MetaChat - becasue

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14 December 2007

becasue Do you have a typo that you ALWAYS make? →[More:]
I have a few words that seem to trip me up but it seems like I am incapable of spelling "because" without spellcheck. I just did it again in a MeFi comment. I assume it's becasue one finger is faster than the other, but unless I deliberately slow down when typing the word, it's going to be wrong.

As I was about to hit post and I decided to check google for "becasue", and it turned up 4,700,000 hits. I guess I'm not the only one. Perhaps if enough of us do it it will just become a dictionry accepted alternate spelling.

post by: Slack-a-gogo at: 10:14 | 46 comments

I invariably type my first name wrong but usually pick it up in time.

posted by altolinguistic 14 December | 10:17

Oh dear yes. My friend Kendra, always becomes KENDAR like she's a Klingon or something. Also I do a funny typo on my own name all the time. I suxxxxxx at the typing.

posted by typewriter 14 December | 10:18

In college, every term paper was plagued with "withe" -- caused when I wished to actually type "with the."

posted by grabbingsand 14 December | 10:20

grabbingsand - "withe" is another staple in my symphony of typos. And I've also mistyped my last name more times than I'd care to admit.

posted by Slack-a-gogo 14 December | 10:24

When typing web addresses, I often type ".coom" or ".como"

posted by JanetLand 14 December | 10:27

Torotno.

Every single time:
T-O-R-O-T-N-O *delete* *delete* *delete* T-O-R-O-N-T-O.

It's that fingers getting ahead of your brain kind of thing.

posted by chococat 14 December | 10:27

I'm always capitalizing the first two letters of my first name, which is odd, because I rarely ever make that typo with any other words.

posted by BoringPostcards 14 December | 10:27

I have many, many... Sometimes I can even make myself gasp (writing know instead of now, or vice versa). My latest thing has been to spell one of my principal's name Hymen (it's Hyman). So far I've caught it every time, but I just know that it'll slip past my defenses at some point. And it will be embarrassing...

posted by AwkwardPause 14 December | 10:31

Langauge, (which is doubly embarrassing when you take into account the fact that my original profession was linguist and interpreter!)

posted by Wilder 14 December | 10:33

My hands think it's "environement." I cannot imagine why.

The semester that my computer died, I was researching Heironymus Bosch. So I spent months typing in the university shared-computer labs, where users cannot add words to spell-check. Not only did the computer drive me nuts trying to auto-correct "Bosch" but I lived in fear that I would fail to notice the occasional "Bisch" that my fingers fumbled out.

posted by Elsa 14 December | 10:34

Yeah, I always capitalize the first two letters of mr. gaspode's name. No others, just his.

posted by gaspode 14 December | 10:35

[Hieronymus, dangit!]

posted by Elsa 14 December | 10:39

I went to the City University of New York to get my law degree. It's abbreviated CUNY. I always, always inserted a most inappropriate 'T' when I was typing it. I was very relieved to hear when I was a 3L I wasn't the only one who did that.

posted by Lassie 14 December | 10:41

definately
reccomend
maintainence
nessecarily

And many more.

posted by chillmost 14 December | 10:43

noep

posted by Hellbient 14 December | 10:45

unviersity - which is great because my job involves college outreach so I type the word a lot.

posted by misskaz 14 December | 10:49

I have the annoying habit of adding syllables to words. Like unequivocal becomes unequivocable. That kind of thing.

posted by iconomy 14 December | 10:53

altolinguistic- I've conisdered changing my name to Pual for precisely the same reason!

posted by Doohickie 14 December | 10:55

myslef

posted by getoffmylawn 14 December | 10:57

In all screaming honesty, it's "teh." Long before it was cute. Now, maybe it's worse, because what if something professional gets out with "teh" and someone thinks I really MEAN "teh" and not "the"?

posted by rainbaby 14 December | 10:59

Not so much. But I sometimes find myself typing stuff like "their" instead of "there" and it shocks and humbles me. But I think I've trained myself out of most of my own "mental-hiccup" misspellings. I think.

posted by taz 14 December | 11:03

I always forget the r in your as the post above this shows.

posted by stynxno 14 December | 11:25

I sometimes find myself typing stuff like "their" instead of "there" and it shocks and humbles me.

taz, I find that the more internet-saturated I am, the more likely I am to stumble over its/it's. That's an error I rarely made pre-internet. I think seeing it so frequently misused erodes my sense of correct usage and predisposes me toward the error.

posted by Elsa 14 December | 11:40

Oh god, yes. I do catch myself on that all the time, and I never had a problem with it when I was only reading/writing old-form.

