When school lets out again this summer, I’m sure every child, young and old, will soon be looking forward to their first day of typing camp. That’s what my mother, the mistress of subsidized summer fun found for my last holiday before high school, two whole weeks of fffff . . . jjjjj . . . ddddd . . . kkkkk . . . Understand, we’re not talking about computers here, this was touch typing at its most basic, on massive old manual machines back when tab stops were actual metallic tabs, and it took every ounce of your strength to return the paper carriage back to the start of every line.
I maintain that those two weeks of typing camp were all it took to set me apart from all the poor hunters-and-peckers who’d be spending the rest of their lives cursing their computers and the demise of the once ubiquitous secretarial pool. Everyone would soon be doing all their own typing, and I was fortunate enough to learn what I consider the two most important typing tips ever: use your pinky to hold down a shift key and your thumb on the space bar. Everything beyond that is nothing but practice, muscle memory, and lots of looking at the keyboard.
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Posted to ABC Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteTyping camp? FOOEY! I wanna have FUN!
ReplyDeleteROG, ABC Wednesday team
I still use the keyboard as if it were a typewriter - I cannot get used to only having to lightly press the keys. Actually, except for that return bar, I think I prefer the typewriter keyboard as it fit the hand better. (or maybe I am in a fantasy land about it all!)
ReplyDeleteTyping class in High School was the best thing I ever did, but vacation time class...I don't know. I guess kids now days just use their thumbs to text and can't really use the keyboard too well.
ReplyDeleteI cannot type at all. I'm not sure that typing class would have helped me. :))
ReplyDeleteI wasn't very FOND of typing in my college years lol.
ReplyDeleteForty Three
Chubskulit, ABC Wednesday Team
And to think my Dad didn't speak to my Mom for about 3 weeks when she okayed me to take typing in junior high! Where would I be today with this skill?
ReplyDeleteLeslie
abcw team
The biggest Internet fight I ever got embroiled in was when I dared to point out that with computers, it's no longer necessary to type two spaces after a fullstop/period (with a thumb or not) because word processing software automatically adds extra space. Let's just say that in response to me a few people typed four letters starting with F, and while they weren't followed by D or J, the last letter, coincidentally, was a K, followed by the word "you". Live and learn.
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