Re: just a nagging question

Lee Rudolph wrote:
> "Ruth Lawrence" <curlygrrrl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>Max Meredith Vasilatos asked
>>
>>>How did everyone learn to type?

I never had any formal typing lessons. (Once, in high school -- well it
was actually during the time four of us put together a graduation
yearbook, so I was nearly finished with secondary school -- I saw a
teacher type: eagle-like, with two fingers bent like claws, but none the
less wicked fast; it was the talk of the evening among the small group
of students present.)

During about my third year of university, I started spending hours daily
at the computer. Back then I typed with about three and a half fingers,
and frequently had to look at the keyboard. This was about the level
everyone was typing at, and sort of okay for my needs. But at one point,
I decided to learn how to type with all ten fingers. My method: return
the fingers to the basic position between words, force yourself to use
all of them, and don't look at the keyboard. The result is that it looks
to an observer as if I knew how to type, but I'm sure a typing
instructor will find fault with the fingers I use for some keys. In
particular my right pinkie doesn't seem to do its share of work.

When I applied for jobs as a bi/trilingual admin assistant five years
ago, I was tested, among other things[1], for typing speed and accuracy.
Without having anticipated the test -- typing as much as possible in 3
minutes of a relatively convoluted English text -- I typed not quite as
fast as I could have, to avoid making too many errors. In the end, I had
made one banal typo, and got a compliment for my typing speed (but it
was less than 100 wpm, I think).

>>I wouldn't expect everyone to be able to learn it
>>well, especially not adults... or men, whose fine cooordination
>>isn't, on average, as good as womens'.
>
> My coordination (fine and gross) was pretty miserable at the
> time (or so I believed and was encouraged to believe by, _primi
> inter pares_, all my "physical education" teachers--actually,
> I should put "teachers" in scare quotes too, for no one but the
> jocks, if they, got any teaching from them, only constant bullying
> etc. etc., damn their eyes; rather later I discovered that I had
> quite good coordination in many ways, though now it's fading away
> again).

My coordination is pretty lousy overall, and PE was my worst subject for
most of my school career. At least I had _one_ good teacher when I was
at my most miserable about that. The worst was "needlework" class in 5th
and 6th grade. Only the girls had to take that class, and there was no
equivalent for boys. This got changed shortly after I passed through
that age -- I'm still amazed with how much good grace we took this
injustice back then. It was bad because it was taught by the same
teacher we had for PE, and she blatantly preferred the girls who were
good at sports. It was my impression that they could count on a boost of
one grade or so on their knitting and crocheting, whatever the quality
of their work. One girl was allowed to read out loud (from Enid Blyton
books, I think) during the needlework classes, supposedly the one who
was most advanced in her work. But of course it was always the same
sporty ones who got to read... oh, how small injustices could rankle.

chris-reminiscing-in-paris

[1] There was also the bizarre task of picking out errors (lexical and
grammatical) in an English text. Some were of course obvious, but a lot
were debatable usage decisions. Anyway, I was hired in the end, so my
judgment must have been okay.
.

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