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Occasionally I'll see a comment on the internet along the lines of

I don't think I have every heard of such a thing.

Maybe not exactly that, but something equivalent where I would think that their use of every was 100% wrong, and ever should be used instead. It happens way more often than I would think, considering how much extra effort is needed to type the extra y and how dissimilar the two words are. Is it because

  1. they are simply in the habit of typing "every" every time?
  2. they actually have these words confused (how/why)?
  3. they are all kids and most English speakers pass through this phase of misunderstanding?
  4. they have all learned English as a second language, and either the words are equivalent in their native language, or there is a certain teaching style that doesn't make the distinction clear?
  5. of some other reason I've failed to consider?
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    All of the above
    – By137
    Commented Sep 26, 2012 at 3:23
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    not to mention helpful word anticipating programs that not only change words from what you typed to what you meant, but also change words from what you typed to what it thought you meant.
    – Jim
    Commented Sep 26, 2012 at 4:40
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    actually, in this case, the 'of' was intentional, so that if you were to take out #s 1-4, the sentence would read "Is it because of some other reason I've failed to consider" :) But yes, I have made this mistake before (although since the f and r are so close, it might be a slightly different process)
    – Nate Parsons
    Commented Sep 26, 2012 at 5:27

2 Answers 2

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Option 1. This is a common muscle-memory typo.

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  • Yep. I've definitely typed "every" (and sometimes even absent-mindedly typed out "everyone") when I meant to simply type "ever", simply because of muscle-memory.
    – V2Blast
    Commented Sep 19, 2018 at 3:24
  • It seems a bit strange that this would be a muscle-memory typo, since only the "y" is typed with the right hand. More likely it's from auto-complete.
    – user91988
    Commented Jul 29, 2019 at 21:06
  • @only_pro Muscle memory isn’t restricted to one hand. We mentally process words as units, and our muscle memory in typing them tends to reflect that. Certain particularly common words become units that we type almost entirely from muscle memory; how often do we type and instead of an or indeed every instead of ever (I do both all the time).
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 29, 2019 at 23:08
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Sounds like ESL to me, but it could easily be a common typo as mentioned by chaos.

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