Can you type without looking?

I was just going by what I had always been told. After watching my mom it became believable. I don't know if you ever watched these girls and ladies, but their fingers could literally fly across the keys and yet they never took their eyes off the notes, or other documents they were transcribing. My mom made a career out of being a professional secretary and could type 100 words a minute on a manual typewriter with 0 errors. When she moved to a computer her speed went even higher. Some secretaries could type faster than executives could dictate. It also amazed me that they could read shorthand like most of us read regular English.

As for myself the last time I timed myself I was around 20-25 words a minute. Touch typing is a skill worth having. I have to say, as much as I would love to have a manual typewriter, it is nice not having to deal with jammed keys, messy ribbons and trying to make corrections. With a computer I can just delete and redo everything.

 

No, you need a brain to fix those. Sorry, but I get a bit upset when people blame software inadequacies for their own inadequacies.

 

Now for something a bit lighthearted.

 

I didn't blame the software, I said I needed the software (aka auto-correct) to correct the flaws in QWERTY.

I assure you my brain knows how to spell 'the'.

 

I know your brain knows how to spell 'the.' It doesn't know how to make your fingers move in the right order, according to you, so it comes out as 'teh.' You are blaming your keyboard and demanding that software deal with your own imprecision. Just type properly, and you won't need auto-correct. It's a poor workman who blames his tools.

 

Sometimes tools are indeed not well designed.

 

Fight! Fight!

 

@minstrel I know on the Mac you can use the alt key with the backspace; this helps you 'fast-travel' a word at a time.

 

That would be equivalent of using the ctrl key on a Win system. By holding it down you can erase a word at a time (ctrl+backspace/delete), move the cursor a word at the time (ctrl+left/right), and a bunch of other useful stuff that I absolutely abuse.

 

I type with one finger and look down when i'm typing but i can surprisingly type faster than a few of those who type with two hands without looking. I type at around 54 to 56 wpm. Not too bad for an inept typer such as I .

 

I feel like I'm on an episode of the Twilight Zone. A thread on a writer's forum where typing without looking is viewed as some strange niche skill?
I honestly don't mean to offend anyone here or come across as smug, but it actually baffles me that this is viewed as anything other than the default, especially here where typing would presumably be a common part of people's day. I guess a lot of people write with pen and paper mostly?
I'm not particularly good at typing, but even so, I would have assumed this to be a skill virtually everyone here possessed.

 

Unless you're someone like me, who isn't good (read: awful) at anything that requires a lot of rote practice to do well, like typing. I'm a two-fingerer, too.

 

Three fingers and thumbs here! For whatever reason the pinkies have abstained from participating in keyboard activities.

 

Everybody is different. Don't expect everyone to be the same.

 

I don't expect everyone to be the same, I'm just really surprised by this.