Originally published November 22 2013
10-year-old boy speaks English backwards
by David Gutierrez, staff writer
(NaturalNews) A 10-year-old boy who is able to speak English backwards has become a viral Internet sensation after his parents posted a video of him to YouTube.
Cameron Bissett of Bo'ness, Scotland, said he discovered the ability while playing around with friends at school.
"It first started when I was just imagining what words would sound like backwards, and then when people would be saying stuff I'd imagine to myself what full sentences would sound like backwards," he said.
His father John said that, when Cameron first demonstrated his talent to them, they thought that he was faking.
"We thought he'd been practicing the words, so we started throwing random words at him just to test him, and every one he threw back very, very quickly," John Bissett said.
"We had quite a few people round at the time, so we started to throw bigger phrases and again he was just turning them round. We were shocked, to be honest. We thought it was hilarious."
Going viral
In the YouTube video, which has been viewed more than 1 million times since it was posted in April, Cameron introduces himself by saying (backwards), "My name is Cameron and I live in Scotland." His father introduces him offscreen, saying, "This is my 10 year old son, Cameron, talking backwards. We discovered he had this amazing talent a couple of days ago. Apparently he has been entertaining friends at school for a couple of months now!"
John then feeds Cameron sentences to say backwards. Cameron says each phrase backwards into an iPad app, which then reverses them again to show that Cameron has said them correctly.
Phrases that Cameron says backwards include "I went outside to play on my bike today," "I'm going to Canada for my summer holidays," "'I fell off my bed and landed on my head," and even the classic Mary Poppins line "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." Cameron is also able to count from one to 20, pronouncing each number backwards.
The boy has already acquired 800 subscribers to his YouTube channel. He says that he is planning to add more content in the hopes of building a larger following.
Not the first
Bissett is not the first youth in recent years to gain some measure of fame from an ability to speak backwards. Last year, 14-year-old Alyssa Kramer of Poteau, Oklahoma, uploaded a YouTube video in which her friends come up with words and she quickly repeats them, backwards. That video also got more than 1 million views, causing Kramer to eventually go on both the Today Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! to demonstrate that her talent was genuine.
Kramer said that she taught herself to speak backwards when she first started reading, by learning to visualize words backwards.
"Someone will say the word and then my brain will flip it for me and I'll just read it that way," she said.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
http://ca.news.yahoo.com
http://news.stv.tv
http://www.dailymail.co.uk
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