I dou't kuow what this is abont

October 2, 2013 7:16 PM

There are 2 people on my Facebook feed who will consistently mix up the letter "n" with the letter "u" such that "cousin" looks like "consin" and "don't" looks like "dout". I was wondering if anyone else has noticed people doing this, is this was a common thing in Northern Ireland (where both are from, but they were not raised together) or some weird idiosyncrasy? My pattern-seeking brain is seeking relief.

I'm not sure what other information will be helpful.

I don't think it's something they're doing on purpose. They're both more like the "work hard play hard" types than "play strange spelling games on Facebook that only one person probably notices" type.

posted by bleep to Grab Bag (16 answers total)

Here is some "information" about the word consin.
posted by oceanjesse at 7:21 PM on October 2, 2013

Could it be autocorrect? Mine often puts "donut" where I mean it to say "don't".
posted by dawkins_7 at 7:23 PM on October 2, 2013

@dawkins_7: I doubt it's autocorrect, since the misspellings are not correct.
posted by brianogilvie at 7:28 PM on October 2, 2013

My son a computer that would type a "c" for a "t" and a "t" for a "c". Finally discovered That him had the wrong country selected for the keyboard. Could that be what is going on?
posted by tman99 at 7:50 PM on October 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Maybe this already occurred to you, but you didn't mention it in the question so: 'u' looks like 'n' upside down, so maybe this is a way of playing with the presentation of their text, the way some people use characters from other languages to write English words in a "cool" font? Or writing things LiKe tHiS?
posted by MadamM at 8:01 PM on October 2, 2013

Response by poster: I did notice that and found it intriguing, but the fact that two people are both doing this one specific thing, even though they don't do any other type of text manipulation like that. If I felt like it was possible they were doing it on purpose I'd just ask, but I feel like if I do ask they will probably have no idea what I'm talking about and then they'll feel self-conscious or something. Plus we don't talk directly that often so I'll just be coming out of the blue to ask a weird question about their weird spelling habits.
posted by bleep at 8:12 PM on October 2, 2013

How old are these people?
posted by DarlingBri at 8:47 PM on October 2, 2013

Response by poster: One is 26, one is 40-something.
posted by bleep at 8:54 PM on October 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

Are you sure they're really two different people?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:05 PM on October 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

When touch typing those keys are both struck with the right forefinger.
I don't have problems with u/n necessarily, but often use the correct finger to strike an incorrect key. It could be something like that.
posted by SLC Mom at 10:37 PM on October 2, 2013

Do you know the input method? I have had writing in script or writing carelessley with a stylus cause such errors.
posted by whatzit at 12:15 AM on October 3, 2013

Could it be dyslexia? It's common for dyslexics to reverse letters - d/b and q/p and sometimes also m/w - perhaps the same thing is going on with n/u?
posted by MuffinMan at 12:32 AM on October 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Just dropping in to say that while I don't know the reason for the n/u thing, I'm from NI and its nothing to do with that as far as I know as I've never seen it or heard of it before.
posted by billiebee at 4:07 AM on October 3, 2013

> @dawkins_7: I doubt it's autocorrect, since the misspellings are not correct

But if you've ever overridden autocorrect, it might store that word as a "real" word. At least that's what I've noticed on my phone.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:52 PM on October 3, 2013

Seconding billiebee. I'm from NI and I've never come across that on FB.
posted by meronym at 4:17 PM on October 3, 2013

Response by poster: I'm going to go with some specimen of dyslexia. I appreciate your calming words, everyone.
posted by bleep at 8:10 PM on October 3, 2013