Truthiness Vs. Distypic

May the Better Word Win

Okay, this entry isn’t strictly about an interesting character that I have known. Although Stephen Colbert is an interesting character, I don’t know him - yet I love his character – go figure. Colbert’s word, “truthiness,” received the American Dialect Society’s 2005 Word of the Year award. It’s a great word and reflective of our times and our current leaders and yet, it’s a word that only comes up in discussion about either contemporary events, or about Colbert himself.

But what about a word that comes to mind every single dang time that I type? I have no trouble reading, I have no trouble writing, I have no trouble spelling words – not even ones like pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, or Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. But typing! Why didn’t anyone ever teach me to type? Nearly every time I intend to type “to” it comes out “ot.” There are so many times I’ve edited something I wrote late at night and added words to the dictionary inadvertently that ”ot“ doesn’t look weird to my spellchecker anymore. “From” is almost always “form.” No respectable spell checker will reject “form.” When I am IM-ing, I can be almost indecipherable. Sure, you know what I’m talking about when I mention my iPid, but how about when I pone my phone – or when “but typing” becomes “butt ping?” Please!

It’s a condition, it’s a syndrome, it’s a disease – it at least deserves its own word. And that word is…”distypic.” Yes, my name is Steve Burgess and I’m distypic. My kids have known this since they were little and tease me about going to Distypics Anonymous – “DA-DA’” they cry.
I don’t get no respect!

So here’s my own little attempt to manipulate the language. Distypic is a far more useful word than truthiness because it applies far more often. It’s not truthy for your fingers to betray you in this way – it’s distypic.

Where can I look for help?
The other day, I posted an article about what happens when hard disks make loud noises, which is posted here. In my real life, I do data recovery and computer forensics.
The spellchecker didn’t like distypic – can you imagine? It wants to substitute “dactylic!” Like that’s a real word anyway…

I went to the web and asked for a definition. Define: distypic – no results. Wikipedia – no results. Webster’s – don’t even get me started. It’s not even in the Funk’n Wagnall’s.
I just posted the article. Lo and behold, a week later, when I Googled “distypic,” there it was! Two entries! It’s a revolution!!!

So I’m making my stand. Distypic. A term for an entire generation of boomers who never learned to type but have to do so anyhow. Distypic.

And that’s The Wrod.