#5 – How we process words

Have you ever accidentally mixed up your words like “pobody’s nerfect” instead of “nobody’s perfect? 🤦‍♂️

Well it’s a pretty common mishap known as a “spoonerism”, and it happens due to how we process words 🧠

Our brains filter through the list of words we know in stages, similar to how we search in a physical dictionary.

1 - We filter based on the first sound of a word (N-)

2 - We filter based on the rest of the word (-obody)

The first stage happens quicker than the second stage, so we separate the first sound from the rest of the word:

N- -obody’s

P- -erfect

Then, when we combine multiple words and our mouth is running a little slower than our brains, we sometimes mix them up:

p- -obody’s

n- -erfect

Interestingly, spoonerisms happen less when we use common or familiar words. 💡

That’s because during lexical processing, we can filter for common words much quicker than strange words.

It’s why jargon slows us down, and why I try to write in plain English instead of using fancy words. ✏️

To find out more about writing in plain English, feel free to message me or check out the guides from the Plain English Campaign.