vim: Can I make *only* y perform a copy? I'm learning to like vim, but one thing that I haven't yet fully embraced is the copy and paste situation. In a muggle text editor I would `Ctrl`-`C` copy a piece of text and then edit/delete and then paste the text somewhere else. However in vim I can't do this because after I copy text with `y`, modifying the text often involves `d` and `x` which obliterates my original text. Is there any way to make `d` and `x` not copy the text? Or otherwise, how should I be using these vim features?

The 9 previous yanks are saved in registers called `1` through `9`. You can recall the next-to-last yank with `"1p`, the previous one with `"2p` and so on. The command `:reg` shows the registers that are available for pasting.

If you want a yank to last longer, use a letter register.

For the more obscure yank-related commands, start reading at `:help "` in the manual.