Unix Dict/grep Solves Left-Side-of-Keyboard Puzzle

destinyland writes "For decades, people have been asking this brain teaser: 'What's the longest word you can type with only the left-hand letters on a keyboard?' The answer is supposed to be 'stewardesses,' but grepping the standard dictionary that ships with Unix reveals a much better answer. There's nearly 2,000 shorter words that can typed with only the left hand — including one word that's even longer. (The article also quotes a failed novel attempt using nothing but words typed on the keyboard's left side.)"

Comments

bbbbb

[HaeMaker]

I hit b with my right hand.

Mod parent redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

Your regex is broken. You only want single words that can contain those letters, not words that just happen to contain letters from the left side of the keyboard. You lucked out since you're using such long words, but that wouldn't work to find all words that can be typed on the left hand side of the keyboard. That's why everyone else is surrounding the regex with ^$ - they know what they're doing.

Oh, and you're redundant along with being wrong.

Totally insensitive clods!!!

[gzipped_tar]

I use a Dvorak keyboard you insensitive clod!