Friday, February 20, 2009

Space Availabel

For the last few months I've been unable to type "available" correctly on the first try. Usually an extra "l" sneaks in there, so I get "availalble" or some other variation. Why is this happening?

A quick web search yielded no answers, only lots of complaints about typos in published work. Yeah, those bug me too. But these persistent typos in my own work bug me even more. I'm a competent typist. Overall, I don't make a lot of errors. But "availalbel" gets me every time.

I'm also having trouble with "chips." It comes out "chiops" a lot. This could be a slip of the fingers on the keyboard, "i" and "o" and "p" being adjacent. Or it could be emotional. This error occurs when I'm playing poker online (for free, for free - I don't play for money!) and I get mad at another player and type "take his chiops" in my note on that player. So, haste, and emotion on that one.

But that doesn't apply to "availabel." I'm not mad or anything when I type that. It just always comes out wrong. Could there be a deep subconscious aversion to the word? Does my failure to communicate "abvailalbel" indicate a feeling of stress, of pressure, that I have too much on my plate and so can't be availbel to others?

It's not just in typing business/email stuff, either. Even when I'm writing, which usually engages a completely different part of my brain (one that can't spell worth beans, and substitutes homonyms for the simplest words), I still can't type "availake."

I'm out of ideas. At the end of my rope. I can't even use auto-correct because it's never the same twice.

Maybe I'm trying too hard. Maybe I need to get help. That's it! Someone to proof my stuff for me, and fix all these pesky typos. It'll relieve my stress and provide meaningful employment for someone in these hard times. All I have to do is write up a "help wanted" ad.

"Position availabkle..."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, you're not kidding. I have a bunch of those, too.

Professinoal, every time. And we use this a lot in our software (we call all employees of a firm "Professinoals").

I can't type a... l... s... o. Because I get aldo, which used to be a pseudonym of mine.

...Can't think of the other ones, I'd have to make note of them as they happen. But that would be too much information, I'm sure.

Pati Nagle said...

Ah, but misery loves company. :) Thanks, Chris!

Anonymous said...

I keep getting "ont he other hand...".