Read-Bump™

Derived from "speed-bump" and rhyming with it, a "read-bump" is something one's eyes hit and trip over which then slows down a person's ability to speedily and efficiently read the overall text. A person's brain becomes trained to the spelling and structure of his or her native language, and text is most efficiently processed by the eyes and brain when it adheres to this standardized structure and spelling. Any deviations cause the brain to have to do more thinking, to translate/decipher and "fix" the damaged text. How much time is lost depends on the severity of the deviations or mangled text, which can vary from subtle to extreme. While most people can compensate and the extra mental work is done mostly subconsciously except for the most extreme cases, the slowdown is nonetheless a very real and measurable thing. The ironic thing is that while many speed-bumps are intentionally done by the author in an attempt to save time, they actually shift a much larger time-burden off to the reader, forcing the reader to actually waste more time as a result than was saved in the text's creation. This makes read-bumps extremely pointless and  inconsiderate, whether done intentionally or otherwise.


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