From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue Sep 24 2002 - 12:29:57 MDT
On 24 Sep 2002 at 10:48, Bill Spight wrote:
> Dear Joe,
>
> I wanted to get a better feel for how much information was in the
> first and last 2 letters of words, so I replaced the middle letters
> with #s:
>
> " ... ra#######ng le###rs in the mi##le of wo#ds [has] li##le or no
> ef##ct on the ab###ty of sk###ed re###rs to un######nd the text. This
> is easy to de#######te. In a pu#######on of New Sc#####st you co#ld
> ra#####se all the le###rs, ke###ng the fi#st two and last two the
> same, and re#######ty wo#ld ha##ly be af####ed. My an####is did not
> come to much be###se the th##ry at the time was for sh#pe and
> se####ce re#######on. Sa###i's work su####ts we may have some
> po####ul pa####el pr######rs at work. The re##on for this is su##ly
> that id#######ng co###nt by pa####el pr######ng sp##ds up
> re#######on.
>
> We only need the fi#st and last two le###rs to spot ch###es in
> me###ng."
>
> Not quite so easy as the original quotation. It appears that the
> author only randomized the order of the middle letters, making a kind
> of quasi-anagram (and leaving 5-letter words the same). So the
> conclusion is not demonstrated. We use information from the scrambled
> letters, as well. :-)
>
> Best,
>
> Bill
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:59 MDT