Unix Dict/grep Solves Left-Side-of-Keyboard Puzzle 423
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.)"
The answer is (Score:5, Informative)
Link to the original article next time!
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.)
"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:Devertebrated (Score:1, Informative)
It's in the other article linked from the stupid blog post / aggregator summary.
Lately reading the news has seemed a whole lot more like surfing for free porn -- lots of promises but you end up following a long trail of often obscured links and as often as not don't end up with what you're looking for.
Hint to the "blogosphere," that game wasn't worth it for porn, and it's sure as hell not worth it for trivia.
Re:But... (Score:2, Informative)
"P", "O", and "N" are not on the left side of the keyboard.
Re:Didn't work here (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,\}$' /usr/share/dict/words
hypophyllium
miminypiminy
phyllophyllin
Mind you, I don't know what any of those mean. :)
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Informative)
This is such an obvious blog spam by this guy that it is painful.
Both blog entries (one completely redundant to mask the referrals), are authored by "Moe Zilla" (painfully lame pseudonym, btw) whose "ultimate goal is to earn money online while writing about whatever I want," [helium.com] and whose writing style has the exact same defects as those in the summary.
Give up dude, your high school English teach was right: you suck.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Informative)
~$ uname -rs /usr/share/dict/words
Darwin 9.5.1
~$ grep "^[asdfgqwertzxcvb]\{13,\}$"
aftercataract
devertebrated
tesseradecade
Someone with an OED can feel free to check them.
Re:But... (Score:1, Informative)
My dict is bigger (Score:3, Informative)
% egrep '^[qwertasdfgzxcvb]{12,}$'
abracadabras
aftereffects
decerebrated
decerebrates
desegregated
desegregates
extravagated
extravagates
extravasated
extravasates
reaggregated
reaggregates
resegregated
resegregates
reverberated
reverberates
stewardesses
sweaterdress
sweaterdresses
watercresses
dereverberated (Score:5, Informative)
Removing reverberation from a soundtrack, also called echo removal.
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:what? (Score:2, Informative)
TGB are the end of the left side, for me anyway. YHN start the right hand side.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:what? (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:Misleading summary (Score:1, Informative)
You two must have been in the same class.
Although it's somewhat outdated, "teach" was once a common shorthand for "teacher". It was usually used when addressing a teacher (ex. "Hey teach, I don't understand this question"), but it would also be perfectly acceptable in the phrase "your high school English teach was right".
Re:Misleading summary (Score:3, Informative)
Then a tesseradecader must be something which divide things into groups of fourteen and those who make the tesseradecaders are called tesseradecaderers.
Re:what? (Score:2, Informative)