Semi-OT: Strange behaviour of the letter "L"

Strategia_In_Ultima · #1 February 7th, 2005, 11:41 AM

I've noticed something odd... All the time when the second letter of a word is the letter "L", it is capitalized. For no reason. Even in words I was certain had lowercase "L"s first.

Could someone please give me an explanation?

geoschmo · #2 February 7th, 2005, 11:58 AM

This has to win the prize for the most obscure post ever on this forum. What the heck are you talking about?

Are you an alien? Are you from Alaska? Are you trying to alarm us?

All of these look fine to me.

Strategia_In_Ultima · #3 February 7th, 2005, 12:27 PM

What I'm talking about:

I was browsing older posts on one of the threads, and came along one of my old posts. It said "bLaster" there TWICE while I am CERTAIN I did NOT capitalize the "L" myself. I checked another thread... yup. I spotted it again in some posts, all NOT mine. And ONLY the SECOND letter of a word, never another one. Always the SECOND. I figured something was wrong. At least three people capitalizing their "L"s as the second letter? That's impossible. Again, I am absolutely CERTAIN I wrote "blaster" and NOT "bLaster". DEFINITELY not twice. And others as well? I thought something might be wrong with the server or something. That;s why I posted this.

Strategia_In_Ultima · #4 February 7th, 2005, 12:28 PM

note: the capitalizations in my previous post were not accidental. In fact, they had nothing to do with teeth at all.

Slick · #5 February 7th, 2005, 12:40 PM

Stop being a bLoody aLarmist. There's probabLy some sLight dirt in your keyboard.

Strategia_In_Ultima · #6 February 7th, 2005, 12:45 PM

Not just me. Also AT and several others. And only the SECOND "L" in a word, never the third, fourth, fifth, or whatever. I'm serious.

geoschmo · #7 February 7th, 2005, 12:59 PM

Well, it isn't happening all the time. Since it happens only occasionally I'd be more apt to chalk it up to a wierd conincidence.

If you are seeing it mainly when the first word of a sentance has L as the second letter, I have a theory that should make some sense. Most right handed people use the left shift key for capitalizing words since they can hold it down and search for the letter with their dominant right hand. Also, since the L key is way over on the right side of the keyboard you tend to hit it with you right hand. So it's not extraordinary to think that your right hand would respond a little faster and hit the L key before your left hand has let up on the Shift key. Since your dominant hand responds quicker to commands from your brain.

Are you right handed Stratigial?

I myself find that I capitalize the first two letters of words quite frequently, but not just the letter L. Pretty much any letter that is on the right side of the keyboard and is hit with my right hand will tend to get cappitalized if it's teh second letter of the first word of a sentance. Letters on the left side of the keyboard typically wont though since I use my left hand to hit them, I have to remove it from teh shift key first. Usually though I notice it before posting. (In fact I did it in at least once while typing this message. But I corrected it before posting.)

Perhaps there is something about the fact that Capital L can be more easily mistaken for a lower case L while reviewing your post so it doesn't get corrected? That in combination with the fact that it's on the right side of the keyboard could account for a greater frequency of second letter L's being capitalized. Since they are more frequently capitalized, it's not extraordinary that conincidentally the ones you saw when you noticed this today happened to be L's.

geoschmo · #8 February 7th, 2005, 01:12 PM

This differnce in response times between right and left hands also accounts for why I chronically mistype "the" as "teh". Since my right hand hits the T key and my left hand hits the E key. The signals for H and E leave at almsot the same time, but the right hand responds mroe quickly.

EDIT: Same thing for o and r in more.

Strategia_In_Ultima · #9 February 7th, 2005, 01:56 PM

Not just as the second letter of a sentence; the first two times I spotted it it was almost at the end of a sentence.

(Btw, it's Strategiainultima, not StrategiaLultima. I've had trouble with that earlier, on another location. It's like in my email adress.)

geoschmo · #10 February 7th, 2005, 02:20 PM

Well, being the first word of a sentance wouldn't be required according to my theory. Just that the second letter L appears in a word that is capitalized. If the word is not capitalized I have no explanation why the L would be. Be I am highly skeptical about any sort of forum problem. For one thing it's not happeneing every time. In fact I've yet to see any second letter L's capitalized. To be sure I haven't really been looking, but in the last couple posts in this thread there have been many such words and none of them are capitalized, except the ones you intentional capitalized for demonstration purposes. It's surely just a coincidence that the couple that you noticed happened to all be L's.