Try this

[Guest Pabster]

Check this out. Count the number of F's you see in the following text:

 

FINISHED FILES ARE THE

RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC

STUDY COMBINED WITH THE

EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Many?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wrong, there are six - no joke! Read again!

 

FINISHED FILES ARE THE

RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC

STUDY COMBINED WITH THE

EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

 

 

The reasoning is further down....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The brain cannot process the word "OF"

 

-------------------------

 

I counted 3. :)

 

How did all you lot get on?

 

Cheers.

[Guest Verb]

I got 6 :p

[Guest Alan]

Only got three, weird that aint it?

[Guest ......cjr......]

Man that rules.

 

I never really took note of the 'Of' so i guess your fact is right. Thanks for that.

 

CJR

[Guest MillionLiraMan]

I counted four the first time, I missed a couple of 'of' words. :P

 

There is a logic to that, not so much specific to that word but I'll explain. You have different syllables which are stresses and unstressed. Think about the word 'civilization'. The word is 'civilization, with the stress on the 'za' bit, and the other syllables being unstressed. If you read a sentence with the word 'of' normally, you'll notice that that word is an unstressed syllable, so you would read things like 'the Duke of Wellington' rather than 'the Duke of Wellington'. See what I mean? So when a syllable is unstressed in reading aloud or just mentally reading the instinct is to rush past the unstressed syllables to get to the next stressed one.

 

That is also why if you are learning a foreign language you can often make mistakes during speech on the unstressed syllables, because your brain is rushing along and preparing itself to pronounce the next stressed syllable correctly. For instance, the Spanish word for civilization is 'civilización'. That word is pronounced 'thee-bee-lee-tha-thi-on', with the stress placed upon the 'on' at the end. Try pronouncing that word, and if you do get it wrong (which is easy to do in regular speech, it's not the easiest to pronounce with all the 'th' and 'ee' sounds) it'll likely be because you got tongue-tied on one of the unstressed syllables. That doesn't make you thick, it's just a perfectly natural thing to do because the instinct of your brain is to pay less attention to the unstressed syllables.

 

So, unless the letter you look for is at the start of a word (as when you are reading your brain looks at the beginning of the word and then deduces what that word is once you reach a certain level of literacy, meaning that you look at the beginning of a word but don't 'read' all of it), then there is a decent chance of you missing it. It's a lot like the following:

 

The general said to the

colonel that he was

worried about the way

in which the corporal

was behaving in front

of the sergeant because

he thought that the

the corporal was acting

in a less than respectful

manner to an officer of

superior rank.

 

Not all of you will have done it, perhaps even not many of you, but if you read that not looking out for a mistake it would be quite natural for many of us not to notice the second consecutive 'the' and continue with the sentence unaware of it, because the brain is naturally expecting one 'the', and since they are not obviously placed together the brain does not process the two 'the' words together.

 

Another reason for Pab's one is that it is also ionstinct, when you think of initials, to overlook 'of' among other words. If you think about NSPCC you think National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, where your brain naturally skips past the 'of' because the 'stress', rather than being on syllables here, is on the words represented by the initials.

 

Interesting that one Pab, for someone into linguistics like myself it's always nice to know why I am a fool. :)

[Guest Cactus Jack]

3 for me!

[Guest Goldy]

I got six aswell, i did it before ages ago and apparently if you do get them all, your pretty smart! I asked loads of people to read it, the amount of people that reply 3/4 is astonishing. :)

[Guest Peter]

I only counted three. :)

[Guest The Crippler]

I got 6 but that was only because I had been shown this before. I got 3 then.

[K.J 71]

3 :)

[Guest Seabass]

quick reading dosen't help

[Guest PeteR Richards]

Originally posted by MillionLiraMan

I counted four the first time, I missed a couple of 'of' words. :P

 

There is a logic to that, not so much specific to that word but I'll explain. You have different syllables which are stresses and unstressed. Think about the word 'civilization'. The word is 'civilization, with the stress on the 'za' bit, and the other syllables being unstressed. If you read a sentence with the word 'of' normally, you'll notice that that word is an unstressed syllable, so you would read things like 'the Duke of Wellington' rather than 'the Duke of Wellington'. See what I mean? So when a syllable is unstressed in reading aloud or just mentally reading the instinct is to rush past the unstressed syllables to get to the next stressed one.

 

That is also why if you are learning a foreign language you can often make mistakes during speech on the unstressed syllables, because your brain is rushing along and preparing itself to pronounce the next stressed syllable correctly. For instance, the Spanish word for civilization is 'civilización'. That word is pronounced 'thee-bee-lee-tha-thi-on', with the stress placed upon the 'on' at the end. Try pronouncing that word, and if you do get it wrong (which is easy to do in regular speech, it's not the easiest to pronounce with all the 'th' and 'ee' sounds) it'll likely be because you got tongue-tied on one of the unstressed syllables. That doesn't make you thick, it's just a perfectly natural thing to do because the instinct of your brain is to pay less attention to the unstressed syllables.

 

So, unless the letter you look for is at the start of a word (as when you are reading your brain looks at the beginning of the word and then deduces what that word is once you reach a certain level of literacy, meaning that you look at the beginning of a word but don't 'read' all of it), then there is a decent chance of you missing it. It's a lot like the following:

 

The general said to the

colonel that he was

worried about the way

in which the corporal

was behaving in front

of the sergeant because

he thought that the

the corporal was acting

in a less than respectful

manner to an officer of

superior rank.

 

Not all of you will have done it, perhaps even not many of you, but if you read that not looking out for a mistake it would be quite natural for many of us not to notice the second consecutive 'the' and continue with the sentence unaware of it, because the brain is naturally expecting one 'the', and since they are not obviously placed together the brain does not process the two 'the' words together.

 

Another reason for Pab's one is that it is also ionstinct, when you think of initials, to overlook 'of' among other words. If you think about NSPCC you think National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, where your brain naturally skips past the 'of' because the 'stress', rather than being on syllables here, is on the words represented by the initials.

 

Interesting that one Pab, for someone into linguistics like myself it's always nice to know why I am a fool. :)

 

:worship

 

btw I counted six cos I remember doing that from another time. :D

[Guest Jayden]

I got 6, but only coz I'd already seen it.

 

The first time I did it I seem to remember getting 4, I think.

[Guest emag]

Hah! I got 6 and without looking :P I'm clever

[Guest Chyna]

gaah noooo

I did this at school AND at a course that err "learns us" about getting a job :S

 

---

Count the number of F's you see in the following text:

 

FINISHED FILES ARE THE

RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC

STUDY COMBINED WITH THE

EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

-------

I know we dont actually say the word "of" but you said SEE not say so ner :P

Kiss ma bum Pabby