etaoin shrdlu

No, I haven't had a stroke. I'm 100% sure this is probably something that comes up every couple of years. I've no doubt that the editorial I'm about to write has been written 20 times by others, but here we go.

What the heck is etaoin shrdlu?

Well, it's simple. Linotype machines (which I've operated because my uncle owned a newspaper back in the 1970s) used hot lead to set the type for newspaper printing. Because it was using hot lead to make a line of print, there was no such thing as a backspace or delete key. So if you committed the dreadful sin of a typo, you had to finish the line. It became a standard practice to just run your finger down the line of keys on the left side of the Linotype machine which spelled, yeah, you got it, etaoin on the first set of keys and shrdlu on the second. In theory, the proofreader would spot this and eliminate that line from the newspaper (literally toss the lead back into the hopper for tomorrow's edition). Yet, there are thousands of examples of this making it into the paper regardless.

I do so love history. It's the stories you see. They're so fun. Anyway, back to the editorial...

My question to you, dear reader, is simple. What is our equivalent of etaoin shrdlu? What artifact have we created, or are we actively creating, that the future is going to look back on and simply say, "wut"? Without a doubt we're, somewhere, somehow, running our fingers down the figurative side of our Linotype keyboard and accidently letting it out into the wild. I'd love to hear what you think it is. I have a theory or three, but I'm not sharing them at this time (it's a good idea to greedily hold on to good ideas for future editorials). What have you got?

Grant Fritchey

Join the debate, and respond to the editorial on the forums

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