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We now casually use the Ctrl-C to Copy.

We also use Ctrl-X to Cut. I understand this choice. We cannot reuse Ctrl-C and the 'X' represents a cross. Crossing something out on a sheet of paper was similar to cutting it out.

Now... Why would we use Ctrl-V for Paste? The only thing I could come with is that it's close the other two keys and thus let's keep that functionality together...

I know that those controls have different meanings in a console. I'm not interested by the console use of those keys unless it is somehow related (I doubt it).

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    For such a common operation, isn't having the keys close a pretty good reason in itself? After all, some computer keyboards (e.g. Sun workstations) even had dedicated keys for those actions. – grawity Jan 13 '23 at 15:55
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    @user1686 And before SUN it was XEROX - which directly inspired Jobs. There is also the explanation of them reassembling certain images, like V being an insertion caret or X looking like scissors blades, while Z is the "last" letter as in removing the last item and C just being Copy. I have a hard time to say which one is true or if the symbolic one is rather made up in retrospect, but I would believe creation being interleaved by trying to use the first letters of the lowest letter row, while realizing what neat association they allow - the later being the argument made afterwards. – Raffzahn Jan 13 '23 at 16:18
  • @StephenKitt didn't say anything different. The mentioning of Xerox is purely in relation to user 1686 pointing out that Sun had dedicated keys before the Lisa (which isn't exactly true either as the dedicated keys only came with the SUN-2 introduced only after the Lisa. The Sun-1 had an almost classic ASCII type Keyboard). – Raffzahn Jan 13 '23 at 19:33
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    Ctrl-V isn't the paste shortcut. The paste shortcut is Shift-Insert. – Mark Jan 14 '23 at 02:29
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    @Mark yes I agree Ctrl+Ins , Shift+Ins , Shift+Del are the copy/paste/cut shortcuts for ages (long before Ctlr+C/V/X) I always assumed MS add the new ones because they where not able to write decent Keyboard handler ISR (any better old MS-DOS game has that ISR done better than windows) till today and combinations of Ctlr,Shift with Ins/Del is simply not reliable on MS Windows (till today btw.) because of the "complicated" encoding of the key codes send from keyboard for those additional key clusters like (ins,del), (nupad), (arrows) – Spektre Jan 14 '23 at 09:52
  • @Spektre: No, the Ctrl+Ins, Shift+Ins, Shift+Del were the standard copy/paste/cut shortcuts on Windows long before Ctrl+C/V/X ever were. The newer Ctrl+C/V/X shortcuts came in at around Windows 3.1. – psmears Jan 16 '23 at 12:21
  • @psmears I remember some IDEs like Borland TP/TC, Adon and others use those shortcuts from MS-DOS (prior to win) ... also remeber that embended editors to common file managers (like NC,VC) at that time used different shortcuts like F3 ... which was misleading sometimes – Spektre Jan 16 '23 at 14:15
  • @Spektre: Right - Ctrl+Ins, Shift+Ins etc were the standard for a lot of software; they didn't originate with MS as far as I know. But I don't think we can blame Microsoft's poor keyboard handling for the introduction of Ctrl+C/V/X, because the Ctrl+Ins etc keys were present from at least Windows 2.0 onwards (and Ctrl+C/V/X were not) :). – psmears Jan 16 '23 at 14:26
  • Many DOS-based editors used control keys based upon Wordstar and/or Turbo Pascal (Turbo Pascal got them from Wordstar, but I don't know whether other programs were copying Turbo Pascal or Wordstar). Control Z,X,C,V were scroll screen one line, move cursor by one line, move cursor/screen by a page, and copy insert mode. The keys were chosen to accommodate keyboards without dedicated cursor or function keys, but I used to use some of those keys a lot even on keyboards which had dedicated keys for those functions because they were more convenient, and I doubt I'm alone. – supercat Jan 16 '23 at 18:09
  • The control-insert etc. combinations were less convenient, but they avoided conflicts with existing key mappings. – supercat Jan 16 '23 at 18:10
  • I used to have a copy of a pre-release version of Inside Macintosh (circa early 1984, I think, about the time the Mac did its fancy commercial). If I remember correctly, it explained X and C as cut and copy, and then said something like "V is right next door". There was an explanation that they did some human factors research and felt that 4 adjacent keys (Z, X, C and V) made the most sense. Windows originally used IBM's "Common User Interface" and likely adopted the Mac standard when it moved Word to Windows (from DOS) and ported Excel from the Mac. – Flydog57 Jan 16 '23 at 22:30
  • @psmears win2.0 is just a program running on top of MS-DOS so they most likely still got good enough keyboard handler , not sure for Win3.11 I can't remember using it much for writing... but win9x was exhibiting problems right away in any version I used, and its the same for later OSes: XP,w2k,win7 Also I think that with win10 the reliablility got even worse... didnt used the useless versions like W8,ME,Vista but I assume its the same for them – Spektre Jan 22 '23 at 08:09
  • @Spektre: That may be true, but Ctrl+Ins/Shift+Ins/Shift+Del have worked just fine in all of those versions of Windows (and still do - at least in those programs, such as Notepad, that have been there since the beginning!) – psmears Jan 22 '23 at 10:52
  • @psmears they work but are not reliable because too often its not recognized like 1 in 5 tries depending on computer speed and installed stuff – Spektre Jan 22 '23 at 16:53
  • @Spektre: That has not been my experience (on many different computers over about 30 years). Maybe an issue specific to the setup(s) you've been using? – psmears Jan 22 '23 at 21:36

4 Answers4

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As well as being close to X and C on most keyboard layouts, “V” is reminiscent of the caret used in proofreading to indicate the insertion point for new text, e.g.

 text to be inserted
          V
text being edited

or, as is typically done,

      missing
text with‸word

or even

      missing
text with⁁word

Larry Tesler, the creator of copy/paste, explains the choice thus:

The Lisa was the first system to assign XCVZ to cut, copy, paste and undo (shifted with the “apple” key). I chose them myself. X was a standard symbol of deletion. C was the first letter of Copy. V was an upside down caret and apparently meant Insert in at least one earlier editor.

Stephen Kitt
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  • Text to be inserted would usually be placed below the location of insertion, but I would think a caret would point from the inserted text toward the surrounding text, regardless of position. BTW, the gravestone for James Fenimore Cooper's wife Susan contains a caret on the last line of a poem, to insert an "a" into "grteful" from beneath. – supercat Jan 13 '23 at 16:24
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    Since I view the text being pasted as moving 'downwards' into position, regardless of what Fenimore Cooper's mason may think, ctrl+V makes perfect sense, as it points in the appropriate direction. – dave Jan 13 '23 at 18:05
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    I think it's remarkable to actually have an answer that names not just when or what, but who invented this convention. Very cool. – Wayne Conrad Jan 13 '23 at 20:11
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    @supercat I would think that this is specific to your area/local culture, as all cases I remember from school or back in the times when anyone had to correct on paper first, insertions where always written above - or at the sides with an arrow pointing to the insertion point from above – Raffzahn Jan 13 '23 at 22:01
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    Somewhat more people than just Larry Tesler would have to agree with this to get this into the Lisa. And I'd be surprised if it wasn't influenced some/most by wanting the four keys to be in a row, making it easier to use and remember them. P may already have been assigned for Print, may not. – TonyM Jan 13 '23 at 22:03
  • @Raffzahn: I think insertions would be written where there would be room for them. If one was writing something without leaving extra space for an insertion, and realized the need to insert something before reaching the next line, space would be available for the insertion below the text, but not above. – supercat Jan 13 '23 at 22:42
  • @supercat well, one can always find a reason - except some of them may only be valid for very rare reasons - like if it's about the last line of a page. One of anywhere between 10 to 60 depending on style and font size :)) – Raffzahn Jan 13 '23 at 22:46
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    In my experience, the insertion marker wasn't just a caret; the left leg extended past the vertex. I didn't follow the "text in the margin" convention, though - the inserted text was written above the line. When I was correcting documents on paper written by others, that was. – dave Jan 13 '23 at 22:48
  • @Raffzahn: Or the last line of a paragraph, or the second-to-last line if the last line is short enough. Or, the aforementioned situation where the next line hasn't been written yet. – supercat Jan 13 '23 at 22:50
  • @supercat as mentioned, a minority of situations :) – Raffzahn Jan 13 '23 at 22:51
  • Are you sure he didn't stole it from WordStar (released in 1979)? WordStar's Ctrl + K, Ctrl + C, etc. (the block copy variation) still works in Visual Studio. – Peter Mortensen Jan 14 '23 at 03:16
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    @supercat in Vietnam we write the text to be inserted above and mark a symbol similar to v exactly like that. And Vietnamese orthography was influenced by French, Russian and Portuguese so possibly that way of inserting was used in one of those languages. When there's not enough space one may write below the line but by default we always write above – phuclv Jan 14 '23 at 03:32
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    Copy/paste can already be seen in Engelbart's famous demo in 1969. Tesler didn't invent it, he implemented it. I don't know which letter Engelbart chose for paste though. – Florian F Jan 14 '23 at 13:40
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    @FlorianF the originality of Tesler’s approach is the separation of the copy/cut and paste operations. In NLS and other systems, there were combined copy/paste or cut/paste commands: the selection of the text to copy or move was followed immediately by the identification of its new insertion point. The novelty of copy/paste, as done today, was to make the selection one operation, and the insertion another. – Stephen Kitt Jan 14 '23 at 14:41
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    That's amazing, I had no idea V for paste originated from outside of computing. I would have thought C for copy, X and V are functionally adjacent, so cut went to X, V went to paste, perhaps in an arbitrary fashion (or maybe X just lent itself better to cut). – Nobilis Jan 14 '23 at 21:19
  • @PeterMortensen Maybe Wordstar is the "earlier editor" he was referring to? – Federico Poloni Jan 15 '23 at 17:53
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    @Nobilis: I don't think it's coincidence that ZXCV are consecutive. If the positions of e.g. the V and B keys were swapped, I think some justification would have been invented to use Command-B as the "paste" key. – supercat Jan 15 '23 at 18:48
  • @PeterMortensen The Gypsy text editor (written by Larry Tesler) for the Xerox Alto already had cut/paste in 1975. – user24811 Jan 16 '23 at 01:39
  • CTRL-Z for undo, is presumably due to neareness? Except, as I am, on a Geman keyboard where Y and Z swap places. (French keyboard also displaces Z). One other major annoyance of the shortcuts all being left-hand is for those of us who use a mouse left-handed..... – kpollock Jan 16 '23 at 08:22
0

simple, on QWERTY keyboard, V is next to C ... so it is quick and easy to copy/paste.. not the same for an AZERTY layout of course. But as IT started in the USA, you can think that the QWERTY layout made it obvious to use collocated keys for these commands.

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    "IT started in the USA" - citation required. What in particular do you mean by "IT"? Is electronics required? Programming? Meanwhile, the EDVAC in the US was the 4th operational stored-program computer; the first 3 were in the UK. First business stored-program computer was LEO in the UK. (Yes, I am partisan in this). – dave Jan 16 '23 at 23:16
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    AZERTY has X, C, and V in the same positions as QWERTY. – Stephen Kitt Jan 17 '23 at 17:17
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Similarly to why Ctrl-X is the "cut" shortcut. X is the closest a letter could visually get to the silhouette of scissors, a pair of open scissors in this case, while V is the closest one could get to represent something akin to an arrow or even a glue dispenser. Ctrl-P was already taken for "print", and the distance bewteen Ctrl and P would make it terribly inconvenient to use.

user23687
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    Was there a ‘print’ command back when these shortcuts were invented? – user3840170 Jan 15 '23 at 18:48
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    Some keyboards had ctrl keys on both sides, similar to the two shift keys. Your ctrl-p argument wouldn't apply. – Chenmunka Jan 15 '23 at 19:46
  • @Chenmunka The one I am using right now has two on both sides, how could I not have noticed that, thanks for pointing it out, you are correct. – user23687 Jan 15 '23 at 21:16
  • @user3840170 Good question, I don't know that. – user23687 Jan 15 '23 at 21:16
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    Right-control was a relatively late addition in computer keyboard layout. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_key – keshlam Jan 15 '23 at 21:50
  • The design was first chosen not for the control key but the command/apple key so always on bothe sides. – mmmmmm Jan 16 '23 at 00:50
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    Nonsense. The 101 key keyboard came out in 1985 and very quickly replaced the 83 key keyboard. I sold PCs then, and I would say just about every PC capable of running Windows shipped with a 101-key. The only small keyboard by then was the Mac keyboard (so it could fit in the carrying case)... which despite very few keys had command on both sides. A moot point, however, since we all deny Apple exists! – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 16 '23 at 08:11
  • @Harper-ReinstateMonica there have always been minimal keyboards for industrial, point-of-sale, and other applications - but I believe you're right regarding general purpose desktops. But VirtualBox hijacks it as the "host key" suggesting they think it's still a little-used modifier. That's a pretty annoying default for those of us who use a mouse left-handed – Chris H Jan 16 '23 at 14:38
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As the caret character [^6] requires use of the shift key, key [V] did not require the extra finger and thus more expedient in time and effort whilst using a standard keyboard.

Adam Shattock
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    Neither ^ nor v cause insertion. The insertion command is ctrl/v. Ctrl/^ is not a distinct character on an ASCII terminal. – dave Jan 14 '23 at 15:44
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    @another-dave: Ctrl+^ is ASCII 0x1e, and is used by "vi" to switch between file buffers. Most terminals will accept Ctrl+6 (i.e. without the shift key), same as Ctrl+2. – fadden Jan 14 '23 at 15:58
  • I stand corrected – dave Jan 14 '23 at 16:07
  • But paste was ctrl-v, requiring an extra finger. Your argument makes no sense. – Chenmunka Jan 15 '23 at 19:49
  • Exactly. It's been ctrl-V since Windows 1.0 in 1987. Because Apple does not exist. @another-dave I think the answer here is implying the use of the ctrl key, i.e. is saying ctrl-V is less awkward than shift-ctrl-6. Especially since paste is the one you're most likely to spam! – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 16 '23 at 08:00
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    @Harper-ReinstateMonica: "It's been ctrl-V since Windows 1.0 in 1987" Not sure if that is a joke, but FWIW that's not true: Windows 1.0 used Ins for paste; Windows 2.0 moved to the CUA standard of Shift+Ins, and this was still the case in Windows 3.0. Ctrl+V only came in with Windows 3.1 (1992). – psmears Jan 16 '23 at 16:31
  • @psmears Wouldn't surprise me, I was mainly alluding to this answer's denial of the existence of the Mac's role in setting that standard. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 16 '23 at 20:11
  • @Harper-ReinstateMonica: Fair enough, I suspected that might be what you were getting at, but there seem to exist enough people that believe what you said is literally true that it was worth pointing out the facts of the matter for the record! – psmears Jan 16 '23 at 21:29