I have managed to astound my friends with my ability to read things that are upside down and/or inverted (like writing as seen reflected in a mirror) just as fast as as if it were normal.
It’s not a something I’ve tried to cultivate and I suspect it has something to do with my job as a computer modeler (where bieng able to visualize a 2-dimentianal diagram as a 3-dimentional form is a nessasary skill).
I dunno. I seem to have an innate grasp of the written word. I can read upside down, reversed letters, reversed order, or reversed word just as quickly as normal text. I can also unscramble words damn quickly, too. And handwriting? Even the sloppiest doctor’s scrawl can be easily read by me. It’s just a knack. I don’t know where it came from, I surely don’t use it that often, but it happens. Kinda like my ability to put an entire q tip so far up my nose you can’t see it. Strange, but true.
–Tim
We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.
I can read upside down and reversing letters, and I was once told it was because I was ‘supposed’ to be left hander and was forced to be a rightie by my mother. It is probably nonsense, but who can read upside down and they are left handed too?? We could make our own series of stats!
“Um, according to who? Nothing more than a high brow troll, though occasionally the bi polar personality swung in a constructive direction on innocuous topics.” Omniscient
I can read upside down and backwards quickly. I can also write upside down/backwards fairly well.
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It is weird, I really CAN’T write upside down, just backward. Hmmm, I don’t even want to THINK what that could mean!!
“Um, according to who? Nothing more than a high brow troll, though occasionally the bi polar personality swung in a constructive direction on innocuous topics.” Omniscient
I’ve always been able to read upside-down, but I can’t read mirror-writing at all. I think it’s because my sister and I used to read the comics at the same time when we were kids (one of us reading them upside-down). Neither one of us wanted to wait.
Anybody that’s been in corporate sales for awhile can read upside down. You get a lot of practice reading your competitor’s quotes on the buyers desk in front of you. I can read almost as well upside down as right side up, especially numbers, and often find myself reading something on a table at home upside down and don’t even realize it.
My sister in law can read upside down perfectly as she is a 1st grade teacher and looks at her students work from that angle as they sit at their desks. She thought it was amazing that I had a hard time reading upside down, as I tried to do reading a book to my son.
I agree with the prevailing thought that most of us can read upside down. But here’s a couple of tips.
Don’t remind people that you can do it! This came up casually in small talk during a recent meeting, and suddenly the person on the “right” side of the desk became visibly uncomfortable with the idea that anything on his desk was completely available to any of us.
Don’t forget that lots of other people can easly read what is on YOUR desk!
According to the great and illustrious Uncle Cecil: “I once knew a proofreader who read everything upside down, being either too lazy or too drunk to turn the page over once the typesetter tossed it at him.” (Source: Is there a physical reason we read from left to right?)