is it possible I have dyslexia?

phinds

I assume you mean "add" not "as". I do the same thing but have always attributed it to being a speed typist whos fingers just keep going after the brain stops

I don't remember all the words I do it with but ratio{n} is definitely one of them.

Pythagorean

Monique, entertainment purposes only!

phinds, I do it writing a lot too, so I always figured it was in the processing preceding the motor pool.

I think that add/as confusion was just autocorrect and stubbly fingers. I notice I completely forgot the word "drop" in the first sentence though.

phinds

That's interesting about the writing. When I'm writing and I SEE the wrong word I generally realize right away that I'm making a mistake but I can SAY the wrong word with total confidence that I'm saying the RIGHT word.

That difference reminds me of the Feynman story about the different ways people can count seconds internally.

Pythagorean

I was just talking with a friend and I referred to sedentary as sedimentary. Apparently there's two different words!! I had always read and heard sedentary as sedimentary and it seemed to fit the definition.

That was kind of embarrassing

phinds

When I was a teenager, I used the word "congenital" in an interview when I thought I was using the word "congenial". NOT the same thing.

Pythagorean

Ha! Definitely not the same. That could be awkward.

zoobyshoe

This kind of error is called a "malapropism":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malapropism

There was a famous TV comedian named Norm Crosby whose humor was based on malapropisms back when I was a kid. Scroll forward to 40 seconds into it, where he comes in:



The wiki article is probably under-researched. I think a lot of people have had more to say about the possible causes. A quick skim of Freud's analysis of mistakes in speech in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life seems to indicate he sees the malapropism as a classic Freudian Slip. That is: he doesn't think the person is simply making the error of substituting a similar sounding word but that the meaning of the similar sounding word has more to do with what they're thinking about than the "appropriate" word. I'm sure there must have been neurological explanations put forth as well, linking it to plausible causes like minor aphasia or dyslexia.

phinds

Yes, but the fact that this particular aspect of dyslexia happens to have a name based on a character in a play does not change the fact that it is an aspect of dyslexia.

Pythagorean

I don't think Zooby was trying to be argumentative, he/she suggested the possibility of a link to dyslexia in the last sentence.

I've started to read about the neurobiology of word retrieval, kind of interesting, but I defend my thesis soon, so it's an inconvenient distraction right now.

I like Serena

I'm still amazed that people invented words that sound almost the same and/or are written almost the same, while meaning something entirely different.

phinds

Actually, you are right. Somehow I read argumentative into the post when it wasn't there at all. GADS I'm touchy

phinds

I don't see why you stop there. How about words that ARE the same word and have different meanings? I run into this all the time when doing crossword puzzles. I'll take the clue word to mean one thing when it actually means something entirely different.

I'll go you even one better. How about a word that is pronounced differently, and means something entirely different, if you just capitalize the first letter?

zoobyshoe

You're saying an actual doctor ascribed this to dyslexia?

turbo

Py, you might have a form of dyslexia. My wife often asks me to spell common words when she has to write them out, but she can be a killer at Scrabble. For some reason, the tiles on a rack change things for her. I don't know why. It's a puzzle.

I'm pretty sure that she has some form of dyslexia, but you don't want to challenge her at Scrabble unless you are good and confident.

phinds

No, I was going by what my understanding had been about dyslexia, but reading your question, I did a little basic research and it appears that I have misunderstood the symptoms, which seem to NOT include malapropisms. Thanks for alerting me to that.

zoobyshoe

You're welcome but I actually had no sure knowledge it wasn't a form of dyslexia, just that I'd never heard it ascribed to dyslexia. It would have been news to me.

phinds

I just remembered an example of my dyslexia (and THIS one I think IS dyslexia) that was hilarious at the time.

I saw an on-line ad for a snow shovel that had a handle that came apart in sections and I decided I just had to have one for the trunk of my car, so I called the # and told they lady that I wanted to buy one of their show snovels.

There was a bit of a silence and then she said, very uncertainly, "uh ... what ?"

And I, not being the most patient person in the world, say. YOUR SHOW SNOVEL ... I want to order one of your show snovels !!!

There was another silence and then miraculously, she and I both realized at the same time what I had said and we both broke out laughing and had a very nice chat after we caught our breath.