Having recently accepted the word "typo" - I still prefer typing error but I'll just have to go with the flow, I was wondering if y'all find that you repeat the same typos.
Nearly every Outlook message I send which uses the word "thanks" ends up throwing the word "thnaks" back at me. This is clearly a typo, rather than a disguised spelling mistake - I'm sure we all like to blame misspellings on the keyboard or any other inanimate object in our lives.
Yet thnaks persists. I get e-mails with a world which has a -field ending and it often becomes -feild or filed despite being up there clearly on the headed paper. I've just typed "Int he" - I know it means "in the" but will the rest of the world?!
Do you think that words with lots of vowels are especially prone to typos or is it particular letter combinations? Do you have any favourites(favorites)?
I wrote "The tyranny of typos" because according to Aenigma "typo=[tyrannical]", she may be right!
One of my biggest problems is Christmas, because my name is Cristina (no H!), and I type that much more often. As I type Christmas it comes out Cristmas or Chrstimas or some other combination - my fingers feel contorted as I try to get them not to type my name instead!
I always have a hard time with "myself". For whatever reason, nine times out of ten it comes out myslef. Doesn't seem to be quite as common for me to invoke yourslef, himslef, herslef, oursleves...
in another thread, the word 'definition' came up. I cannot type this word without slowing down; it comes out 'defintion' every time. this is a serious problem for someone who maintains an on-line dictionary!
-tion almost always comes out as -iton, but I do run the gamut as Jo suggested. Cheap keyboards are my downfall - I do wish I'd kept the keyboard from my old IBM PC1 because it was a "proper" keyboard with a positive action like a typewriter's!
- I do wish I'd kept the keyboard from my old IBM PC1 because it was a "proper" keyboard with a positive action like a typewriter's!
Dear Cap Kiwi,
Are you using one of those new double-side, curved thingamy keyboards?? When I replaced my old PC with current one a curved keyboard came with it but I insisted on a typewriter keyboard. They had them but I was told they were not going to be made much longer ... so I bought an extra!
As a five-finger-learned-at-a-newspaper typist I find it easiest and fastest to use. When I was really churning out the copy I occasionally jammed the ball on my IBM typewriter ... just too fast for it. Something that never happened to the touch typist and a trick that astounded the IBM maintainance guy!
My sympathy.
wow
I almost always type my name wrong. Tonya comes out Tonay every time. I usually end up with Maosn instead of the correct Mason. My husband usually types Geroge or Goerge instead of George.
I think in my case the problem is the placement of the letters. My hands want to alternate sides. It's quicker for me to get to the 'o' key in the case of Mason, because I've just typed an 'a', with my left hand. Tonya requires me to use the same finger twice in a row, for the n and y, so the a ends up between them.
I get e-mails with a world which has a -field ending and it often becomes -feild or filed despite being up there clearly on the headed paper. This is even more confusing now that I've moved to a new city where there is a Feild Hall at the university and a Feild Street (correct with this spelling), both presumably named after the same bishop. Children must grow up very confused here!
On the same thread...another problem which I recently discovered was "dose" and "does". I did my MSc thesis in medical physics where I kept talking about "radiation does" by mistake, and the spell-checker, of course, doesn't see this mistake. After several revisions I ceased to see it myself!
As I typed this I realized that I also tend to type "readiation". Argh.
a serious problem...
Wot, no hot key macros?!
I think, jo, it's to do with particular rythms of keystrokes for me at least. Some combinatiosn just insist on being played!
Come to think of it -- sometimes Board of Selectmen came out Bored of Selectmen -- but then again, those meetings-- sometimes -- ahem, well, most times ... Ho hum.
wow
My greatest difficulty with typos is with double vowels. Thus school becomes scholl, book becomes bok, etc. That semms to be my biggest problem.
Wow asks:
Are you using one of those new double-side, curved thingamy keyboards??Nope, just a normal old straight-line 101-key keyboard. It's the touch I don't like. When I was in the Funan Techie Mall in Singapore a month or so ago, I tried out over 30 different keyboards and still couldn't find anything I liked. I guess it's just that no one makes good ones any more.
CapK suggested
I guess it's just that no one makes good ones any more. Or maybe it's just those soon-to-be
old hands of yours!
Having recently accepted the word "typo" - I still prefer typing error but I'll just have to go with the flow,
Reading the original post in this thread set me to a wonderin' ... isn't typo a shortening of typographical error and isn't that related to printing as in liotype machines? Or is this YART.
Anyone?
wow
I work in the environmental field - unfortunately when I type it, I appear to work in the enviromnetal field most of the time. At least that's one spell-check catches.
My bug bear, for years, was univeristy. It never failed, the "sity" at the end was beyond me... Not to mention a letter that went out to faculty with the salutation, Dear Faulty Member. (Not my typo, thank god...)
Reading the original post in this thread set me to a wonderin' ... isn't typo a shortening of typographical error and isn't that related to printing as in liotype machines? Or is this YART.
Yep, it's a printing term (not confined to linos) i.e. ancient history. I dunno if it's a YART.
Just be REALLY glad you don't work in the Office of Pubic Affairs.
Yes, some typos are more significant than others.
I once set a caption for a picture right slap bang in the centre of Page 1 of the newspaper. The picture showed a yacht in distress, and it was taken from a P3 Orion which had been doing SAR and found it. The caption was meant to read something like "An RNZAF P3 Orion drops a raft to the yacht in distress."
I transposed the "r" and the "f" in "raft". Oops!
>isn't typo a shortening of typographical error and isn't that related to printing as in liotype machines?
I'm sure that this is true but then, how many of us are referring to our linotype skills when we use the term?
>When I replaced my old PC with current one a curved keyboard came with it but I insisted on a typewriter keyboard.
Funny, I've gone the other way. i love my curvy keyboard and my typing is even farter thna it wsa bfore with hdly anny rrors! Seriously though - I do love it - highly recommended!
Cap quoth
wish I'd kept the keyboard from my old IBM PC1 because it was a "proper" keyboard with a positive actionhttp://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/things/298a.htmlHere's an ad for a keyboard with
TRUE tactile feedback keys.
> Just be REALLY glad you don't work in the Office of Pubic Affairs.
Thanks for the laugh. Reminded me of a student who, in writing about Ben Franklin, stated matter of factly that "Franklin entered pubic life at an early age..."
Jo asks I'm sure that this is true but then, how many of us are referring to our linotype skills when we use the term?
Not me any more. The lino (ETAOIN) keyboard is laid out completely differently to the QWERTY keyboard. The first thing you would notice is the lack of a shift key and the addition of a third more keys to allow you to set caps.
They also had a very light and positive touch!
I am happy to pass along a gem which has just been brought to my attention. The Baltimore Sun, the only daily newspaper in town, ran an article on Jan. 12 about a new tourist attraction to be set up this summer, a hot air balloon which would offer rides. It will rise 450 feet above the city "and be pulled back to earth by a giant wench that would be visible to the public." It has since been suggested that the wench will be a bigger attraction than the balloon.
I am constantly typing "tot he" for "to the" and "trail" for "trial."
I learned recently from some expert or other that the way to banish a chronic typing mistake is to purposely type the mistake over and over. I haven't tried it yet. trial trial trial trial trial trial trial trial trial tiral tiral (Ha! I'm not typing "trial" anymore!)
Oh how I hate the typo "teh" for "the." I really HATE it. It gives me this visceral reation for some reason. It's all I can do to look it here in my post. *shudder*
> It's all I can do to look it here in my post. *shudder*
the omission a word really rankles me -- how does that happen, anyway?
the omission a word really rankles me -- how does that happen, anyway?
Probably mid-shudder.
Where I run into errors is in words that sound the same in French and English but are spelled differently, eg. authorization / autorisation. I constantly need to communicate in both languages so I have to be extra vigilant to make sure I use the correct spelling.
One word that I ALWAYS write incorrectly is “chou” (cabbage) a term of endearment in French. For some odd reason I always write it as choux (plural...a whole lot of cabbage). I can reread myself and STILL miss the misspelling.
tot he is one of my more frequent errors as well. Some of you may be sorry to learn that you live in the Untied States.
Bingley
I agree wholeheartedly with the French-English problem. I was in a French Immersion school for junior high and when I went to an English high school, I kept writing "environnement" and "gouvernement", as well as "labo" instead of "lab". Also, they'd managed to get me to think out my algebra in French so it was "x moins deux" instead of "x minus two" as I was doing my math homework!
Another side effect of my temporary French Immersion is that there are words which I first learned in French during that time, like "genocide", which I always hesitate before pronouncing in English because I'm likely to say it wrong.
>One word that I ALWAYS write incorrectly is “chou” (cabbage) a term of endearment in French. For some odd reason I always write it as choux (plural...a whole lot of cabbage). I can reread myself and STILL miss the misspelling. <
Perhaps you love not wisely but too well? :-)
Oh thank-you nikeblack, you are such a sweetie. That sounds so much better.
One French-English word that trips me up is adresse-address. Enveloppe-envelope can also be tricky - I think it's the double letters.
