i use the rename command constantly to organize files, and the mv command to rename directories. the format of the rename command is rename <from> <to> <which files>. the format of mv is <from> <to>.
so i accidently type mv in the rename format. i wouldn't have guessed what it did. i thought i had lost several days of downloaded files.

/work# d
total 2073
2 . 160 ebook.tar.bz
2 .. 16 encapsulate.html
4 1st 16 faucet.html
20 COPYING 8 getpeername.html
4 FMT.COM 12 hose.html
4 FMT.TXT 1444 libvorbis-aotuv_ex_20040402.zip
8 Makefile 1 luckroot
4 PRC2TXT.COM 4 memmove.h
4 PRC2TXT.TXT 256 net-tools-1.54-4.i386.rpm
8 README 28 pork.htm
4 aoTuV_test.txt 6 rute
4 bullfark 8 sockdown.html
4 check_videoconv.sh 12 ssl-auth.html
4 common.h 4 timelimit.html
1 darius-admin-1.1 4 uc_cdrl4.com
1 darius-misc-1.0 16 videoconv.sh
1 darius-sound-1.1-3 1 work
1 darius-text-1.1-2
/work# mv luckroot/ "Luckroot" *
mv: cannot stat `Luckroot': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `luckroot': No such file or directory
/work# ls
total 4
1 . 2 .. 2 work
/work# no no no no. can't be

it wasn't this directory i was working on, but another, with a bunch of files, and the work directory had hundreds of files in it. there were 400 megs in the main directory and 200 in the work directory which was still there. i didn't really know how much was in the work directory beforehand. after a few minutes of dejected looking around, i decided my total filesystem size seemed the same as before, so i went looking. everything was in the work directory.
normally i can just look at a badly typed command and know what it did, but this one eludes me.

/work# cd work
/work/work# ls
total 2071
2 . 1 darius-text-1.1-2
1 .. 160 ebook.tar.bz
4 1st 16 encapsulate.html
20 COPYING 16 faucet.html
4 FMT.COM 8 getpeername.html
4 FMT.TXT 12 hose.html
8 Makefile 1444 libvorbis-aotuv_ex_20040402.zip
4 PRC2TXT.COM 1 luckroot
4 PRC2TXT.TXT 4 memmove.h
8 README 256 net-tools-1.54-4.i386.rpm
4 aoTuV_test.txt 28 pork.htm
4 bullfark 6 rute
4 check_videoconv.sh 8 sockdown.html
4 common.h 12 ssl-auth.html
1 darius-admin-1.1 4 timelimit.html
1 darius-misc-1.0 4 uc_cdrl4.com
1 darius-sound-1.1-3 16 videoconv.sh
/work/work#

everything had been moved to the work directory from the command.
mv luckroot "Luckroot" *

i'm assuming because it was the last in alphabetical order. anyway, easy to move the stuff back, but i thought that was a weird result from that command.

In th bash shell an * on it's own is replaced by the names of all the files and directories in the working directory in alphabetical order. Since you already had a directory called /work/work the mv command that you issued would have looked something like:
mv luckroot/ "Luckroot" ebook.tar.bz encapsulate.html ... other files ... videoconv.sh work

The last argument in the mv command must be a directory - in this case it was "work" (/work/work) and that is where your files were moved to.

Since this is not strictly a Success Story, moved to Linux-General

got it. i think what was throwing me the most was the message:
mv: cannot stat `Luckroot': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `luckroot': No such file or directory
but apparently, that was because "luckroot" was there twice, and "Luckroot" was there once, but Luckroot didn't exist.

i was thinking this was a success story at first,because i was so relieved to not have lost anything, then as i was typing it, i realized it wasn't.