What do you see?

Or rather, what word do you see first?

hsit

Ready?

Give your answer below...


(scroll down)

Now, mark off your answer in this poll.

Thanks for answering.

If you're wondering what this is all about, I'm just curious whether there's a particular word that crops up in people's mind the most. I'm trying to design a slide that has a humorous element and can also segue to a discussion on bias.

Note: Just added the word "HIST" to the poll as well (might take a minute to appear on the online poll). Missed that one myself - not sure if that's a reflection of a certain bias I have!

Have also just added "HSIT"

More like this

The work I first saw is not an option in the poll. :)

By Ashley Moore (not verified) on 30 Nov 2009 #permalink

I saw "HIST" like the abbreviation for a history class at college. But it wasn't one of your choices :(

I must be weird. I saw "HIST", thinking it an abbreviation for "history."

None. I saw what you wrote.

By Steve Higgins (not verified) on 30 Nov 2009 #permalink

Sorry - ditto. I saw HIST and thought HISTORY.

I'm with these guys. HIST

I saw HIST as well.

Another one for HIST.

I just saw HSIT, but I (and some others) may be unlike your target audience in that we came to the slide from a link that read 'What word do you see?'. In my mind the question was not what word I would see but what combination of letters I would see.

I saw "HIST", but to me it's short for "histogram"

HIST again. At a glance it matches the first and last, with just a transposition in the middle. SH!T was next, and my Dad always called my Mom "TISH", so that's in there too. By the time I get to THIS, I'm thinking of it as an anagram puzzle.

Yet another person who saw HIST(ory)

I first saw "HIST", but since this is actually a Danish word (meaning "yonder") and since it is not one of the possibilities, I voted on the next word - which is "SHIT".

I actually saw "heist"! But that's probably because I just watched a show whereby two guys went in a store called "heist."

I swear.

I first saw HIST, not as an abbreviation, but as the interjection, informally used to attract attention, usually in an unobtrusive way. Odd only because I've taught Ancient History, Modern History, and Black History a number of times in high schools, but did not first see HIST as the abbreviation. Second work I saw, was a matter of elimination.

I saw HSIT why is this not an answer option....?

I saw sh*t but I do not think it necessarily has something to do with bias. It might have to an extent but I think that the other options are just to different. For SITH, THIS and HITS you just have to change more letters whereas for SH*T it is only reversing the order of two letters that are already adjacent. I didn't see hist but then I didn't know that its a word either.

Another one that read it as you wrote it. HSIT.

I'm very used to acronyms at work so that was my first thought.

I saw the impolite word for solid waste, which I suppose means I'm dirty-minded. :(

HSIT. Make it a choice.

So hsit or hsin't it your intention that I see it?

I saw "SIT." My copy-editor's brain threw away the H at the beginning of it as an artifact of a misplaced space.

By Interrobang (not verified) on 30 Nov 2009 #permalink

HSIT, then THIS. In between, my mind kept trying to rearrange the letters to form "SIGHT".

HSIT.

It refused to look like anything else to me.

HSIT
I thought "wait a minute, this isn't a word"
Then I played Boggle

By natural cynic (not verified) on 30 Nov 2009 #permalink

In the first flash I saw it not as a word in itself but as a contraction of another word, one resembling "horsespit".

I saw "HSIT", but "IT" popped out as readable (not "SIT").

By David Harmon (not verified) on 30 Nov 2009 #permalink

I saw HIST, as the closest thing pronouncable as a word. Speaking multiple languages may have an effect, as I am used to reading unfamiliar, but pronouncable, words.

I saw HSIT, and (like Kiera) saw it as an anagram.

By porovitch (not verified) on 01 Dec 2009 #permalink