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johnny9fingers April 9 2013, 21:43:53 UTC
I was taught civil service script before I went to kindergarten. I shall teach my children it before they go to school. Nevertheless I shall also ensure they can type. They'll get music lessons too. But I'm an elitist like that.
Multiplying by zero is something so basic in maths that I am amazed that otherwise semi-educated folk don't know it. But there you go.

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yes_justice April 9 2013, 23:02:38 UTC
Qwerty typing is an artifact of the manual typewriter and there are more ergonomic and more efficient keyboard layouts and designs. I wonder when we will begin to teach those primarily.

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htpcl April 10 2013, 08:54:50 UTC
Your mention of the Qwerty typing reminded me of something ( ... )

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johnny9fingers April 10 2013, 09:18:48 UTC
Typewriters being in the Roman alphabet is the reason that Ireland reformed the spelling of Gaelic in the 1940's. This had led to a discontinuity historical Irish literature. Scots Gaelic retains the original alphabet and letter forms. My mother is of the generation that could read both Irish and Scots Gaelic with ease, but hers is pretty much the last generation with that facility.

You need to fight this "modernisation" if you want to retain a real connection with your cultural traditions. If these no longer matter in the modern world, well...I for one would be sad.

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a_new_machine April 11 2013, 14:18:20 UTC
Honestly: probably never. Unless we teach multiple keyboard layouts, which seems hugely inefficient, QWERTY is here to stay, if only because your newfangled key arrangements are not going to be standard when entering the workplace. So you learn your Dvorak, and then you get to work, and the old fuddy-duddies running the place have QWERTY everywhere. Makes your Dvorak pretty useless.

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sophia_sadek April 11 2013, 16:48:57 UTC
Qwerty was designed to prevent hammer jams that occurred when people typed letters too quickly in succession. This would be more of a problem on older electric typewriters than on manual ones. The ball style of typewriter perfected by IBM would not have such a problem.

I did not master touch typing until I had to use it for computing. All of my college typewritten papers were done with hunt-and-peck tedium.

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