# The Longest Word on the Keyboard? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 17, 2006, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839 "2006-11-17T16:03:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sutremaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@Sutremaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sutremaine)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839/21 "2006-11-17T21:37:08Z")
[QUOTE=groman] Using one finger per key is ridiculous and sounds like it is just asking for a repetitive stress injury. [/QUOTE] It’s more like a minimum of one finger per three keys, and when I touch-type (which is slowly and, strangely, much more accurately than when looking at the keys) my fingers rest loosely on the home keys when not in use and my wrists hover about two inches off the level of the keyboard. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839/22 "2006-11-17T21:43:11Z")
On a QWERTY keyboard, for some reason I just love “pleasing”. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839/23 "2006-11-17T21:53:32Z")
An excellent source for word trivia is Jeff Miller’s [A collection of word oddities and trivia](http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words.html). He has a whole page about [typewrtier words](http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words8.html) from which we learn that the longest left-hand-only QWERTY words are AFTERCATARACTS, TESSERADECADES and TETRASTEARATES (14 letter each) and the longest right-hand-only is JOHNNY-JUMP-UP (14 keystrokes including hyphens) ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839/24 "2006-11-17T22:27:41Z")
Keep in mind that words that can be typed with only one hand are great if you’re typing while on the phone, eating a donut, or masturbating, but they’re the slowest words to type. Words where the the letters alternate between the hands are much faster to type, since the fingers of one hand can get into position over the correct keys while the other hand is typing. The principal advantage the Dvorak layout has over QWERTY is that the former is designed to maximize alternation between hands. (Having all the vowels on the left home row and the most common consonants on the right home row helps immensely.) The fact that the longest common words I can type with my left or right hand alone are pathetically short compared to the longest words typable one-handed on a QWERTY keyboard is therefore a Good Thing™. ---
**Author:** ![snailboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/97f17d/32.png) [@snailboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snailboy)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839/25 "2006-11-17T22:28:26Z")
[QUOTE=psychonaut] (FTR, all the above were discovered by grepping regular expressions from /usr/share/dict/words. YMMV.) [/QUOTE] Can you tell me what command line you used for those? I use FreeBSD and Dvorak, and looking at the man page, I thought “grep [aoeui]+ words” would give me words with only vowels for instance, but it doesn’t give me anything. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839/26 "2006-11-17T23:01:01Z")
[QUOTE=snailboy] Can you tell me what command line you used for those? I use FreeBSD and Dvorak, and looking at the man page, I thought “grep [aoeui]+ words” would give me words with only vowels for instance, but it doesn’t give me anything. [/QUOTE] The following will give you words that consist only of vowels: ```auto grep -i '^[aoeui]\+$' /usr/share/dict/words ``` ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839/27 "2006-11-17T23:36:19Z")
The longest word I can find using only adjacent keys is SAWED are there any longer? (Or would you allow TREWSED for someone wearing trews ? ) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Octagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@The\_Octagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Octagon)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839/28 "2006-11-18T01:35:22Z")
[QUOTE=psychonaut] Keep in mind that words that can be typed with only one hand are great if you’re typing while on the phone, eating a donut, or masturbating, but they’re the slowest words to type. Words where the the letters alternate between the hands are much faster to type, since the fingers of one hand can get into position over the correct keys while the other hand is typing. The principal advantage the Dvorak layout has over QWERTY is that the former is designed to maximize alternation between hands. (Having all the vowels on the left home row and the most common consonants on the right home row helps immensely.) The fact that the longest common words I can type with my left or right hand alone are pathetically short compared to the longest words typable one-handed on a QWERTY keyboard is therefore a Good Thing™. [/QUOTE] I don’t know, it seems like all I’d need to masturbate is stewardesses and CTRL+ENTER. PS Please stop turning this into an xbox vs playstation thread. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839/29 "2006-11-18T10:47:40Z")
using a relatively vanilla unix dictionary (e.g. not very complete): ```auto (for word in `egrep '^[qwertasdfgzxcvb]*$' /usr/dict/words`; do echo `echo $word | wc -c` $word; done ) | sort -n | tail -5 | awk '{print $2}' vertebrate wastewater aftereffect desegregate reverberate (for word in `egrep '^[yuiophjklnm]*$' /usr/dict/words`; do echo `echo $word | wc -c` $word; done ) | sort -n | tail -5 | awk '{print $2}' lollipop monopoly polonium polopony polyphony ``` ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839/30 "2006-11-18T13:56:55Z")
The name of the first musical based on ABBA’s songs is a left-hand one: ABBACADABRA [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-word-on-the-keyboard/380839.md?page=1)