As a skilled touch-typist with the ability to type between 80-90 wpm , and having worked for many years at keyboards, and for companies and government departments where 100% accuracy is expected and demanded, together with the hours I spend writing fiction as a hobby, I must say how impressed I am with the presentational quality - construction, spelling and grammatical - of all the posts on this forum, most from contributors whom I would guess are typing by using just their two index fingers.
That's really fast Cerb... I don't type with two fingers but make plenty of errors when I type fast...I also go back and change the sentence structure as my thoughts restructure and leave words behind that sort of belonged to my previous sentence... not sure if it makes sense... I've learned to live with it although there are posters who give me grief
I learned to type code as a programmer. Yes, I started with just 2 fingers but since that was too slow I started tapping the space bar with my thumbs and using some of my other fingers. I don't have a clue how fast I can type but it is still nothing close to a professional typist. After decades of using a full sized keyboard I was dismayed by the size of the oriental "touchpads" on phones and other devices. My hands and fingers are just two damn large so it takes me at least twice as long to type an email on my phone than on my laptop. That is one of the reasons I have never bothered with twitter either. It would drive me crazy. (The BLOTUS has an advantage there with his very small hands.) Spelling is easy with a decent spell checker and grammar comes from being an avid reader. I try not to be too critical of others unless what they post is incomprehensible. If the meaning comes across I am OK with that. The biggest mistake to make on the interwebs is to criticize someone else's errors while making your own typos. With that said I agree with the OP that overall the quality of the posts in this forum is well above that in other forums that I have read.
Funny story. Touch typist since 1970. Typed a work scope up for one of our customers. We were replacing and rearranging light fixtures. Went into a meeting with the customer and they were mad as hell. They pointed to one section where I typed "rotate on fixture" instead of "rotate one fixture". They all had a good laugh.
Speed to me is secondary to content....in fact I purposefully type slow to keep pace with my thoughts.
I learned how to type in my HS typing class on a typewriter. Never regretted it. Computer-wise, I went from a standard keyboard to one of those weird looking wavy curved ones which I used for years. Now I'm back to a standard one and have to re-adjust again. My IPhone has talk to text which I use quite often.
Nah, I type @ speed (used to be 90wpm, but that was ages ago) & then fix any problems in post. But I've had a lot of practice @ drafting & then revising, seems I've been doing that or something similar most of my career. First draft, let 'er rip.
It makes perfect sense Witchy 'cos I do the same thing. I've lost count (not that I do count them ) of the times I've gone back to change a word/correct a typo(not that I make any?? lol)/revise a punctuation sequence of a perfectly presentable post only to see when it hits the board that in doing so I inadvertently changed something else which alters the context. All hail the Edit function??
Reminds me of a joke where someone is writing, repeat writing (remember when we used to do that? ), and begins the letter with 'I'll write this very slowly because I know you can't read very fast.' Well I thought it was funny!
Because it's instinctive to use the index finger before all the others? I mean which finger do you use to press a doorbell button?
I type about 60 wpm. I took a typing class in high school My mom typed 120 wpm on a mechanical typewriter. I bet she could still do it at 71 on a modern keyboard. She also can dictate in shorthand and quilts. My neighbor is a court reporter and can type about 250 wpm on her steno machine.
That's truly amazing. At one time I toyed with the idea of buying a stenography machine to find out how they work and then see if I could 'crack it'.
