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

Posted by timothy on from the mysteries-of-the-ages dept.

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.)"

13 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. The answer is by ConanG · · Score: 5, Informative

    Devertebrated

    Link to the original article next time!

  2. Misleading summary by JonathanBoyd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The longest word isn't found in the 'a much better answer' link, but rather the other one, somewhat misleadingly. The word, in case you're interested, is supposed to be 'devertebrated', though the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't recognise it.

    There's nearly 2,000 shorter words that can typed with only the left hand -- including one word that's even longer.

    How exactly can shorter words include a longer one?

    1. Re:Misleading summary by svnt · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is such an obvious blog spam by this guy that it is painful.

      Both blog entries (one completely redundant to mask the referrals), are authored by "Moe Zilla" (painfully lame pseudonym, btw) whose "ultimate goal is to earn money online while writing about whatever I want," and whose writing style has the exact same defects as those in the summary.

      Give up dude, your high school English teach was right: you suck.

    2. Re:Misleading summary by blake182 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The longest word isn't found in the 'a much better answer' link, but rather the other one, somewhat misleadingly. The word, in case you're interested, is supposed to be 'devertebrated', though the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't recognise it.

      ~$ uname -rs
      Darwin 9.5.1
      ~$ grep "^[asdfgqwertzxcvb]\{13,\}$" /usr/share/dict/words
      aftercataract
      devertebrated
      tesseradecade

      Someone with an OED can feel free to check them.

  3. Re:Didn't work here by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 5, Funny

    The longest word I got was 'redrawerredrawers', which probably indicates that my wordfile is corrupted.

  4. Because the... by iamapizza · · Score: 5, Funny

    databases were devertebrated after stewardesses were watered

    --
    Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
  5. Past tense disqualified? by sxltrex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the article:

    Technically, the word "reverberated" is just as long, and so is "desegregated" - but they're sometimes disqualified because they require using the past tense.

    So past tense is disqualified but plural is ok? What official body is making up these rules?

  6. Re:"Sweaterdresses" better than "devertebrated" by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Funny

    "sweaterdresses are great" can be typed entirely with the left hand.

    "stewardesses have the greatest assets"

    I win! :D

  7. Honestly... by Orlando · · Score: 5, Insightful

    who cares?

    --
    -= This is a self-referential sig =-
  8. Re:Didn't work here by terremoto · · Score: 5, Interesting

    >The longest word I got was 'redrawerredrawers',
    >which probably indicates that my wordfile is corrupted

    I think you've found a bug ...

    % grep '^redrawer' /usr/share/dict/words
    redrawer
    redrawerredrawers
    redrawers

    ... on Fedora 9 and RHEL 4 and 5 boxes at least.

  9. Re:what? by veganboyjosh · · Score: 5, Funny

    later, on the same flight, when i caught him in there a second time, i redestewardessed him.

  10. dereverberated by Lemmeoutada+Collecti · · Score: 5, Informative

    Removing reverberation from a soundtrack, also called echo removal.

    --

    You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
  11. Re:what? by holizz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    % grep "^[aoeui',.p;qjkx]*$" /usr/share/dict/british-english-huge | awk '{print length($1) " " $1}' | sort | tail -n1
    9 okupukupu
    % grep "^[dhtnsfgcrlbmwvz]*$" /usr/share/dict/british-english-huge | awk '{print length($1) " " $1}' | sort | tail -n3
    6 crwths
    6 ftncmd
    6 mtscmd

    I think somebody compromised Debian's servers and added nonsense words to the dictionaries.