mash away at a keyboard

[Alexey86]

I spend a lot of time mashing away at a keyboard, trying to tell the computer what I'd like it to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZwneRb-zqA (0:06)

Does mashing away mean typing or typing away?

 

[emsr2d2]

I'll listen to it in a moment but my gut instinct is that it's going to turn out to be "bashing away".

Edit: Hmm, I was wrong. He says "mashing away". It doesn't make any sense in BrE. I note from the About section that the video maker is from South Africa (I couldn't quite work out the accent) so maybe "mashing away" works in that variant. Maybe he's just been saying it wrong for years!

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Does mashing away mean typing or typing away?

It's more aggressive. The writer is pounding, hammering, bashing the keys furiously.

 

[jutfrank]

The word mashing makes good sense here and is a common word to use among certain speakers to refer to pressing a button or buttons fast and/or frantically. It's normally used in the context of playing console video games, where you have to press buttons on a controller.

 

[Glizdka]

Not a teacher
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The word mashing makes good sense here and is a common word to use among certain speakers to refer to pressing a button or buttons fast and/or frantically. It's normally used in the context of playing console video games, where you have to press buttons on a controller.

Is that similar in effect to facerolling?

I remember a cult game Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 3. There was an achievement named "butter fingers" for making 1000 mistakes in one song. You had to literally use all your fingers to mash keys as fast as possible before a song ends, but I guess butter fingers doesn't mean the same as mashing keys; it just means sloppy.

 

[jutfrank]

It's not really the same as facerolling, no.

Yes, you could say that getting the Butter Fingers achievement involved mashing keys.

 

[emsr2d2]

Well, I've certainly learnt something today!

 

[Tdol]

I knew I bashed away, but didn't know I mashed away at my keyboard.

 

[Skrej]

In addition to sense of speed Jutfrank mentions, 'mashing' also implies a sense of carelessness or imprecision. You're just sort of stabbing your fingers in the general direction of individual keys.

Think about mashing potatoes - you just keep plunging the masher down in the general direction of where it looks like some lumps might be. You're not really aiming, but you just keep doing it until they're reasonably smooth-ish.

 

[Glizdka]

There are two other games I've played. One of them, Gunz the Duel, made use of animation canceling, You cancel the backswing animation aften an attack with switching a weapon, shooting, and switching back, while doing jumps, dashes, and other movement tricks. To an outside viewer, this might as well look like aimlessly mashing the keyboard. It required perfect timing in the order of miliseconds for certain moves to be pulled off.

The other one was Starcraft, where you had hotkeys for units and actions, and you micromanaged the orders for each unit. Since you had about more than 100 units at times, it also looked like aimless mashing. Needless to say messing up which order you give to which unit could result in losing a match, so you needed both speed and precision.

I'm wondering if Skej's explanation of the word that includes the an element of carelessness and imprecision still applies.

 

[jutfrank]

In addition to sense of speed Jutfrank mentions, 'mashing' also implies a sense of carelessness or imprecision. You're just sort of stabbing your fingers in the general direction of individual keys.

Yes. I'd say that this also implies a lack of skill.

Many years ago, playing Street Fighter II on the SNES, even though I was undoubtedly the far superior player, my best but highly dishonorable friend Richard would consistently beat me simply because he was able to 'mash' the X-button fast enough to repel my powerful shoyukens with a flash of pitiable Chun-Li low kicks. Still hurts.

 

[emsr2d2]

'mash' the X-button fast enough to repel my powerful shoyukens with a flash of pitiable Chun-Li low kicks.

Well, those are all certainly words. :shock:

 

[Glizdka]

Yes. I'd say that this also implies a lack of skill.

If mashing keys implies a lack of skill and means randomly spamming keys in rapid succession, how is that different from facerolling? I guess mashing keys applies to a wider variety of contexts than facerolling, especially given facerolling's origin in World of Warcraf. Is that it?

Many years ago, playing Street Fighter II on the SNES, even though I was undoubtedly the far superior player, my best but highly dishonorable friend Richard would consistently beat me simply because he was able to 'mash' the X-button fast enough to repel my powerful shoyukens with a flash of pitiable Chun-Li low kicks. Still hurts.

Richard: Can I repel your shoyukens by simply mashing the X-button?
Frank: Sure-you-can!
Richard: *mashes X* *blocks*
Frank's eye: *twitches*

I'll show myself out.

 

[jutfrank]

If mashing keys implies a lack of skill and means randomly spamming keys in rapid succession, how is that different from facerolling?

Yes, it's similar in that respect.

Facerolling has a different sense in that it doesn't matter which keys are pressed—the effect is the same. Going back to the use in the original video, you can't type code (or text) by facerolling.

 

[Rover_KE]

I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.