Fun (?) with dyslexia

[cactuswatcher]

Back decades ago when I was in graduate school (thus having a bachelor's degree, having negotiated the SAT and the GRE, having made it through umpty English classes and at least three writing classes, and so on) I started accidently spelling "consider" as "concider." No excuses. My mind just got confused and that's how I was spelling it for a time. I made the mistake in a serious paper for my advisor. I was in his office when he pointed it out. He said, "think of it as con-sider." To which I replied, "How do you spell cider?" To which his jaw dropped and I got no reply.

Yep, I'm dyslexic, but it ain't my fault English spelling is such a mess.

Comments

[atpo_onm]

Yep, I'm dyslexic, but it ain't my fault English spelling is such a mess.

I wonder what it would be like if one is Chinese and dyslexic. Does the same issue in the way the brain (mis)processes writing show itself the same or differently with a pictoral form of written language?

[cactuswatcher]

I'm not the best person to ask, since my problem shows up much more when I write than when I read. Dyslexia is a catch-all term for a lot of perception problems. I'm not super familiar with Chinese, but a quick check of the Internet and it seems there are people who have trouble interpreting shapes, which would make reading Chinese a nightmare. Japanese might be worse with its mixing of three writing systems.