Is there a technical term ...

cjmouser said:

For consistenlty transposing letters while writing? I do it all the time and have to go back and correct word after word becuase I have transposed just tow letters side by side in so many words. I am deliberately not correctnig this message in an effort to show what I'm talking about.

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It's called metathesis.

Would this be a form of dyslexia?

BardSkye said:

Would this be a form of dyslexia?

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No; it can be an associated symptom, one of a cluster of such symptoms, but the metathesis would need to manifest in handwriting as well as keyboarding, and it would be merely one of a number of indicators. It's common enough that spell checkers have lists of common words that are metathesized, like teh for the.

Fascinating. Thanks for the info.

I call it "inter-hand miscommunication". Both hands are just so impatient to type their very own character, they don't want to wait on the other to finish.




-Michelle

It's not just typing too fast?? I think I might have this too!

I have added a lot of these that I misspell consistently to the dictionary so the computer corrects them automatically. Doesn't work for from/form, though. And I can't possibly put in all the ign/ing words (I know. I'm not supposed to use them, anyway.)

historian

My consistent problem is "ot" instead of "to".

I consistently do this because it seems my hands won't synch up. And it often manifests more as an issue between what letters I need to type with my left hand and what letters are with my right hand.

I could also use a proper setup with my computer, too. It would probably help.

It also seems my brain is not focused right now.

manifests came out means the first time and right was writer.

Methathesis is not a condition; it is in fact a term of art, a rhetorical figure, though yes, it does mean switching around letters, so the becomes teh.

But most people do that, and most people especially do that while typing. It's partly to do with speed, and partly, to do with keyboard design. Look at the way you type the; the forefinger of your left hand does the t and the e. It's sort of like you get ahead of your self.

If you consistently revers the order of letters in words in handwriting, and I mean you do it a lot, then, if you have other indications too, you might be dyslexic or have other neurological issues.

The ones that always make me chuckle are 'sotry' instead of 'story', and 'Spetmeber' instead of 'September'.

I sold a sotry in Spetmeber! Wheee!

My trademark is typing "int he" for "in the." I'd add it to the autocorrect but it won't let me do words. At least it didn't last time I tried it...

Pagey,

That correction is included in Office 2003, and I know that I didn't add it because this is a brand new installation at work.

Here's a somewhat related word I learned in college, but I can't seem to find it anywhere on the internet right now: imblepsis.

Hmm, maybe I'm not spelling it correctly!

Words

When it's done on a keyboard, it's usually just called bad typing. "Teh" instead of "the" is most common. I make this mistake nine times out of ten if I'm touch typing, about half the time when I use modified newspaper style, and never when I type straight newspaper style.

I have about a dozen words that Word corrects automatically.

My left hand simply gets ahead of my right hand at times. Man was intended to write with a stick, not a keyboard.

Metathesis. Now I have a useful word I'll probably promptly forget.

But what's it called when you do that when speaking?

For instance, I have this fried who has been known to say things like "puddy muddles" and so forth, transposing first letters of words while speaking (among other things).

[I'm editing this to point out that, above, I meant to say I have this "friend," not "fried," nor even "fried friend." That was a typo.]

Summonere said:

Metathesis. Now I have a useful word I'll probably promptly forget.

But what's it called when you do that when speaking?

For instance, I have this fried who has been known to say things like "puddy muddles" and so forth, transposing first letters of words while speaking (among other things).

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That's called a Spoonerism. Watch out for the Fire Truck!

cjmouser said:

For consistenlty transposing letters while writing? I do it all the time and have to go back and correct word after word becuase I have transposed just tow letters side by side in so many words. I am deliberately not correctnig this message in an effort to show what I'm talking about.

This takes up so much of my time and I just wonder if anyone esle has the same problem or knows what it's called, if there is a term for it.

I rarely actually misspell the words, just swap two letters. Typically I would write this messgae and then go back through it and make all the little changes. This time I just bolded them to make the point. Any ideas?

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I've been wondering the same thing for years. I would love to have a label for ti. I've done this all my life, but it seems to be getting worse as I age. I'm obsessive about proofreading even the most casual of posts becasue of th enumber of errors. Spell-check gets most of them, but I alwyas have to wathc out for words like forma nd from, or when posting somewhere that makes a spellchecker difficult to use.

As you say, it isn't misspleeing, or even hitting the wrong key--it's swapping letters. I also have difficulty with capitalization. I either release the shift key too soon and don't get a capital at all, or I hold it too long, and get two captials. If anything, I'm making fewer errors than usual in htis post, probably because I'm thinking about it.

I've always suspected I have some kind of low-grade neurological thing going on, becasue i Have simialr difficulties with just about any kind of movement. I don't know if there's any such thing as dyslexia without the reading problems. My reading is about as far* from dyslexic as it's possible to be, but most of the other symptoms fit me perfectly. And yes, I have swapped letters in handwriting, but that's rare. Only a couple of times that I'm aware of. On hte other hand, I can't maintain a consistent handwriting style. A full page of my handwriting has a wide variation in the shapes of the letters and the angle of the slant. Even though I went to school back when "good" handwriting was still a requirement.

Interesting. going though and highlighting all my mistakes** has mad eme notice something. With one exception, it looks like I don't swap two consecutive letters if they are typed with the same hadn. I only swap letters*** when both hands are involved. That probably means something, maybe something about the timing of hte signal going to each hand. Which goes along with having trouble cooridnating the use of the shift key, too.

*I had no difficulty learning to read, and did so long before starting school. I read rapidly and copiuosly and have never had any problems comprehendign what I read.

**I did correct a few other errors, outside the pattern under discussion. sometimes I do just hit the worng key, too.

***And swapping a letter with a space looks like it might happen only if the letter is typed with the left hand. there aren't enough samples in this one post to be sure of that one, though.

Wow - interesting. Even though I type much faster with one hand than back when I had two, I find I do not make nearly as many mistakes.

It's weird - a lot of things actually *improved* when I had the stroke. My typing is one of them. I lost the ability to use a pen or pencil, but I seem to almost meld with the keyboard. Another is that I see words - in an actual visual manifestation - more often and more intensely than I used to, and I see concepts as a visual manifestation, too. (Time, for example. And Distance.)

Before, I could never type "account" properly. Ever! And remebmer. And teh.

It only happens to me when I try to type too fast... also, it happens a lot on my keyboard at work because I have to press twice as hard on the keys, so even if my finger touched the keyboard the letter doesn't always come out on screen. Very irritating.

Also, any time I type "teh" I do it on purpose for humorous or exaggerated effect. (Sometimes I even use it as a greeting!) Rarely if ever do I misspell "the." But I guess that's a side effect of playing too many online games