Abstract Nonsense

Keyslip

I’ve always been a fan of eclectic words. So, inspired by The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, I thought I’d coin my own:

keyslip

  1. The sudden, sinking pang of anxiety that accompanies the realisation that one has been typing into the wrong buffer, particularly after a protracted sequence of keystrokes: Always ls a path before you rm it, otherwise you might suffer from a keyslip.
  2. By extension: the interval of frantic clicking that follows sense 1, as the afflicted person attempts to locate where the keystrokes actually landed: Fitts’ law feels like a betrayal after a keyslip.