The File of Riley

Teh File of Riley



Typos
are a way of life.  Spell checkers, proofreading, patience and
aclear mind often h elp catch, repair, or elminiagte typos.



Just looking aT THE above, or even at this line, you can see that a touch-typist I am not, a typo artist I am very muvch so.



Okay, OK, opint made.  Er, point made.  It would seem to me to have a typo or keyboard-error free day would be akin to living the file, er . . . the life of Riley.



My Errant Pinky and Thumb



My left pinky finger has a
way of hitting the Caps Lock, always at the wrong moment.  And
when I do mean to hit it, at least half the time I manage to hit it
twice, thus missing the point.   My right thumb (nearly
always typed as thibm) has a way of hitting the space bar at
inopportune moments, often in the middle of some word.  And then
there is the symptom of the crazed typist, an attack of no spaces
between words that occurs when I am typing trying to keep up with what
I'm thinking.  This occurs when composing at the keyboard, without
the benefit of an outline, notes, or some plan.



Composing on the fly comes with a guarantee of typos,
mispellings,  words lacking spaces between them, and all sorts of
oddities.



Using my laptop brings about keyboard oddities that go beyond the pale,
not the normal typo event(s).   With the laptop, no matter
what, how, when or what manner of typing, weird stuff occurs. 
Suddenly whatever I am typing is on another line, maybe even in a
different paragraph.  Or, worse yet, not being set to the page (or
the program), as the keyboard is no longer communicating with the
program (could be e-mail, could be word processing), and the cursor is
apparently elsewhere.



Common Errors



It seems I cannot correctly type the name of that wonderful VoIP
program, Skype [1].  In fact, just typing it in the prior sentence
took a long, slow, painstaking effort, to get it right.  For
reasons unbeknownst to me, it always comes out as Skupe.  Or
Skpoe.  Sometimes as Sky[e or Slype.  But rarely, if ever,
S-k-y-p-e.



This drives me nuts.  A consistent typo is annoying, but on a
program [1] I use with such frequency, and am so taken with?  Aargh!



Then there's the mistaken m  instead of a comma.   Could
be this is due to sloppy typing, or maybe the sticky keyboard. 
ANd of course the double-upper case instead of one upper case letter
(see first word of sentence), and the > sign or the slash ("/")
instead of a question mark.



I am somewhat shy to go public with the next one.  But what the
heck!?  I often get typos when typing my surname.  MY OWN
NAME!  And this is a group of letters I've typed a few zillion
times.  And there it is, with inverted letters, and sometimes just
a mish-mash of the eight letters, mumbo jumbo.



Two days ago I needed to fill out an online form.  This was
relatively important, it had to do with securing some client business,
getting some data nailed down.  After I had hit the send button
the program accepted it, the next screen showed me what  I'd entered. 
This is after the fact, no more chance to edit.



Oops.  I inverted the last two letters (the suffix) on my e-mail address.



Blind Jealousy



See that headline?  It was originally Blinf Jealousy.  Love
and Justice may be blind, but not the Human spellchcker.  Er,
spellchecker.



I do so very much envy those capable of touch typing.  A self
taught typist (hunt, peck, tap, slam), I can and do type without
staring at the keyboard, but often it makes more sense to look at
the  letters than not.  Those who had the good sense, good
fortune, or sensible curriculum requirement to take touch typing are
surely a step ahead of yours truly.



Both my kids took a course in High School, no longer called Typing, but now known as Keyboarding. 



Grrrr.  There's a neologism [2] that gives me grief.   Years
ago a colleague asked me if I would do some work for him, help him with
some writing he needed for his new company.  He also wanted me to
co-consult on some projects, particularly some assignments in branding
and sales research.  He said to me, "Dean, you can language this shit so the reports will sing, man.  You're a compelling writer."



After expressing my gratitude for the compliment and vote of confidence
I mentioned to him that I would not and could not "language" anything,
or make a noun a verb, but that I could indeed get the job accomplished
as a "wordsmith."  He accepted this as me being persnickety, and
told me he still liked the way I languaged things.  Once again, I
accepted the compliment, and this time, the assignment, too.



Language was my colleague's verbification of a noun.  Apparently
school systems verbify keyboard usage into "keyboarding" and no longer
use the old course name (or description) to teach the passe skill of typing.   I
should ask my kids if they refer to the ability to type without looking
at the keys as "touch keyboarding?"



IM: Where Typos are OK



I am very conscious of my typos.   Often in IMing I will
type: "oops, typo" and then re-enter the proper spelling of a prior
miscue.  A good many times I've been assured by fellow IMers that
typos are acceptable in Instant Messaging. 



We who IM, or so it
seems, are in the moment, in the immediate, and our typos are just part
of the process.  Typos are part and parcel of the immediacy of
instant communications, an acceptable aspect of the urgency or just the
very experience of being in the immediate here and now moment.



Well, feh.  They still drive me nuts.  They look like mistakes, and they are correctable ones, to boot.



Woe is me?



Does all this qualify me as an old codger?  A curmudgeon?   A Luddite of some
order, a nitpicker, a stickler, a prig?  I sure hope not. 
But honestly, typos and while I'm at it, spelling errors, too, and bad
grammar, drive me nuts.   I fear I am becoming a 
fuddy-duddy.



Does anyone else out there feel this way, at least re: typos?  Do tell!