Wayward fingers
My touch typing has never been brilliant and fortunately my livelihood didn’t depend on it but recently it has deteriorated, or, at least, I think it has. Maybe it’s because I am typing more frequently and for longer periods, but then surely, it would improve, no? I wonder if it’s an indication of the way my brain is going. I hope not!
The above has been corrected. Let me show you how it often looks before either auto-correction or manual correction.
The quicik btwosn fox jumps over the lazy dofg.
Thie is a standsard typing exercise.
Solmetimes it can be explained by letters being close toegehtr
but that’s not always the case.
I ogern hit eh Cpital s
key and htT’S ANNOYIBNGF.
I know I rush at thingf and make sillyu mistakes in everything I do – this has been my life but am I getting worse?
Now, does my speech reflect this mumbo jumbo? Am I mirroring Joe Biden, that poor, lost soul, whose decline is so painfully public?
I have passed the point of laughing at his gaffes and mispronunciations and am concerned by his stumbles, both physical and verbal and his worrying behaviour with children. How long can he continue? How long can he be allowed to continue? There must be many more proficient and capable candidates for the highest rank in the land in the USA.
However, I did not start this post in order to discuss politics – that’s a can of worms best left unopened in public by uninformed people like me. After all, our own politicians, in UK, leave much to be desired.
On Wednesday I was listening to a pianist playing Chopin and reading the manuscript. It was a tricky piece and I would only be able to play it, if at all, at about a quarter of the required tempo. Afterwards, my keyboard seemed strangely alien and I could not type as my fingers seemed to want to travel in parallel lines rather than in different planes according to the letters required. If that makes it sound as though my keyboard has several manuals like a pipe organ, I apologise, but I hope you understand what I mean. The odd feeling passed and I was soon back to typing appallingly badly, as usual.
My husband recently gave me an illuminated keyboard which is a joy to use. It’s small, neat and very responsive to touch – but it hasn’t improved my typing!
Older age is a shocker, yes :( I did a complete course in typing one summer holidays, before computers were invented and to this day I still don't have to look at the keys. But nowadays my elderly fingers have been known to type an o instead of a p etc. Typing doesn't take much longer these days, but editing does.
ReplyDeleteAnother age-related issue has been poorer eye sight which affects TV, computing, even shopping.
Auto-correct is a useful feature, though sometimes the corrections can be a little bizarre, much like predictive text!
DeleteI touch type sometimes almost faultlessly, other times with many mistakes. That is not getting better. For some odd reason of late I haven't been finding the home keys immediately without looking. I'm usually one key to the right, and so a sentence begins with gibberish, especially if distracted by tv and not looking at what is appearing on the pc screen.
ReplyDeleteThere are too many distractions - let's blame it all on those ;-)
DeleteI never learned to touch type, I'm a hunt and peck typist, but I keep my eyes on the keyboard rather than the screen. Then I edit if I need to, but some mistakes still get past me.
ReplyDeleteThat seems a sensible approach. I like the 'hunt and peck' description.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who used to type every day of her working life, my keyboard skills have now deteriorated so that my first attempts generally mirror your example above. Thank goodness for autocorrect ... well, sometimes.
ReplyDeleteAt least people don't have to use Tippex these days.
ReplyDeleteI never learned to touch type, but I seem to get along reasonably well using two fingers on my right hand and one on the left. I make mistakes, of course; I suspect everyone does. Most of the time I catch them before I hit “publish”, but not always, unfortunately. One of my common pitfalls, requires extra vigilance around the vowels ‘u’, ‘I’ and ‘o’. ‘Shot’, or ‘shut’ can easily become ‘shit’ with a misplaced finger!
ReplyDeleteYes, we all make mistakes, of course. My husband now dictates rather than typing, but even then some strange things occur. Enunciation is of prime importance ;-)
ReplyDeleteThat's great your husband got you a new keyboard. At least you can edit and use a spell and grammar checker once you get words on the page.
ReplyDeleteGetting words on the page is the first stumbling block . . .
DeleteI was notoriously bad at touch typing at school, and indeed it's the only subject I ever flunked. Fast forward many years later to a job which involves lots of typing and a hobby which means ever more typing. I'd like to say that practice did make perfect, but that would be a lie. Without autocorrect I would soon be exposed as the bad typist I still am. Perhaps an illuminated keyboard (ekyboadr was my first attempt :) would help, but somehow I doubt it! xxx
ReplyDeleteSee, it's nothing to do with age at all! I am vindicated;-)
DeleteI think our bodies don't work as well as we age. Best thing to do is laugh about it and keep trying. I bet the Chopin piece was nice! Chopin isn't easy to play even when you're fingers are working at full capacity.
ReplyDeleteChopin always sounds as though he should be easy to play, to my ear, anyway, but, faced with the notes on the page, it's a different matter. Ah, well, keep on keeping on. At least I'm the only one who has to listen to my execrable efforts (I use headphones)
Delete