Is there a name or explanation for the behaviour of writing the second letter first?

Question

When I am writing (pen and paper) I sometimes write the second letter of a word first. I write it like the first letter, so capitalized if that applies. I notice this problem the second I put it on paper, but that somehow doesn't change the fact that it is still happening. I tried to monitor this behaviour to see how and when it is happening, and found out these few things: - it always happens when I start to write something after I stopped. So when I writing something continuously it doesn't happen, but when I stop my writing to take a sip of tea for example, it does happen with the first word I write. - it is always the second letter. Never the third letter, or another, always the first. - a few other people I told about this problem said they also experienced it the same way. - it doesn't happen when I am copying something directly out of a book etc. Only when I have the word or sentence in my head and want to write it down. But, when I read a sentence in a book, memorize it and then write it down without looking at the book again, it does happen sometimes. - there doesnt seem to be a pattern as to when it happens. Everytime it happened I wrote some keywords, and there is no logical pattern. A few of them were tired/not tired, boring/fun, school/free time, dutch/english (dutch is my first language). They all seem to appear in every possible combination completely random.

Answer 1

Quite a few people experience this phenomena. I know I do! I also do the second letter cap thing, i.e. THis. There is some thinking that it is a simple overload issue causing a tiny hand/mind glitch. If it happens mostly, or exclusively, when you are typing you are just going to quickly, already thinking slightly before where your fingers are in the process.

It relates a little to spoonerism, a favorite word of mine, which is about mixing up words when you are speaking. Again, the belief is that you are simply going faster in your mind than with your voice. When it happens we all usually do a double take and then laugh. OR When it happens we usually do a trouble cake and then crash.

These quirks are one of the reasons we have things like spell and grammar check apps. It is also why proofreading is so important.

Certainly it isn't something with which to concern yourself unless it happens all the time, and you have trouble reading as well.

I am pretty confident that the name for what you are experiencing is being human. Still, maybe if we coin a word for it we can get it added to the dictionary.