I just have been writing an e-mail to a business partner in England. And again something strange happened (not for the first time).

I wanted to type "a few" but my fingers ended up with typing " a view".

I know the difference between the 2 words (and yes I know the v at the beginning should sound different from the f, but as a German for me this is a little difficult).

Moreover when using hand writing this would never happen to me. It seems as if the fingers on the keyboard react directly to the "sound", ignoring the meaning.

There are a couple of more words. like wood / would, two / to

Anyone ever had the same problem? Is there a scientific name for it

Thanks for some insights
Andre

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Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain

Yes, there is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophone

It's one of my big pet peeves.
Interestingly enough, I see this error a lot more in native speakers than in people who had to learn the language (my native language is also German).

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[Foot mouth in put]
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

yes, I type 'their' instead of 'there' and other mistakes, and I am quite aware of the difference.

How do I correct a typo in the title? It should read phenomenon.

Thanks

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Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain

yes exactly, thats another one.

Andre

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Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain

Seems appropriate to the thread, though. I think you should leaf it

Phenomnom - now that's something for the New Word for the Day thread.

(I completely missed that - I guess nobody minds that much)

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[Foot mouth in put]
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

Hmm...that is not exactly what I am aming at. It is clear that the words sound the same (so they are homophone), but why do I type the wrong word despite the fact that I know the correct one and very often immediately recognise that. I mean, it happens while I make up the sentences, not wehn typing what some one else is saying.
And why does it happen when typing, not when using hand writing?

Andre

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Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain

LOL!

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Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain

Interesting question.

My immediate theory (and therefore almost definitely wrong) would be that we learn specific patterns for words/sounds in a language when learning to type (with two hands) as opposed to learning to write where every letter is written in sequence. So you "hear" the sentence in your mind and your fingers automatically translate to the most common pattern, much like the T9 dictionary does in phones.

I don't think there is a word for this phenomenon around yet, but the errors it produces are definitely homophone errors.

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[Foot mouth in put]
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

Well, your theory doesn't sound that wrong to me

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Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain

I think the word you are looking for may be "aphasia"!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Always these guys throwing words at me I have to look up in the dictionary

No, I do not think so. I have no problems in finding or understanding the word.
I know the word I want to use and I know for sure the difference between that word and the wrong one.
It is just that my fingers type the wrong one.

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Andre

"They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!"
Mark Twain

I think that that is Kaptain K's point! You know what to do but you don't do it.

Aphasia and dysphasia may be more serious afflictions, usually resulting from brain damage, but the result is similar. This could be a mild form.Careful! Your brain is trying to pin this rap on your fingers.

I know there's certian words that when I type them, they always end up wrong. The one I can think of is "actual". For some reason, when I type it, I always type "Actually" even when I'm saying "actual" in my head (yes, I speak the words I'm typing to myself in my head).

And it's not a case of using the wrong form of the word; I say, mean, and think I type "Actual"...but then when I look at the post afterwards, 9 times out of 10 it says "Actually".

It's very annoying and I don't know what triggers it, but for some reason I always type it wrong. There's a few other words... Like I always type "Amount" with 2 M's (Ammount) even though I do know how to spell it...it's like my fingers just think there should be two M's. Probably a conflict between learned language and learned repetative motion.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Speaking and understanding a spoken language are different skills, located in different parts of our brains. Writing and reading are different still. My amateurish explanation would be that while you have a good level of English in speech and in handwriting, your proficiency in English "typing" is a little behind the others. Or perhaps it has more to do with the fact that typing is a task with lots of unconscious components. So when you're typing English your brain has a certain tendency to slide back into autopilot, and suffer interference from your "German typing" mode.

Just guessing, though. Ask a linguist.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

I mentioned my own theory in some other thread--can't remember which one, and it doesn't seem to be coming up with the Google search.

Essentially, it was that you could be typing, and anything could interrupt the train of thought, but since the brain continues to play the sound of the word in your head, you "hear" the sound and type what you hear instead of what you mean, then possibly recover your train of thought and continue (either that or notice the mistake right there).

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

Oh. Good diagnosis for my recent case. Wait. You said "may". OK. For me, aphasia was just a temporary, so far unique, symptom of my irregularly scheduled ophthalmic migraines -- the light shows without the headache. Fascinating.

I was in the grocery when I noticed I was in somewhat of a dream-like state, unable to focus, finding it difficult to get my brain's attention -- which seemed to be more interested in repeatedly adding up some imagined column of 3-digit numbers. I also quickly recognized in the background my own typical classic opthalmic migraine symptoms -- crescent-shaped blind spot, zigzag auras, yellow color tint, so my only concern was whether the new experience was also a migraine symptom or if I had hit some loser's jackpot of having a stroke coincidentally with a migraine.

I broke through the infinite loop just enough to conclude my shopping and check out my goods, even marveling that my own brain, in its hobbled state, was able to do arithmetic and provide exact change before the register presented the total plus tax. (Great. When my higher functions fail, my brain wants to be a calculator. Something to look forward to in old age!)

I could only grunt at the checker though. I understood, but couldn't meaningfully respond except with gesture.

Outside I explored this partial disappearance of verbal skill. I found that while I could think in words, and of words, I couldn't say words out loud. Not a good feeling. I could float a word in my mind's eye, see the spelling, like PSYCHOLOGY (I found my brain wanted to experiment with long words that had unusual spellings) and wind up pronouncing it aloud like, "Blxshuurrp."

XYLOPHONE. CHARTREUSE. PARADIGM. "Broosh. Fubble. Thwath."

I jogged (what? a mere stroke wouldn't stop a runner!) home a mile thinking up random big words and muttering incoherent gibberish. And, I wondered what was the word for when you can't say a word. I ran extra-carefully, moving my blind spot frequently to make sure there wasn't a car or biker hiding in it, impressed at my heightened responsibility to take care of me while my brain was malfunctioning. It was the first migraine for me out in the world, not at safer home or work (out of maybe a dozen ever).

A few blocks from nobody-home home, I recalled "aphasia" but still couldn't say it. I thought: as soon as I get home it is very important to see if aphasia can be a migraine symptom -- or else I'd better get on the phone and tell emergency services I was stroking out... Wait. I couldn't tell anyone anything! How embarrassing.

Got home, rushed to the computer, clicked on Google -- mousing skills: OK -- and typed "aphasia migraine".

Yes! Finger output was working! Yay! I couldn't say words, but I could type them. That's good! Search complete. Indeed aphasia can be a migraine symptom. Relax. Calm down. Read all about it. Aphasia has many facets, with different areas of the brain yielding different effects. Cool. OK.

Ten minutes later the migraine light show was mostly over and my friends, the words, were suddenly at my beck and call. Checked in with the doc.

And before long I was back in BAUT. Too bad for all of you...

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01101001, that's a scary story! Hope everything is all right.

I almost started a thread a couple of weeks ago asking the same question as the OP: Why the heck do I keep typing homophones? There/their is the one that comes immediately to mind but there have been multiple others. I also add letters to things: "Ratio" almost always comes out as "ration". I'm an engineer so I use "ratio" frequently. I would seldom have occasion to actually mean "ration".

Anyhow, I guess I'm glad it's not just me.

For a description of the phenomenon (I typed that very carefully, and still got it wrong!) how about "distypsic"?