# What is name for this typing (brain) disorder? "They're" --\> "Their" is the least of my worries. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 8, 2017, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771 "2017-09-08T02:46:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/1 "2017-09-08T02:46:54Z")
I’ve mentioned my peculiar typing disorder before: > [@It's and Its: a poll](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-and-its-a-poll/763852/25): > > … I frequently type wrong words, often completely wrong words that are phonetically a little similar. Among many many examples, I once wrote “vowels” for “values” and “pretends” for “protects.” I see evidence that some other Dopers make similar errors. > > I don’t think it affects my speech much; I’m not sure about handwriting since almost all my writing is via keyboard. I didn’t have the problem when I was younger; it started in my 60’s. I find the way to avoid this and other typos is to stare at the keyboard while I’m typing, monitoring where the fingers actually go! (Note that protects and pretends have the same initial schwa vowel phonetically, at least in my dialect.) I make such errors frequently but just noticed a particularly egregious example. _ **Intending to type “instead” I actually typed “himself”.** _ :eek: :smack: Both vowels match up, as do the tones and the middle consonants (‘n’ and ‘m’ are both nasals.) I suppose I suffer some brain damage, and I may have other minor symptoms. (There are, however, certain types of combinatorial puzzles I am still very good at solving.) … These days I _always_ click\*\* Preview\*\* before clicking **Submit**. 🙂 (And just noticed I had “does” instead of “days.” Almost all my substitutions are of words with same number of letters.) ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/2 "2017-09-08T03:28:26Z")
I don’t think there’s a real name for it. It’s just a combination of being distracted and not having fully internalized the rules of grammar. Taking a college level grammar class helps somewhat, but only for the their/there type of issues. The other ones like vowel/value happen when our mind wanders, and there’s no good way of fixing that. I have an English teaching degree and while I rarely mix up my its/it’s I **do** write or type things I hear and end up with sentences like “floppy discs store things through magic” instead of “magnetics” because someone nearby was talking about a magic show 😃 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/3 "2017-09-08T13:06:13Z")
Are you absolutely certain it’s your typing and not the friggin’ spell check? Once your spell-checker has been “taught” some dumb conversions, it’ll happily change “instead” to “himself”. ---
**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:** [September 8, 2017, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/4 "2017-09-08T13:16:30Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I make such errors frequently but just noticed a particularly egregious example. > > _ **Intending to type “instead” I actually typed “himself”.** _ :eek: :smack: [Could be worse…](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=294892&highlight=penis+ensues) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/5 "2017-09-08T16:59:41Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Are you absolutely certain it’s your typing and not the friggin’ spell check? Once your spell-checker has been “taught” some dumb conversions, it’ll happily change “instead” to “himself”. I don’t run any auto-correct or anything like that. Just vanilla Chrome. All these letters that keep appearing under Septimus’ name were punched out one-by-one with these ten hard-working (but very long!) fingers! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/6 "2017-09-08T17:16:04Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I don’t run any auto-correct or anything like that. Just vanilla Chrome. All these letters that keep appearing under Septimus’ name were punched out one-by-one with these ten hard-working (but very long!) fingers! My ancient IE autocorrects SDMB posts all the time. I think the board’s dialog box includes a JavaScript spellcheck. ---
**Author:** ![Graymalkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@Graymalkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Graymalkin)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/7 "2017-09-09T15:24:31Z")
It’s the auto-correct–I never made that and other “typos” until I started typing on the computer. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/8 "2017-09-09T16:43:29Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > My ancient IE autocorrects SDMB posts all the time. I think the board’s dialog box includes a JavaScript spellcheck. Yes, I think this is the most likely cause. It heavens to me a lot. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/9 "2017-09-09T17:25:38Z")
What often happens to me is, while I’m typing, my fingers will replace the word I’m thinking of with a similar word that I type frequently. If I spent 8 hours a day writing about linguistics and rarely wrote about ethics, I might type “vowels” instead of “values”. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/10 "2017-09-09T18:43:15Z")
[quote=“elfkin477, post:2, topic:795771”] …Taking a college level grammar class helps somewhat, but only for the their/there type of issues…/QUOTE] Their/there and similar distinctions are surely things we learn well before college. Is there such a thing as a “college level grammar class”? (There’s linguistics of course, but that’s grammar at a much deeper level.) In any event, I don’t get the impression that **septimus** doesn’t _know_ the correct word. I make some of the same mistakes he mentions when tired or typing quickly. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/11 "2017-09-09T21:26:41Z")
I mostly find myself having forgotten to type certain words in. Rereading it later I am embarrassed over how stupid it therefore reads. Worst of course is that even previewing usually does not help as my mind fills in what I am expecting to see which of course is what I was thinking and meant to type. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/12 "2017-09-09T22:11:14Z")
Yeah. I use too many little words already, but leaving some out at random isn’t the way to better writing. 🙂 I have noticed that often when I go back to edit a post to insert some forgotten word, if I preview my edit the added word will be one word to the left of where I intended it to be. Never to the right. Which make me wonder if there’s an issue with the script that runs this input box. Or am I just a really crappy typist? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-name-for-this-typing-brain-disorder-theyre-their-is-the-least-of-my-worries/795771/13 "2017-09-09T23:28:49Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Is there such a thing as a “college level grammar class”? G205. English Grammar. I got a B+. Probably would have gotten an A, had it not been at 8 in the morning, MWF. Most of the people taking it planned to teach English at the high school level.