And act accordingly

Whenever asked, "Where did you learn how to do that?" I lie. I say it must've been playing Cranium. I must've picked "Word Worm" and gotten a GNILLEPS.

But that's not true at all. I've been unconsciously training my brain to do this since elementary school. It's an addiction, really. I'm a slave to words.

Level 1) It started with me counting letters of words on my fingers. I would tap my thumb to my forefinger, middle-finger, ring-finger, then pinky. Here's the thing though: I would insist on ending a word on my pinky. For instance, if the word was water, I would go through the word 4 times before I could move onto the next word. Still don't get it? W=forefinger A=middle-finger T=ring-finger E=pinky R=forefinger W=middle-finger A=ring-finger T=pinky E=forefinger R=middle-finger W=ring-finger A=pinky T=forefinger E=middle-finger R=ring-finger W=pinky A=forefinger T=middle-finger E=ring-finger R=pinky. Phew, done. Obviously, words with the amount of letters divisible by 4 were much more convenient.

Level 2) I got a little obsessed with keyboarding and would "type" words on anything I was touching: my desk, my leg, in air. You get it. Well, maybe you get it. I can probably also attribute my 90+ words per minute to this little exercise.

Level 3) All the tapping on stuff made me go a little insane, so I moved it all to my brain. This is a little more advanced version of the counting letters. I go through a word forwards and backwards, but in groups of 3 letters at a time. I don't know why I chose 3... it just seemed to fit. I insist on finishing the word on the first letter, which is where the backwards part comes into play. For instance, if the word is Manchester, this is how I would count it: Man che ste rre tse hcn aMM anc hes ter (but remember, I have to end at the beginning of the word) ret seh cna MMa nch est err ets ehc naM. Done. This also helped my math skills because I'd calculate beforehand how many times I was going to go through the word. So I know that Manchester has 10 letters in it, and I know it has to be divisible by 3, so I know I have to go through 30 letters or in other words, go through the word 3 times. But I also know that I have to end on the first letter, so I need to double it to 6 times, or 60 letters. Here's another example. Let's say my word is fire. I'm going to have to go through it 3 times to make the total number of letters 12, but I that will end me on "e" instead of "f," so I double it to 6 times, or 24 letters. Fir eer iFF ire eri FFi ree riF. Done. But just like in English, there are always exceptions. Exception: "W" may be counted as 3 letters if needed. Don't ask. It just makes sense to me. So let's say my word is weird. I can either count it as a 5-letter word or a 7-letter word. Either way, I will be going through it 6 times--either with 30 "letters" or 42 "letters." BUT, if I count the first "W" as 3 letters and the 2nd "W" as 1 letter, then I only have to go through the word TWICE. W eir ddr iew. Now that is what I call efficiency!

Level 4) This is similar to level 3 except that now we move on to counting letters in phrases. You can choose to count spaces between words as "letters" or not. Example: Life_On_Mars. If I choose to count the spaces, it will bring my letter count up to twelve and I'll only have to go through the phrase twice. Lif e_o n_M ars sra M_n O_e fiL. Not too bad, right? It gets a little trickier when you have "W's" and spaces in there. But with a quick calculation beforehand, it's no big deal. Example: Welcome_to_Facebook. Without counting the spaces and counting the "w" as 1 letter, we have 17 letters. Ugly. Counting the "W" as 3 letters brings us up to 19 letters. Still ugly. Now we could decide to count one of the "W's" as 3 and one as 1 and bring the total phrase letter count up to 36, or we could decide to count both "W's" as 3 letters AND count the spaces and bring the total phrase letter count to 42. Either way works.

Level 5) A new rule has been implemented: regardless of whether you are doing a phrase letter count or just a single word letter count, you may add spaces to the beginning or end of a word (or both) to make the process faster. For instance, say I have the word Bold. I know that if I add a space in between the 1st bold and the 2nd bold, I will have a total of 9 "letters" and be done that much faster. Bol d_d loB. This also often solves the problem of ugly looking groups of letters. Yup, I think that some letters look ugly together. Bol looks good to me, but ddl just looks hideous, don't ya think? I feel much better about d_d though.

Level 6) For being so good with words, I'm seriously lacking the words to properly explain this level; there are just far too many intricacies. Let's just say that this is a combination of all the levels. It has to do with me rearranging and grouping letters together to make them look prettier in the fastest way possible, backwards or forwards, as well as typing the letters on my "mental keyboard." It's kind of a mess. But an organized mess, nonetheless.



So I guess the shorter answer to how I spell words backwards is this: I see the word and read off the letters backwards. It's pretty simple.

What do you think? Would Oprah, Jay Leno or Ellen DeGeneres let me go on their shows?