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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab
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To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (462)1/4/1998 6:21:00 AM
From: Bill Ulrich  Read Replies (2) of 4711
 
Sorry to throw a monkey-wrench in it, chaps, but the primary reason any &#145effs&#146, or an extra &#145the&#146 would be missed is the fact the these examples are &#145all-caps&#146.

During the last 400 years&#151since Gutenburg, at least&#151the publishing industry has been studying legibility and refining their craft. They've discovered that when people read, they tend to &#145gather clumps&#146 of three or four words. Shape recognition of the words plays a large part in one's ability to read&#151not just character shape of the letters, but the actual word shape as well.

All-caps text becomes a morass of multiple rectangles to the eye. The words in mixed-cap text have actual shape. Try these same examples in mixed-cap and you'll notice that the survey participants suddenly get a lot smarter, i.e. find all of the &#145effs’they tend to stick out.

-MrB
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