determines how easily words can be unscrambled. This is also related to the length of the words; two and three letter words have zero degree of scrambling, while four to five letter words have a tiny degree of scrambling. The degree of scrambling starts to matter when you have long words. For example, 'cieafrlid' is harder to decipher compared to 'cfilaried' or 'clafiried'. If you noticed in the chain mail, longer words like CMABRIGDE or UINERVTISY only have letters moved a position or two. For example, in the word CMABRIGDE as compared to CAMBRIDGE, A swaps with M, BRI stays stagnant and G and D swaps places.

Other factors like, number of vowels, number of repeating letters and familiarity of the word should also play a part in how easily one can unscramble words.

What I was doing above was that I removed all the shorter words in the first scrambled paragraph and more thoroughly scrambled the remaining words. This meant that the sentences will not make sense but it shouldn't matter because the claim of the chain mail is that you can decipher them anyway. Then, I added in more (and also shorter) words to give it a bit more context and also left the degree of scrambling to that of the original chain mail's, which is much simpler to unscramble. Finally, I revealed the entire, unaltered chain mail whereby context and minimal degree of unscrambling should make unscrambling easy peasy. I then proceeded to creating my own scrambled paragraph with a high number of long words and a high degree of scrambling. First, I only revealed the long words of the paragraph. The sentence does not make sense but it shouldn't matter right? Next I, included a few shorter scrambled words to make the paragraph structurally correct when unscrambled, which should have helped make things easier because you would've been able to categorise the scrambled words into nouns or verbs etc.

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My point is, Cambridge did not do this research, this is spam and not changing the first and last letters of a word doesn't mean you can unscramble words as though it hasn't been. If anything, not changing the first and last letters only means that the word is less scrambled and can be more easily unscrambled ('lyble' vs 'blely').

Another thing that should be mentioned is that it's okay if you were fooled. What's not okay is if you spammed people's e-mail and social networks with this deceiving crap or any other chain mail crap that involves asking you to forward mails to put a legless, armless, goatless kid in school or that Bill Gates is giving his money away to strangers and losers or that you a dead girl will rape you tonight if 'you don't forward this to 2376 people in 2 minutes' or that panadol is the devil's spawn and will kill you according to unknown authors who can't even spell.

Spamming is probably only okay if the material doesn't holding you at ransom by making you feel bad for not forwarding, is not full of lies and if it's genuinely just for entertainment or laughs (jokes or funny pictures or optical illusions).

Putting garbage in people's inboxes and on their walls shows a lack of sophistication, motivation and probably disrespect to people. Oh, and it also irritates people.

Hope this has been entertaining to you :)... or that it hasn't burned too much. Ouch!