Solution to: Changing Characters

There are several reasons why the text is readable without much effort.

We do not read words letter by letter, but we recognize larger patterns of letters. Based on a limited number of letters, we can already recognize a word. The first and last letters of each word in the text are in the correct place, and this seems important for quick word recognition.

The other letters of the words are mixed up, but not completely randomly. Versions of this phenomenon circulate on the internet suggesting that only the first and last letter of a word need to be in the correct place. But that is not true; try reading the following sentence: Cleulafry scteeeld iaceeghnnrts gtaeenre ibceehilmnnoprse geiisbrbh (click here for the solution).

Furthermore, all two- and three-letter words remain unchanged, and these are 18 of the 45 words in the text. Moreover, these are words that indicate the grammatical structure of the text. If we highlight these words, it becomes clear:
Myabe you tihnk: cna't tehy tpye aynmroe at the Utliamte Pzzule Stie? Of crouse we can, tihs is jsut an itnerestnig lttile tset. Ahltuogh the ltteers of the wrods are not all in the crreoct oredr, you can sitll raed tihs txet wouthit mcuh eoffrt!

A comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon can be found at https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge.

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