I hope I'm not alone in suffering from Freudian typos. Unlike normal typos, these typos are the kind that make you wonder about your mental health. Case in point: I sometimes accidentally type "lust" instead of "list." It's a simple mistake - U and I are right next to each other on the keyboard - but it makes you wonder if I need to get out a little more.
My worst Freudian Typo was one that made it into the help file for the very first version of HomeSite. In a section about trouble-shooting, I recommended that users "Shut down their computer" if they experience problems. But I made a little mistake. Yep, you guessed it - I ended up asking people to "Shit down their computer" instead.
Even more embarrassing was the fact that this mistake was reported to me several months later by an acquaintance at Microsoft. Now any time I want to complain about Microsoft's security woes, I remember how I once instructed my customers to soil their computer's innards, which has security implications beyond those that Microsoft has to deal with.
My favorite, though not as good as your example above, is when I'm writing code. Instead of public, private or protected methods every now and then I'll get a pubic method.
You're not alone Nick! :)
Posted by: Alex Polson | Sunday, January 16, 2005 at 12:46 PM
Alex, I'm glad it's not just me :) Oh, and I've accidentally typed "Pubic" many times myself.
Posted by: Nick Bradbury | Sunday, January 16, 2005 at 12:54 PM
Thankfully, I have a keyboard drawer.
I was drinking a glass of water while reading this post in FeedDemon...
You get the rest.
Off to change into a dry shirt...
Posted by: Yvonne Adams | Sunday, January 16, 2005 at 01:02 PM
You don't know how many times I've signed an email, a forum post or various other things with
'retards' instead of 'regards.' I have done that so many times that I simply check it every time I type it just to make sure my fat fingers don't spell some exciting or infuriating message :)
Posted by: Randy Peterman | Sunday, January 16, 2005 at 03:47 PM
One of the helpdesk staff at my client's company was called in to fix a printer. It turned out that someone had dropped a ballpoint pen into the mechanism and it had been pulled into the rollers and jammed the printhead. So that nobody would try to turn the printer back on and use it while she went to get some tools, she wrote in large block letters on a piece of paper and attached it to the machine:
PLEASE DO NOT USE
PEN IS STUCK IN PRINTER
There wasn't very much space between "PEN" and "IS".
Posted by: brentashley | Sunday, January 16, 2005 at 03:56 PM
I have made a few mistakes in the past when sending out emails to the site about a network issue or virus alert, etc. I work at Xerox in the UK and the site has over 1000 people all of which will get my email marked as important :(
Posted by: Morgan Pugh | Sunday, January 16, 2005 at 04:59 PM
This made me forget all about how the Vikings lost today. Real funny stuff!
Posted by: Steve | Sunday, January 16, 2005 at 08:58 PM
This made me think of a "shit down" as something akin to a "stare down." So imagine that situation with your computer...
Posted by: Alex Ezell | Monday, January 17, 2005 at 09:48 AM
I used to work with a project manager whose main excuse for delays was "something's f**ked", a process that became known as freudian slippage.
My personal typo best was while presenting to a group of customers about some product features where a swapped 'e' and 'i' meant that I ended up explaining to them how they could greatly improve productivity in their call centre by implementing "Proactive Agent Blinding". Many of them thought it was a great idea...
Posted by: Dave | Monday, January 17, 2005 at 10:05 AM
I've got a better one. It consists of a guy I know on IRC trying to type "Coke".
StereoWHY THE HELL CANT I TYPE COCK WITHOUT TYPING COCK
Posted by: Kyle Brantley | Monday, January 17, 2005 at 01:31 PM
I remember making a post once on a message board, not too long ago. At that time the clocks were about to go off of Daylight Savings, and I posted something very similar to this:
"I work as a home health aide, and it consists of more things than just helping along with household chores. Many of the elderly folks I work for don't know their way around electronics and I just know that I will be working all week adjusting peoples' cocks."
Posted by: Eadwine Rose | Monday, January 17, 2005 at 03:04 PM
Okay, so far Brent and Eadwine top my lust - er, list - of best Freudian typos (although perhaps Eadwine's should be discounted, since her typo probably helped her business).
Posted by: Nick Bradbury | Monday, January 17, 2005 at 03:58 PM
Typos just ate not a problem for me ;)
Posted by: alan | Tuesday, January 18, 2005 at 10:29 AM
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing...but mean your mother. :D
Posted by: Carla | Tuesday, January 18, 2005 at 08:17 PM
Nice one, Carla :)
Posted by: Nick Bradbury | Tuesday, January 18, 2005 at 09:57 PM
Awhile back I had an "interesting" relationship with a girl named Lena. It consumed me till one day I was doing some C# work and typed boolena.
Everytime I see the word boolean in code or articles now I have to take a deep breath and push through.
Women eh? :)
Posted by: Paul Watson | Saturday, January 22, 2005 at 02:00 PM