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Unix Dict/grep Solves Left-Side-of-Keyboard Puzzle
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Nov 20, 2008 05:40 PM
from the mysteries-of-the-ages dept.
from the mysteries-of-the-ages dept.
destinyland writes "For decades, people have been asking this brain teaser: 'What's the longest word you can type with only the left-hand letters on a keyboard?' The answer is supposed to be 'stewardesses,' but grepping the standard dictionary that ships with Unix reveals
a much better answer. There's nearly 2,000 shorter words that can typed with only the left hand — including one word that's even longer. (The article also quotes a failed novel attempt using nothing but words typed on the keyboard's left side.)"
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Nice summary (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nearly 2,000 shorter words that can typed with only the left hand -- including one word that's even longer.
Ganz falsch!
Re:Nice summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does the set "More than 2,000 shorter words" include the one longer word as well?
Parent
Re:Nice summary (Score:5, Funny)
Is it cheating to use a Dvorak layout designed for people that can use only one hand?
Parent
The answer is (Score:5, Informative)
Link to the original article next time!
dereverberated (Score:5, Informative)
Removing reverberation from a soundtrack, also called echo removal.
Parent
Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
The longest word isn't found in the 'a much better answer' link, but rather the other one, somewhat misleadingly. The word, in case you're interested, is supposed to be 'devertebrated', though the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't recognise it.
How exactly can shorter words include a longer one?
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Informative)
This is such an obvious blog spam by this guy that it is painful.
Both blog entries (one completely redundant to mask the referrals), are authored by "Moe Zilla" (painfully lame pseudonym, btw) whose "ultimate goal is to earn money online while writing about whatever I want," [helium.com] and whose writing style has the exact same defects as those in the summary.
Give up dude, your high school English teach was right: you suck.
Parent
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Informative)
~$ uname -rs /usr/share/dict/words
Darwin 9.5.1
~$ grep "^[asdfgqwertzxcvb]\{13,\}$"
aftercataract
devertebrated
tesseradecade
Someone with an OED can feel free to check them.
Parent
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
A "tesseradecade" is a group of fourteen. Not only that, it can be pluralized by adding an "s", which happens to also be on the left side of the keyboard, and which brings the letter count to... fourteen. Therefore, "tesseradecades" is a tesseradecade of letters on the left side of the standard Qwerty keyboard.
Parent
What would be more useful is learning how to... (Score:4, Funny)
...type http://www.uniform/ [www.uniform] fetish.com/pics/stewardesses/ with one hand.
Didn't work here (Score:4, Informative)
Stewardesses is still unsurpassed on my box. (But maybe it's because "GNU's not Unix", so I have a different dictionary file.)
Re:Didn't work here (Score:5, Funny)
The longest word I got was 'redrawerredrawers', which probably indicates that my wordfile is corrupted.
Parent
Re:Didn't work here (Score:5, Interesting)
>The longest word I got was 'redrawerredrawers',
>which probably indicates that my wordfile is corrupted
I think you've found a bug ...
% grep '^redrawer' /usr/share/dict/words
redrawer
redrawerredrawers
redrawers
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Whatever dictionary that comes with Mac OS X 10.4 returns 3 words with 13 letters:
aftercataract
devertebrated
tesseradecade
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Interestingly enough, the longest word that can be typed with the *other* half of the keyboard, which as a lot less letters, is "phyllophyllin" -- one letter longer than "stewardesses". Check this out:
$ grep -i '^[yuiophjklnm]\{12,\}$' /usr/share/dict/words
hypophyllium
miminypiminy
phyllophyllin
Mind you, I don't know what any of those mean. :)
Okupukupu! (Score:5, Funny)
The longest word I can type with my left hand [wikipedia.org] is "okupukupu", you QWERTY-using insensitive clods!
[15:44:56] ~$ grep -i '^[pyaoeuiqjkx]\{14,\}$' /usr/share/dict/words /usr/share/dict/words /usr/share/dict/words /usr/share/dict/words /usr/share/dict/words /usr/share/dict/words
[15:44:58] ~$ grep -i '^[pyaoeuiqjkx]\{13,\}$'
[15:45:04] ~$ grep -i '^[pyaoeuiqjkx]\{12,\}$'
[15:45:07] ~$ grep -i '^[pyaoeuiqjkx]\{11,\}$'
[15:45:12] ~$ grep -i '^[pyaoeuiqjkx]\{10,\}$'
[15:45:16] ~$ grep -i '^[pyaoeuiqjkx]\{9,\}$'
okupukupu
Parent
Re:Didn't work here (Score:5, Insightful)
uh huh. Ya know why the unix dictionary file doesn't contain every word in the english language? Because it can't. It's a productive system. There's an infinite number of words.
For example, 'desegregated' means something like: something was segregated and now it isn't. And segregated means that, some time in the past, someone decided to segregate. If they decide to do that again, well then it's resegregated. And what happens to it when you undo that segregation? You get deresegregated. What happens if they decide to segregate again? reresegregated? then dereresegregated? Is there a limit? No. Language is awesome.
Parent
My dict is bigger (Score:3, Informative)
% egrep '^[qwertasdfgzxcvb]{12,}$'
abracadabras
aftereffects
decerebrated
decerebrates
desegregated
desegregates
extravagated
extravagates
extravasated
extravasates
reaggregated
reaggregates
resegregated
resegregates
reverberated
reverberates
stewardesses
sweaterdress
sweaterdresses
watercresses
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks for the code. This is what you can type on the home row:
Dvorak:
2-11 letters: 3358 words
12: 54 words
13: 24 words
14: 14 words
15: 5 words
16: 2 words
17: 2 words
18: 1 word
Qwerty:
2-11 letters: 202 words
12: 0 words.
