Misspelling rogue as rouge - enlighten me

[Glyfair]

It's entirely common, when typing quickly, to transpose two letters within a word. Your brain goes into typing auto-pilot mode, and one hand briefly gets ahead of the other. It's the same reason why 'teh' is such a common replacement for 'the'.

I'll also note that the design of the keyboard makes certain transpositions common. When I was taking typing in high school, many years ago, my teacher decided to switch to an innovative new typing system. The tests were designed to bring out the common errors. When you graded your test, you would be referred to certain tests that would practice those specific issues.

 

[Azul]

I think it has a lot to do with typing. Transposing letters is easy if they are adjacent in the word but typed by different hands. The difference between "rogue" and "rouge" is the difference between "right, left, right" and "right, right, left" in typing order. If the left finger is a little too quick or slow, you can type the wrong word. Same goes for the common "the/teh" misspelling.

Hmm... I had the dubious blessing of having both strict English profs and strict typing/keyboarding profs back in high school. I guess I just don't naturally assume accidental transpositions because it was drilled into me at an early age not to make such errors. I may just be working with an erroneous set of assumptions when it comes to common typos and misspellings, seeing purpose and intent where it really isn't.

The "teh" misspelling is part of L33T, so I generally ignore it even though I find it annoying to read chronicly misspelled words. :\

The reason the "rouge" misspelling prompted my query is because 1) it is so bloody frequent and 2) it's a freaking class name. It seems to me that most gamers seem to be relatively bookish and I guess I just expect them to not screw up game-related terms systematically on a massive scale by mere accident. It's not like people chronically misspell "paladin", even though it is a far more obscure English word than "rogue". That is what led me to wonder if there was a cliquish cachet to spelling "rogue" as "rouge".

As for the possibility of American English further deviating from British English... all I can say is "UGH!". I already find the current divide between the two (and between them and Canadian English) quite annoying enough, thank you.

 

[Captain Loincloth]

I fink sum peepull ar jest stoopid an kant spel!!! Whut whe nede iz fer teh stoopid peepull knot tu poste enny moor!!!

 

[Harmon]

Some of us don't use spell check, double check our spellings or for that matter know the difference- I mean most of my rogues wear rouge so...

Sorry, I think it has to do with typing and not paying attention or not being able to spell worth a dam.

 

[Arnwyn]

People do not see this as a rule anymore and, as a result, some spellings have changed, such as: "judgement" is now spelled "judgment"; and "guage" is now spelled "gauge."

I think we can look forward to more "gu" words losing their u's and other related developments in the next few decades.

Which is, of course, doubleplusungood.

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

Everyone makes mistakes, after all... but that they don't take the (very small amount of) time to quickly proofread their posts for obvious spelling and grammar mistakes.

However, it may also be the way the human brain parses. After all, as widely circulated (though of undetermined veracity of cite):

"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe."

Rogue and Rouge are even closer together, thus causing the "skip" implied above to mark the word as proper.

 

[jester47]

Its because of standard keyboard design.

In the letters we have:

Q W E R T Y U I O P
A S D F G H J K L
Z X C V B N M

I have divided it up by hand. Umbran's point that it is a right left right vs. a right right left indicates that the index finger on the right hand is simply quicker to respond than the index of the left because it has the momentup of the force that was used behind typing the 'O' behind it, whereas the left index finger is moving from a cold stop.

The real test is to see if other posters that do NOT make this mistake are on differently formated keyboards. If you put one of the letters 'O' or 'U' on the other side of the board the chances of making the same mistake are greatly reduced. Thus if it still happens, then it is not a typo but a lack of spelling knowledge.

Aaron.

 

[Zappo]

the Rogue Gods of Grammar

You mean the Rouge Dieties of Grammer, right?

 

[Azul]

Its because of standard keyboard design.

In the letters we have:

Q W E R T Y U I O P
A S D F G H J K L
Z X C V B N M

I have divided it up by hand. Umbran's point that it is a right left right vs. a right right left indicates that the index finger on the right hand is simply quicker to respond than the index of the left because it has the momentup of the force that was used behind typing the 'O' behind it, whereas the left index finger is moving from a cold stop.

The real test is to see if other posters that do NOT make this mistake are on differently formated keyboards. If you put one of the letters 'O' or 'U' on the other side of the board the chances of making the same mistake are greatly reduced. Thus if it still happens, then it is not a typo but a lack of spelling knowledge.

Aaron.

So, does anyone here use a Dvorak keyboard and do you tend to make the same spelling mistake as the Qwerty typists?

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe."

I always love reading things like that.