4 ms·

The bit I forgot to mention here was that alongside all that my parents were incredibly diligent in making sure I learnt how to touch type at the same time, whi

The bit I forgot to mention here was that alongside all that my parents were incredibly diligent in making sure I learnt how to touch type at the same time, which I can't thank them enough for. That means that I can write without thinking about the mechanical action of doing so at all, which was never the case for handwriting. Possibly given sufficient focus on practicing handwriting that would have worked as well but several years of near constant handwriting in school never got to that point, while 30-60 minutes a day of practice at typing had me able to beat the speed I could handwrite at within a month or two.

hilbert42 3y ago
"...that my parents were incredibly diligent in making sure I learnt how to touch type at the same time, which I can't thank them enough for." You're very lucky indeed that your parents encouraged you to type, clearly it's put you in good stead. My mother had been a professional typist and stenographer and knew Pitman shorthand to a tee. She could type multiple pages without a single mistake for she learned in the days before wordprocessors and correction fluid—a single mistake would mean retyping the whole page. Also, she worked in a law firm where cross-outs and corrections were just not acceptable. Simply, she had to be accurate and word-perfect every time and she was. Yet at no time did she take the time to teach me to type nor teach me shorthand. It's not as if she wouldn't have done so had she known better but it just wasn't acceptable to teach boys what was then considered women's work. This is one big regret of my life as my typing is at best still scratchy and I do not know shorthand which in hindsight would have been a godsend. I need to correct my point about handwriting and learning. I'm now not sure whether the story was linked from HN or not but it's definitely on Sabine Hossenfelder's Science News YouTube channel here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PQbidoBPBc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PQbidoBPBc

hilbert42 3y ago

"...that my parents were incredibly diligent in making sure I learnt how to touch type at the same time, which I can't thank them enough for." You're very lucky indeed that your parents encouraged you to type, clearly it's put you in good stead. My mother had been a professional typist and stenographer and knew Pitman shorthand to a tee. She could type multiple pages without a single mistake for she learned in the days before wordprocessors and correction fluid—a single mistake would mean retyping the whole page. Also, she worked in a law firm where cross-outs and corrections were just not acceptable. Simply, she had to be accurate and word-perfect every time and she was. Yet at no time did she take the time to teach me to type nor teach me shorthand. It's not as if she wouldn't have done so had she known better but it just wasn't acceptable to teach boys what was then considered women's work. This is one big regret of my life as my typing is at best still scratchy and I do not know shorthand which in hindsight would have been a godsend. I need to correct my point about handwriting and learning. I'm now not sure whether the story was linked from HN or not but it's definitely on Sabine Hossenfelder's Science News YouTube channel here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PQbidoBPBc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7PQbidoBPBc