An exercise in the textual criticism of a cyberscript

Finding an email in the break room (evidently a first-generation copy of "Webex A" below), I quickly noticed that the scrambled word "phenomenal" was misspelled, making it harder to decode. My daughter said it was the only word she couldn't decode in the whole pericope, even though, as it turned out, several others were misspelled too. I decided to find a few other exemplars of this cyberscript and do a little textual criticism. I suspected that I would find the text exceedingly corrupt, given the limited power of the human mind to accurately copy something not written phonetically.

I was right. Taking 3 exemplars off the internet, I christened them Webices A, B, and C according to their diminishing length. I used Webex A as the diplomatic text, on the theory that cyberscribes are more likely, when tediously keying in nonphonetic characters, to omit rather than to add. To make it a little easier on the typist (me, since I lack any graduate assistants to whom I could assign the task), I left out the opening and closing commas in each exemplar while preparing the critical text. In fact, due to the aforementioned difficulties and the great chance that I would only add a few more errors of my own, I skipped compiling a critical text altogether and simply gave my reconstruction of the original, before an authorized redactor had prepared the archetype of which these exemplars are multiple-generation copies. Mark that I also did not bother to try to form a genealogical schema, given the paucity of evidence and lack of provenance.

Without further ado, here are cyberfacsimilies of the three webices:

WEBEX A (representative of the "Eastern Establishment" Text)
I cdnoult blveiee taht I cloud aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg!
THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosnt mttaer in waht oredrthe ltteers in a wrod are, the olny ipromoatnt tihng is taht the firist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae! The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid does not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe! Amzanig Huh?

WEBEX B (Representative of the "Orthodox Corruption" text)
Ddni't tinhk taht you cloud aulactly uesdnatnrd waht you aer rdanieg did you? Phaononmneal pwoer of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabdirge Uivervtisy, it denos't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny ipromoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. the rset can be a taotl mses and yuor mnid can slitl raed it wouthit a porbelm. Pettry amzanig, huh? And I awlyas tguhot slpeling was ipmorantt.

WEBEX C (Representative of the "Wild West" text)
Aoccdrnig to rseaecrch at Hravard Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny ipromoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Or, it cuold be bcuseae too mcuh parytnig has totlaly msesed up yuor mnid.

And now, the critical edition, leaving out the obvious later additions to the text:

Webex A

Aoccdrnig to a1 rscheearch2 at Cmabrigde3 Uinervtisy4, it deosnt5 mttaer in6 waht oredrthe7 ltteers in a wrod are, the olny ipromoatnt tihng is taht the firist8 and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae! 9 The rset can be a taotl mses and you10 can sitll11 raed it wouthit 12 porbelm. 13 Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid does14 not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe! 15Amzanig Huh?

Webex B

aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabdirge Uivervtisy, it denos't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny ipromoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. the rset can be a taotl mses and yuor mnid can slitl raed it wouthit a porbelm. Pettry amzanig, huh?

Webex C

Aoccdrnig to rseaecrch at Hravard Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny ipromoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

CA
1. a B, C omit
2. rscheearch C rseaecrch
3. Cmabridge B Cmabdirge C Hravard
4. Uinervtisy B Uivervtisy
5. deosnt B denos’t C deosn’t
6. in C omit
7. orderthe B, C order the
8. firist B, C frist
9. The . . .porbelm C omit entire verse
10. you B yuor mnid
11. sitll B slitl
12. - B add a
13. Tihs . . . wlohe B omit
14. does C deos
15. - B add Pettry; C omit entire verse

And now, for my carefully prepared reconstruction of the original text, with marks of doubt in the footnotes:

THE PHENOMENAL POWER OF THE HUMAN MIND
According to research1 at Cambridge2 University, it doesn’t matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be in the right place! The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without a problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself, but the word as a whole. 3Amazing, huh?

1 This may have originally been 'a researcher', but textual evidence (an extraneous 'c' in one text and a 'ch' in another) does not support this. Both variants probably arose because of poor spelling.

2. The question is whether "Cambridge" or "Harvard" is original. Since Oxford is better known for linguistic research, "Cambridge" is the harder reading for a British original. "Harvard" is probably a Western corruption, as it is not known for linguistic research, but prestigiously speaking, Yarvard are analogous to Oxbridge.

3. This last verse appears not to have been original to the Pericope. The core passage concludes with the Abrupt Ending (verse omitted), the Long Ending (Pretty Amazing, Huh) and the Short Ending (Amazing, huh). But 'Pettry' does not fit with the style of the author, who never transposes only a single pair of letters in a multisyllabic word. We would expect something like 'ptetry'. So this word has less claim to authenticity than 'amzanig'. However, given their absence in one cyberscript, it is most likely that both the Short and Long ending were added by a later author trying to replicate the style of the original. Of course, the possibility exists that the original ending has been lost; perhaps the Clipboard wouldn't hold it.