Accidents in Hot Metal
Before digital printing, Linotype machines dominated typesetting. When operators made a mistake, they filled out the bad line by quickly running a finger down the left columns of the keyboard—e-t-a-o-i-n and s-h-r-d-l-u—then discarded the line.
Sometimes, It Got Printed
Occasionally, a line of gibberish—“etaoin shrdlu”—escaped the proofreader’s eye and appeared in newspapers. It became a familiar typographic ghost in print shops across the United States.
The Most Frequent Letters
The phrase contains the twelve most common letters in English, arranged in order of frequency. Linotype keyboards reflected this, with e-t-a-o-i-n and s-h-r-d-l-u forming the machine’s two leftmost columns to speed up typesetting.
From Error to Culture
“Etaoin shrdlu” made it into dictionaries and literature. It became the name of characters, songs, and even an artificial intelligence program in the 1970s. When the New York Times printed its final issue using hot type in 1978, the farewell documentary was titled Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu.
Before digital printing, Linotype machines were used in newspapers. When a typesetter made a mistake, they sometimes filled the line by running a finger down the keyboard—typing "etaoin shrdlu".
Occasionally, this nonsense line made it into print…🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/4EMWSIcdkb
— Detective Tiger's Stories (@TigerDetective) April 18, 2025