The Qwerty Keyboard and the associated risks…

Disclaimer- For the record, this write-up is non- family safe. Reader discretion advised.

The first thing that we often ask a person before moving ahead with chatting online is “Are you busy?” This courtesy becomes all the more important if the chatting is happening in a professional set up. If there’s a typo, “busy” could become “busty” as the letter “T” is just before “Y” on the keyboard. So, the courteous statement will metamorphose into an outrageous question and will read like this- “Are you busty?” If the person at the other end is a woman, under normal circumstances, I would lose my dignity by asking such a question. In addition to this, she would also question my ability to comprehend and my understanding of the female anatomy. Either ways I am screwed. My situation would have become even worse if the person at the other end is a man. In addition to losing my dignity, such a typo would have put my entire orientation at stake.

Let me not get into the Freudian slip bit here. Trust me, when I say that with “I” and “U” being next to each other does not help my cause. On one occasion, I wanted to ask my colleague- “How long is your list of people”. I ended up typing, “How long is you lust for people?” Again, how stupid of me to try to quantify something that is unquantifiable. ;-) Two, it can’t be more inappropriate of me to ask such a personal question.

Then it was my turn to be “busy”. So, when I received a ping, I simply wanted to say “gimme a sec”. Instead, I ended up typing, “gimme a sex”. With “C” and “X” next to each other…argh!!! What was I thinking for heaven’s sake?

It does not end here. At least in each of the above cases, I read my pings and corrected what could have otherwise been a career limiting faux pas. In a personal correspondence, I wrote to someone, “I ran some errands and also got me some MILF”. Of course, I wanted to say, “I ran some errands and got myself some MILK”. I don’t even have the excuse of saying that the letter “F” appears next to the letter “K” on the keyboard. It indeed led to some impression formation. :(

I never knew that even untimely “spaces” can lead to a simple phrase having a sexual reference. Consider this simple question-“What about it?” Now consider this-“What abou tit?” The second question may not have a specific meaning. But, it certainly has a derogatory sexual reference. :(

I am sure Christopher Sholes, who invented the QWERTY keyboard, would have committed suicide if he had seen how potentially hazardous his invention could be. These incidents have made me extra careful when I type. I purposely wanted this write up to turn out the way it did. By now you would have realized the importance of proof reading what you type during any digital text exchange –be it email, chat or, SMS. Happy typing! :)