# I hope the "Insert" key falls down and dies a painful death **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 23, 2004, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741 "2004-10-23T06:58:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aankh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@Aankh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aankh)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/1 "2004-10-23T06:58:27Z")
For the last 3 hours, I have been sitting at my computer, typing out a psychosocial analysis of the stereotyping phenomenon in education. Along the way, I have hit “Insert” at least 5000 times, and each time, I have had to back up and correct the stuff that got erased. This has been supremely annoying, and I can’t decide whether to punch my keyboard for making it happen, or MS-Word for allowing it to happen. (The question of punching myself because I’m the one with the lousy typing skills is irrelevant. Thank you.) Who on this planet has _ever_ had to use the Insert key? Why does it even exist? Why o why is it right next to the Backspace key?! Why can’t it just develop mange and fall off my keyboard? The Insert key was hit once in the creation of this Minor Grumble™. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/2 "2004-10-23T07:00:27Z")
There’s a workaround which disables the key in Word: Record a macro which does absolutely nothing, and assign ‘insert’ as the shortcut key for it. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/3 "2004-10-23T07:07:38Z")
But what do you do when you see a mistake up the page and you go to add the dropped letter and it is in that damn replace mode? That is when I use the insert key… Where do I fix it so it can’t do dat? YMMV ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/4 "2004-10-23T07:10:01Z")
That’s what I mean - if it’s in ‘insert’ mode (default), and you do that macro trick, it’ll never get into ‘overwrite’ mode. ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/5 "2004-10-23T07:12:44Z")
I very occasionally use the Insert key if I’m changing something from all caps to lower case or vice versa. But it’s hardly a time saver at all, and it’s more just to try to justify the key’s existence. Also, Shift-Insert is Paste, in case you don’t like Ctrl-V for some reason. On the whole though, I agree. The Insert key does more harm than good, and is evilly close to the most important key of all, the Backspace. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/6 "2004-10-23T07:28:31Z")
Huh, I actually had to look at my keyboard for a while before I found my Insert key. There it is, tucked out of the way on the bottom right, next to Ctrl and that Windows key I’ve never had any use for. But to get back to the o.p.-- You could fix your problem forever in about a second with a common nail file, you know. Right? ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/7 "2004-10-23T07:44:40Z")
Only slightly related to the OP: I was always hitting those retarded Windows popup menu keys between the cntl. and alt. buttons, so I just yanked them off the keyboard. We got the new version of Word Perfect at work, and you know how there’s a '+ 'and a ‘-’ key all the way on the right next to the number pad? Well Word Perfect’s _default_ is for the ‘-’ key not to be ‘-’. It was assigned to ‘top of screen’. I use that key a lot; it’s useful if you’re typing numbers with dashes in them, like phone numbers or SSNs. It took me awhile to figure it out; I’d look up and the cursor would just be in the wrong place all of a sudden. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/8 "2004-10-23T08:05:02Z")
Insert is included in keyboards so typewriter fans can feel like they know what they’re doing. With overwrite mode, the wordprocessor behaves very much like a rather expensive typewriter from days gone by, only without any possibility of creating an overstrike character. So it isn’t overly much like a typewriter after all, but I’m pretty sure overwrite mode was invented to ease the transition to digital document preparation. Really, that’s the only plausible reason it could exist. Why does it still exist? Tradition, mainly. There _are_ people who like overwrite mode, I think, and they would be put off if their primary user interface changed radically with no hope of changing it back. And I know there are people who own a typewriter but not a computer, and if they ever transition they might feel comforted by the existence of overwrite mode. (Hell, does anyone even make typewriters anymore? I’m sure someone does (how else can you fill out a form that must be typewritten?), but I can’t think of anyone.) ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/9 "2004-10-23T13:16:46Z")
I do sometimes put emacs into overwrite mode, for the purpose of editing plain text data files which are organized into columns. In overwrite mode, you simply swap character for character and it doesn’t screw up the spacing in the columns. This _barely_ justifies its existence, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Mariemarie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58f4c7/32.png) [@Mariemarie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mariemarie)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/10 "2004-10-23T14:26:46Z")
You can easily pop the Insert key out of most keyboards. That is what I did on my work computer, and life got better. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Tiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/11 "2004-10-23T14:42:18Z")
> [@](#): > > We got the new version of Word Perfect at work, and you know how there’s a '+ 'and a ‘-’ key all the way on the right next to the number pad? Well Word Perfect’s default is for the ‘-’ key not to be ‘-’. It was assigned to ‘top of screen’. That’s odd. Because I just tested on my own latest version of WordPerfect on my computer here, and both with the number lock on or off, I got a -. This is in WP11. What version are you using that would default to “top of page”? I agree about that evil insert key, however. I use it about once a day, and yet hit it about 57 jazillion times a day. Cause I’m fast but very, very sloppy. I remember before computers when I was fast and very, very accurate. Oh well, those days are gone forever. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/12 "2004-10-23T15:06:11Z")
I use the ‘insert’ key with great frequency. ---
**Author:** ![Jervoise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d2c977/32.png) [@Jervoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jervoise)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/13 "2004-10-23T15:12:20Z")
The insert key must die. F1 (Help) must also die. At least twice daily, when trying to edit cells in Excel (F2), I miss and hit F1. This throws my work computer into lockup as it loads the weight Excel help file. Grrr. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/14 "2004-10-23T15:38:09Z")
The insert key is one of horrible doom and death. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![finette6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@finette6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/finette6)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/15 "2004-10-23T17:52:25Z")
only slightly related- The other day I was typing a paper for class while at work (love my job love my job love my job) and I hit the “disk eject” button (it’s one of those snazzy 1-piece eMac’s with the CD drive hidden in the base) about a jillion times with my pinky. It drove me nuts. ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/16 "2004-10-23T20:51:51Z")
I use it all the time. It’s very useful for coding. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/17 "2004-10-23T21:00:18Z")
Oh, another way to avoid the accidental-INS episodes - get a Microsoft (boo hiss) ‘natural’ keyboard. The Insert key is completely separate from all others (apart from pause/break/scroll lock, and if you’re using them they you deserve all the problems you get) ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/18 "2004-10-23T21:10:54Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > I use the ‘insert’ key with great frequency. Wear condoms. I am insert key free. Macs don’t seem to bother with such things. ---
**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/19 "2004-10-23T21:53:36Z")
If there is a key I hate, that has to be the dreaded **F-Lock**. Generally, I do not accidentaly hit keys I did not intend to hit. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2004, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741/20 "2004-10-23T22:17:02Z")
F-lock canalso be disabled, at least in XP. You have to do some registry editing - although google for it and there’s an alternative which switches ‘f-lock’ keys for the normal function keys and versa. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hope-the-insert-key-falls-down-and-dies-a-painful-death/270741.md?page=2)