It's an internet thang!

posted by taz 14 December | 11:46

I have sausage fingers. I misspell everything. Particularly annoying is that "teh" that I can't seem to stop doing! AARRGH!

posted by dabitch 14 December | 12:05

I substitute P for B and vice versa in most instances (like "bumb" for "bump" and "dapple" when I mean "dabble") when typing. I never reverse numbers (or "numpers" as I like to type) or letters when handwriting. It's just odd.

posted by crush-onastick 14 December | 12:07

Doohickie - my name's longer, and I seem to make every possible two-letter swap, so my name would have to change every day...

posted by altolinguistic 14 December | 12:13

I substitute P for B and vice versa in most instances (like "bumb" for "bump" and "dapple" when I mean "dabble") when typing.

Huh. Maybe that's why so many people abbreviate Gapers Block as GP instead of GB.

I regularly type Anderw.

posted by me3dia 14 December | 12:44

I always mistype words endign with -ing. It's like a speech impediment with my figners.

posted by sambosambo 14 December | 12:59

Torotno.

Oh yeah. I used to do that constantly, too, as well as Universty (good thing I never worked at the Universty of Torotno).

My favourite typo, though, is from a fundraising proposal I wrote for a new building for the Faculty of Science. After proofreading it and editing it to the point that I just wasn't reading it any more, I sent it to our engineer to look over. He emailed me back: "I don't know if this is intentional or not, but I don't think we want to advertise that the lab will have a dedicated poser supply."

posted by elizard 14 December | 13:07

I have the annoying habit of adding syllables to words. Like unequivocal becomes unequivocable. That kind of thing.

I'm not the only one, yay!

posted by deborah 14 December | 13:13

I find that I often shift my right hand one set of keys to the right, leading me to spell "city" as "cotu".

on preview: deborah, (who's name I almost spelled with a p) that's serious - don't misunderestimate it.

posted by pieisexactlythree 14 December | 13:23

My favourite typo, though, is from a fundraising proposal I wrote for a new building for the Faculty of Science. After proofreading it and editing it to the point that I just wasn't reading it any more, I sent it to our engineer to look over. He emailed me back: "I don't know if this is intentional or not, but I don't think we want to advertise that the lab will have a dedicated poser supply."

Elizard! I actually had strain my brain for some time to figure that one out. Dedicated Power Supply, neh? eh?

I love that my husband is sometimes apt to call the kitchen the "chicken." But English is not his first language. However, he speaks, reads, and understands English better (and has a larger vocabulary) than most English-language native post grads. Which is why it is funny.

posted by taz 14 December | 13:39

Bingbingbing! taz, you are correct.

posted by elizard 14 December | 13:44

My friend's husband's name is "Paul". I keep typing it as "Pail" and having to correct it.

posted by Orange Swan 14 December | 13:52

My worse typo hands down luckily went to a co-worker that thought it was funny, but it could have gone horribley the wrong way if it went to somebody else.

He sent me a very long question asking how he could get something for an account that actually required a lengthy answer and I thought it would be funny to just send back a two word answer instead. So I typed back "You Can't".

Except I typed a "u" instead of an "a" AND the apostrophe key must have stuck. He said he thought I did on purpoe and I had to tell him that even I wouldnt do that.

posted by Slack-a-gogo 14 December | 13:57

Oh my good lord, Slack. I'm going to be laughing about that all day.

posted by elizard 14 December | 14:14

A former instructor of mine, having just earned his doctorate and very excited about his newly bound thesis on the subject of "perception of public safety in [blah blah]" let me read it.

At the bottom of the first page, I found the phrase "pubic safety." And on the second page. And every few pages throughout.

After a brief internal struggle, I decided not to be the person who mentioned it first.

posted by Elsa 14 December | 14:16

I'm a boring typo generator. It's almost always "teh" and "form" for from. On preview LOL at slack-a-gogo & Elsa.

posted by chewatadistance 14 December | 14:37

Slack-a-gogo made me just totally bust out laughing.

This is a funny thread.

And Elsa, you did the right thing, after all - for the pubic, and the greater good. And we love you for that.

posted by taz 14 December | 14:39

Well, taz, you know I'm always thinking of the pubic well-being.

It's true!

posted by Elsa 14 December | 16:01

I work in academia and I'm always typing "studnet."

posted by initapplette 14 December | 16:27

Elsa: when I was a public defender, the first thing I did with any computer was change "pubic" to an error in all the dictionaries. I mean, there's nothing worse than arguing for 15 pages that the Pubic Defender offered ineffective assistance.

(Also, my law review once published an entire run of its annual "White Collar Crime Project" as the "White Color Crime Project".)

posted by crush-onastick 14 December | 17:18

initapplette: I did that too! Though the worst was like Elsa and always struggling with the spell-checker that insisted on changed a particular surname from Seto-Poon to Sit-Upon. I lived in fear of not catching it before sending an email.

posted by ninazer0 14 December | 20:39

I transpose the same 2 letters of my last name all the time. and there should be a top-level domain of .ocm, cause I type it frequently.

posted by theora55 15 December | 12:18

Tot he.

"To the."

Argh.

posted by Savannah 15 December | 15:45

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