Etaoin shrdlu

Etaoin shrdlu (/ˈɛtiɔɪn ˈʃɜːrdluː/,[1] /ˈeɪtɑːn ʃrədˈluː/)[2] is a nonsense phrase that sometimes appeared by accident in print in the days of "hot type" publishing, resulting from a custom of type-casting machine operators filling out and discarding lines of type when an error was made.

It appeared often enough to become part of newspaper lore – a documentary about the last issue of The New York Times composed using hot metal (July 2, 1978) was titled Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu.

[4] The letters on type-casting machine keyboards (such as Linotype and Intertype) were arranged by descending letter frequency to speed up the mechanical operation of the machine, so lower-case e-t-a-o-i-n and s-h-r-d-l-u were the first two columns on the left side of the keyboard.

However, manipulating the matrices by hand within the partially assembled line was time-consuming and presented the chance of disturbing important adjustments.

To make the line long enough to proceed through the machine, operators would finish it by running a finger down the first columns of the keyboard, which created a pattern that could be easily noticed by proofreaders.

A Linotype machine keyboard. It has the following alphabet arrangement twice, once for lower case (the black keys) and once for upper case (the white keys), with the keys in the middle for numbers and symbols: etaoin / shrdlu / cmfwyp / vbgkqj / xz
Close-up of keyboard, showing "etaoin / shrdlu" pattern