# Any unfortunate or funny words created when you shift your hands on the keyboard? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 16, 2013, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-unfortunate-or-funny-words-created-when-you-shift-your-hands-on-the-keyboard/647428 "2013-01-16T22:13:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FlippyFly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@FlippyFly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlippyFly)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-unfortunate-or-funny-words-created-when-you-shift-your-hands-on-the-keyboard/647428/1 "2013-01-16T22:13:25Z")
Is anyone aware of any funny, ironic, or unfortunate words that would be created when a person means to type one thing on the keyboard but accidentally sets their hands down on the wrong keys? For example if I mean to type “The Straight Dope” but accidentally put my right hand one spot to the left it comes out “Tge Strauggt Dioe”. Any combinations where this spells actual words instead? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-unfortunate-or-funny-words-created-when-you-shift-your-hands-on-the-keyboard/647428/2 "2013-01-16T22:17:39Z")
> [@FlippyFly](#): > > Any combinations where this spells actual words instead? [Urd](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urd). ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-unfortunate-or-funny-words-created-when-you-shift-your-hands-on-the-keyboard/647428/3 "2013-01-16T22:25:32Z")
bi I mean, no. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-unfortunate-or-funny-words-created-when-you-shift-your-hands-on-the-keyboard/647428/4 "2013-01-16T22:25:58Z")
I once turned ‘against’ into ‘FUbar’ (both hands one key to the left). Capitalization is…er…FUBAR, but still… ---
**Author:** ![Anise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anise/32/21721_2.png) [@Anise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anise)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-unfortunate-or-funny-words-created-when-you-shift-your-hands-on-the-keyboard/647428/5 "2013-01-17T02:44:23Z")
Well, no. But if you’re talking about new verbal expressions that come from something going wrong that originated with the keyboard, I have one… “FLIPPETY FLOP!” (See? It’s G-rated and everything. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-unfortunate-or-funny-words-created-when-you-shift-your-hands-on-the-keyboard/647428/6 "2013-01-17T04:14:16Z")
this used to happen more often with typeset material, which uses a different arrangement of letters than the qwerty keyboard. Also, no computerized spell-checker, and often no proofreading (especially for newspapers, with their tight deadlines). As I recall, the letters D and L were next to each other, so a frequent mistake would convert the common word ‘day’ into the equally common ‘lay’ – but with quite different connotations. Thus you newspaper errors like: "The minister stated that _“This was the greatest lay n the history of the church”_. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-unfortunate-or-funny-words-created-when-you-shift-your-hands-on-the-keyboard/647428/7 "2013-01-17T05:40:57Z")
Shifting hands is more or less equivalent to your ordinary single-letter-substitution cryptogram. A program to find such words would be a benign and simplified version of a dictionary attack on passwords. Encode words from a word list and see if the encoded word is in the list. > [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > I once turned ‘against’ into ‘FUbar’ (both hands one key to the left). Capitalization is…er…FUBAR, but still… Interesting coincidence! ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-unfortunate-or-funny-words-created-when-you-shift-your-hands-on-the-keyboard/647428/8 "2013-01-18T03:31:56Z")
I couldn’t tell you how many times I, and others, typed ‘liar’ instead of ‘list’ when I was in school. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-unfortunate-or-funny-words-created-when-you-shift-your-hands-on-the-keyboard/647428/9 "2013-01-18T16:52:31Z")
I sign my business correspondence with “Regards,”, and more than once have mistyped the “g” as a “t”. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-unfortunate-or-funny-words-created-when-you-shift-your-hands-on-the-keyboard/647428/10 "2013-01-18T19:34:51Z")
> [@anson2995](#): > > I sign my business correspondence with “Regards,”, and more than once have mistyped the “g” as a “t”. By having your left hand one row _up_? :dubious: