(Apologies if I’m misunderstanding and you already know this.) Not specifying a register (e.g. "0) just means the commands, including x and p, will use the " r

(Apologies if I’m misunderstanding and you already know this.) Not specifying a register (e.g. "0) just means the commands, including x and p, will use the " register, aka the unnamed register. By itself, p is equivalent to ""p. :reg shows you all the registers and their current contents. This seems like a good description: https://www.brianstorti.com/vim-registers/ https://www.brianstorti.com/vim-registers/ Edit: Oh I guess you are saying it was unexpected that delete or change commands clobber yanked contents of the unnamed register.