-
uname -a
Darwin maclappy 9.5.1 Darwin Kernel Version 9.5.1: Fri Sep 19 16:19:24 PDT 2008; root:xnu-1228.8.30~1/RELEASE_I386 i386 i386 MacBookPro5,1 Darwin
"Sweaterdresses" better than "devertebrated" (Score:3, Informative)
This has been known to logologists for years as the "best" answer to this puzzle. I believe it's from Webster's 2nd or 3rd Unabridged.
Re:"Sweaterdresses" better than "devertebrated" (Score:5, Funny)
"sweaterdresses are great" can be typed entirely with the left hand.
"stewardesses have the greatest assets"
I win! :D
Parent
Past tense disqualified? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
Technically, the word "reverberated" is just as long, and so is "desegregated" - but they're sometimes disqualified because they require using the past tense.
So past tense is disqualified but plural is ok? What official body is making up these rules?
Re:Past tense disqualified? (Score:5, Insightful)
And desegregates and reverberates must be okay, right?
Parent
Re:Past tense disqualified? (Score:5, Funny)
Mornington Crescent!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No, no, no. That's not how the game is played . . ..
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Past tense disqualified? (Score:5, Funny)
I think it's only acceptable in the Official American Ruleset, and then only when out of croop. The cromulent thing to do in this case is invoke Toksvig's Protocol (if Reynold's Standard Opening is allowed).
Parent
Re:Past tense disqualified? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You have a very good memory. I know the R-G #1 game was pretty big -- are you talking about that one, or maybe the rematch in which Robertson was accused of having a computer read out possible stations to him via otic implant?
Re:Past tense disqualified? (Score:5, Funny)
What official body is making up these rules?
I'm not sure, but I'd start the search by eliminating all those bodies with a working right hand.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's not so much eliminating those bodies with a working right hand as eliminating those with a right hand that is not otherwise engaged.
Devertebrates? (Score:4, Funny)
Honestly... (Score:5, Insightful)
who cares?
Woah! (Score:3, Funny)
There's nearly 2,000 shorter words that can typed with only the left hand â" including one word that's even longer.
Wait, there is a word that is both shorter and longer than "stewardesses"?
Sean M. Burke knew this in 1998 =P (Score:3, Informative)
In the "Stupid QWERTY Tricks" section of his site, he lists all of the words that you can type on the left/right hand side of the keyboard...
http://interglacial.com/~sburke/pub/stupid_qwerty_tricks.html [interglacial.com]
He published all of that online in 1998...
(1998-09-21)
In comparison, the longest Dvorak word, typed with only the left hand is: "upkeep" ...not that that has anything to do with the efficiency of Dvorak...
The other Dvorak word lists are far more interesting:
http://interglacial.com/~sburke/pub/stupid_dvorak_tricks.html [interglacial.com]
-- Dave
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My thoughts exactly, I was wondering if I had somehow enabled the idle section by accident again.
And anybody that learned about grep the first time reading this article should hand in their geek card ;)
Re:what? (Score:5, Funny)
With the added benefit of confusing Haggar's advertising exec's about to roll out their new campaign, "Pants is technology!" with an adorable Russian Blue cat for a spokesperson.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Technically...where on the keyboard does it stop being the left side, and start being considered the right side of the keyboard?
Frankly, I don't see a set dividing line....? Nothing is really centered.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:what? (Score:5, Interesting)
% grep "^[aoeui',.p;qjkx]*$" /usr/share/dict/british-english-huge | awk '{print length($1) " " $1}' | sort | tail -n1 /usr/share/dict/british-english-huge | awk '{print length($1) " " $1}' | sort | tail -n3
9 okupukupu
% grep "^[dhtnsfgcrlbmwvz]*$"
6 crwths
6 ftncmd
6 mtscmd
I think somebody compromised Debian's servers and added nonsense words to the dictionaries.
Parent
Re:what? (Score:5, Funny)
Z is a non-contiguous zone with a higher than normal left keyboardyness.
Parent
Because the... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What I don't understand is how the article is about using the left side of the keyboard yet the photo they have shows someone typing on the ride side.. (=_=)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry... those tags are improper for this article as they require the use of both sides of the keyboard.
Re:what? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:I use Dvorak, you insensitive clod... (Score:5, Insightful)
alternating hand keystrokes are the fastest and least stress-inducing type of keystroke. The fact that so many words in Qwerty can be typed on the same (left) hand and so few can be in Dvorak shows that a larger subset of the Dvorak words alternate, whereas a smaller subset of the Qwerty words do.
need more proof, just do a
then follow that up with a
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
More interesting statistics:
The longest word I can type without leaving the home keys (not even the whole home row) is sensuousness.
231 words longer than six chars are possible with the dvorak home keys without moving
6 words longer than six chars on the qwerty home keys
1,091 words longer than 6 charsare possible with the dvorak home row
9 words longer with the qwerty home row.
1,139 words longer than six letters can be typed with left hand in qwerty (bad sign)
9 words longer than six letters can be typed with
Re:But... (Score:5, Funny)
bare stewardesses
Parent
Re:But... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You mean the cheese there doesn't attract them?