Holding down the Alt key

[wordistheword]

I noticed that when I hold down the ALT key in Word, after a second or two, the shortcut keys on the menus come into view. Is there a way to change this behavior? I have multiple ALT+ keystrokes programmed, and it's a little annoying when I inadvertently hold down ALT too long while thinking of which other key to press.



Thanks for any and all suggestions!

(Word 2010, by the way)