QWERTYUIOP

English

Alternative forms

• qwertyuiop

Etymology

From the top row of letters on a QWERTY keyboard.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌkwəːtɪˈjuːiˌɒp/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌkwɚtiˈjuiˌɑp/, /-ɾi-/
• Hyphenation: qwer‧ty‧u‧i‧op

Noun

QWERTYUIOP (uncountable)

1. Synonym of QWERTY.
   • 1984, Jerry [Eugene] Pournelle, The Users Guide to Small Computers (Pournelle Users Guide; #1), New York, N.Y.: Baen Enterprises, →ISBN, page 66:

     There follows a certain amount of irrelevant material condemning the QWERTYUIOP keyboard. It's not that it isn't true: we all know that not only is QWERTYUIOP not optimum for touch typing, but that it was designed that way!

   • 1997, Tony Lawson, “Illustration”, in Economics and Reality, London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 249:

     In the case of the QWERTYUIOP keyboard, specifically, the obvious questions to pursue are (1) why this particular keyboard letter arrangement came about in the first place (rather than something else), and (2) how it (rather than something else) came to dominate, or became apparently 'locked-in'.

   • 1998 December, Bruce Sterling, Distraction: A Novel (Bantam Spectra Book), New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, →ISBN; Bantam mass market edition, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, October 1999, →ISBN, page 382:

     Oscar had been assured many times that the venerable QWERTYUIOP keyboard design would never, ever be replaced. Supposedly, this was due to a phenomenon called "technological lock-in." QWERTYUIOP was a horribly bad design for a keyboard—in fact, QWERTYUIOP was deliberately designed to hamper typists—but the effort required to learn it was so crushing that people would never sacrifice it.