Week 5 - Essay - Ease of Reading

Well, based on my reading experience at the Ease of Reading post, most of the readings were relatively simple to read. The jokes that gave me the most trouble were #6 and #9. These both were written in entirely capital letters and no spaces. Number 6 had no punctuation whatsoever and #9 had periods only. You would think that adding the periods would provide an easier reading experience; however, I found this was quite the opposite. In #6, the lack of periods seemed to give my brain "free reign," if you will. I'm sure our brains have learned from our elementary school days that a period indicates the end of a sentence and our brains don't even have to think about it anymore, it is just a given. So, the lack of any periods let me read the passage as one long sentence, providing a fluid read. However, in #9, the indication of a "stop" cut into my brain's creativity to fill in what was missing making it much more difficult to read.

Based on my experience with this exercise, I found that apostrophes were the most helpful. For example, in #9, I had periods to guide me where to stop, but I did not have apostrophes, so my mind kept wanting to put an “s,” or something like it, at the beginning of a new word instead of where it really belonged, with the prior word. That was what I found most difficult about #9 to read and exactly why #9 was the most difficult for me.  

There is something I wonder about, though, as I finish this assignment.  I would be willing to guess that not everyone has the same problems with the reading sample as a I did.  While I do 100% expect everyone to have a problem reading at least 1, I suspect that some will have trouble reading 5 or 6 or maybe 10 or 11 of them.  While our brains work in chemically the same way, we have been shown through artists, sports, engineers, chemists, literary geniuses, etc., that no 2 brains really compute things the same way.  We all have our own little things we understand on an extraordinary level and other things that we just, to be frank, suck at!! I believe that this exercise will demonstrate that reading is no different.  

Papyrus of Ani - showing cursive hieroglyphs

Bibliography:

Egyptian Hieroglyphs.  Web Source: Hieroglyphs

Technology of Writing: Ease of Reading.  Web Source: Ease of Reading