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The return of the atomic typo

Recently, I wrote an article about fat-finger typos. These are mistakes in which, when aiming for a certain letter, you miss and hit one of the neighboring keys. If the resulting mistake is also a legitimately spelled word, the mistake is called an atomic typo. Because the offending word is correctly spelled, these errors are not picked up by standard spell-checking software. My original article talked about words created by hitting keys next to the desired one can be found here.

In this article, I'm going to describe a different class of atomic typos. These are errors caused by the switching of two adjacent letters. For instance instead of typing NUCLEAR, if you mistakenly switched the first two letters you'd end up with the very different word UNCLEAR.

Just like the previous class of errors, these miss-types are not detected with regular spell check.

In this article, I've created a list of all the legitimate atomic typos that can be found be switching just one set of adjacent letters. Obviously, there are some trivial examples; any word that contains two (or more) of the same letter in a row can make an atomic typo that ends up being exactly the same word! If you made a typing error and switched the two middle letters of the word FOOD by mistake, you end up with the same word. I'm going to discount these words.

Quiz

To make it a bit more fun, I've selected a number of pairs of words, e.g. NUCLEAR and UNCLEAR, and given them crossword style clues. How many can you get?

If you like these kind of word puzzles, you should also check out my add an 's' quiz.

Instructions: Read the clue, then solve the riddle. Click on the [Answer] button to reveal solution. If you want to cheat, you can click here to reveal all the answers straight away.

Q1

Flexible grievance

Q2

Pauses for abdomen

Q3

Sonnet to Bambi's mother

Q4

A parched attack

Q5

Victory to possess

Q6

An autographing vocalist

Q7

Something chanted about a problem

Q8

A feline performance

Q9

Wheeze at the holes

Q10

The price of baby beds

Q11

Curlier disclaimer

Q12

Moon elbow

Q13

Bend to cover completely

Q14

Append a male parent

Q15

Only just a grain

Q16

Pulling a pair

Q17

Dogs' enemies

Q18

Many things misplaced

Q19

Large rear end of a boat

Q20

Rodent painting

Q21

Seasoning for a plank

Q22

Cautious not to go askew

Q23

Height of something above the equator

Q24

Quiet shellfish

Q25

One more than two not here

Q26

Where lattices make home

Q27

Steal a sphere

Q28

Released from bondage together

Q29

Give a sheep a gun

Q30

Singing medical examiner

Q31

A thin strip of precious metal

Q32

Ways out are present

Q33

The opposite of yes and off

Q34

Footwear to give you a lift

Q35

Immense troughs of liquid

Q36

A sleepy attempt

Q37

The action of taking some legal action

Q38

non-Western food

Q39

Applause for grasping tight

Q40

Journals of pasteurizers

Q41

Desired engraving

Q42

Russian emperors in the night sky

Q43

Resolute effort to cement

Q44

Overly proud ships

Q45

Made redundant and cooked

Q46

Worship of enlightenment

Q47

Smell of a portal

Q48

Hides and covers many bad things

Q49

A Kingly man seated on spikes

Q50

A shed with fibre

Q51

A measure of current cartography

Q52

Whitest bed covers

Q53

Electrical shorts in competition

Q54

The path to probationary period

Q55

Clothes worn by an animal doctor

Q56

Sorted, organized and stored grazing ground

Q57

Laid back underlying reason

Q58

A gash in river mud

Q59

Full force of over-cooked

Q60

Underwired tavern

Q61

A spotted walking stick

Q62

Drum out the second Greek letter

Q63

Fading canopy

Q64

The flank of a King

Q65

A listening epoch

Q66

The accomplishments of putting on a fancy dinner

Q67

Wildebeest rifle

Q68

Taps instrument with a lump

Q69

Poured by accident, the separated

Q70

A slanted cherub

Q71

Coalesced horse

Q72

A knot in the ocean action

Q73

A vase walking quickly

Q74

Fixes an evil jinx

Q75

A cut cygnus

Q76

Boxed up and transported

Complete List

Want to see the complete list? You can view the complete list of words that can be formed using the transposition of two adjacent letters. (Link opens in a new window).

 

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