Shifted Letters and DEATH BY CAPS!

For a number of commands, shift will either reverse the direction of a command (so N is the opposite of n, see next bullet) or will modify how the command works.

When moving forward by one word at a time (pressing w), one may press Wto move forward by one word but with W the editor will consider punctuation to be part of the word.

The same is true when moving backward with b or B.

Because a shifted letter may mean something very different from the same letter unshifted, you must be very careful not to turn on the capslock!

Sometimes a poor unwary soul will accidentally hit the capslock. When he intends to move left with 'j', he instead joins the current line with the next. Many other unwanted edits can take place as his fingers make a quick strafing run for some complex edit.

It is ugly.


If you encounter DEATH BY CAPS, you should turn off the capslock, and then try pressing 'u' repeatedly to get rid of unwanted edits.

If you feel that it's a lost cause, press ":e!" followed by pressing the enter key.

That will reload the file from disk, abandoning all changes.

It's a troublesome thing that will eventually happen to you.

Some people turn off their capslock key entirely for this reason.