I’ve always been a slow reader. A large part of the problem is that I tend to anagram words as I’m reading. I’m not doing this consciously. That is, I don’t stop and think of an anagram. I read the word the correct way and then an anagram immediately pops into my mind. The anagramming can take two forms. Sometimes it’s a straight anagram - e.g., “master” becomes “stream”. Other times I add or remove a letter and anagram the result - e.g., “daytime” gains an “n” and becomes “dynamite”. It doesn’t happen on every word. It seems to happen most when there’s an interesting anagram to be found. “Are” anagramming to “ear” is boring. “Indistinct” gaining an “o” and becoming “distinction” is interesting.
Again, I do read the word correctly the first time so my comprehension of what I’m reading isn’t affected. It just slows me down because the new word distracts me from what I’m reading. I have to keep forcing myself to focus again.
One upside is that I’m excellent at many word puzzles (crosswords, Wordle, Spelling Bee, etc.) because I see words easily in jumbles of letters, even if there are letters missing.
Not quite; I reverse them. Not orthographically, but phonetically. For example, “see out” pronounced backward sounds like “twice” and vice versa. A habit formed by watching way too much Twin Peaks.
An interesting question. I am a fast reader, and probably absorb text as phrases or sentences rather than individual words. (Aside, from another thread: I do not hear the words in my head).
But I do often tend to spontaneously spoonerise song lyrics when I croon them in the bath…
Do you do this consciously or does it just happen? It’s not something I choose to do - the anagrams just pop into my head instantaneously as I’m reading.
I’m the opposite. I have a real hard time with puzzles that involve anagrams. E.g. Jumble, many cryptic crossword clues, Spelling Bee, etc. For some reason I don’t see the anagrams even when they’re obvious.
But I have to say that sounds like a right bitch that’s got to be distracting as all get out and seriously degrades your reading speed and probably reading comprehension from what it might otherwise have been.
Sorry you’ve got that monkey on your back.
OTOH, it might well make you an absolute ninja assassin at Scrabble. A game I utterly suck at despite my pretty hefty vocabulary.
However, I do maintain a running count of the letters in each word, totalling them as I go, keeping track of whether the total is even or odd. And when I get to the end of a sentence that has an even number of letters (not counting punctuation or spaces), and/or when I see that a single line from margin to margin is even (regardless of sentence breaks), I feel a small bit of satisfaction.
This is entirely automatic and uncontrolled, and, like you (though probably to a lesser extent), it is a distraction that slows down my reading somewhat.
Thankfully, I do not have the same obsession when I am writing; I don’t care whether the sentences and/or lines I create have an even number of letters. It applies only when I read.
I’ll play you. I’m a mean vicious scrabble player. I never lose.
Yeah, no one will play with me either
I’m totally banned at my house. Even the grandkids won’t let me play.
I play with words. Not necessarily while reading.
Maybe read the dictionary a bit everyday. Play with those words. Get it out of your system before doing serious reading.
Yes. Not while I’m actually reading text, but very frequently during idle moments, anytime a particular word attracts my attention. (e.g. I just now happened to glance down at the CO Alarm box, and the woman’s name Marla sprang to mind unbidden.)
It’s worst when stuck somewhere, like a meeting, with nothing to look at but the calendar as someone drones on.
A jay run
Fear ruby, Far buyer
Charm
Lira-P, or Pair-L
Yam
???
???
Us a gut
Tenpers be, Beep terms, Embers pet
Robe cot, Tore cob
Verb omen, Mob never
Bed creme
