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

[geoschmo]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

NON-capitalized words. Not just the pair close together in my post, but also other posts - by AT and several others (Alneyan, I believe, was one of them.). I don't know if it's a forum problem, and I haven't really been looking either (I just noticed it happen all the time), perhaps the reason you're not seeing it is because my PC is throwing a minor tantrum. It's been known to happen, just not like this b4

[Alneyan]

If that's any help, I have been looking in my recent posts, and saw no such occurrence. I certainly hope I did no such thing: I am supposed to be a grammar nazi after all.

Do you have any example of a specific post where this phenomenon happens? My guess is that you are confusing L, l and I, and/or an odd font may make them pretty much the same: those three letters are almost identical on my computer.

[Will]

Well, personally, I just think you're making aLl of this up. I mean, it's not like there are some aLiens among aLl of us that are insidiously capitalizing only the second 'L' of every word we type.



But, more seriously, if it is happening in some older posts, then it could be an odd quirk in the software used to convert UBB into whatever the database is that Shrapnel is now using for the forums. When the switch happened, there was basically just a script that took the individual files in the UBB, parsed, and loaded them into the database. If the script was from some other source, I wouldn't be suprised if the writer purposely put that in there as a joke. It sounds like something I would do

[Aiken]

Well, personally, I just think you're making aLl of this up. I mean, it's not like there are some aLiens among aLl of us that are insidiously capitalizing only the second 'L' of every word we type.

I have to open your eyes, finally. Such group of aLiens do exist. And their names are:
aLarikf, ALneyan, ALpha Kodiak, ... etc etc. You can easily find all of them in the User List, applying the *L* pattern for names. They even don't try to cypher themselves! It means that the CLLAOI project (Capitalize L Letter All Over Internet) had started already. Naturaly they've started Capitalization from the oldest posts, and then they'll move to the newest ones.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

OK, OK, I surrender. Please, no more. I'm calling quits. I withdraw my statements. I won't even bother to LOOK here anymore.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Jesus, why are Geoschmo and Alneyan the only ones who take me seriously?!?