Writing evolution with laughter

 

[skeleton of hand*]

What goes around, comes around. For many years I quietly laughed at my father, an old journalist, as he did his “hunt and peck” routine around the typewriter. He was reasonably fast at it but it looked so inefficient. Maybe as a bit of ultimate justice, for many years my wife has quietly, most of the time, laughed at me as I went back and forth from the mouse and keyboard, “stubbornly” refusing to learn and use keyboard shortcuts. Grabbing the opportunity to right a wrong, I just participated in a paid two-hour webinar sponsored by the proz.com, a leading translators site,  entitled “Keyboard shortcuts and more to skyrocket your productivity”. In it, Joachim Lépine enthusiastically demonstrated a plethora of shortcuts for Windows, Word and Excel, to name a few platforms. The amount of material was overwhelming but fortunately he provided a nice file to follow along and help us refresh our memory afterwards. I have to say that it was money well spent.

What I learned is that I should, can and will apply these keyboard shortcuts and significantly increase my speed. Clearly, I will not be able to nor do I strive to compete with these keyboard racers just I don’t try to pass sports cars. I am sure that even many people native to word processing are unaware of many of these options, making it no shame to sit and learn them. I took my wife’s advice and identified ten of these shortcuts to learn and apply in the immediate future. I will even share them with you on the hope you also may them helpful.

However, first, I would like explain my background in word processing technology. Born in the 1960’s and possessing terrible handwriting (in three alphabets, no less), I have witnessed and used most of means of writing in the last 60 years. I learned on a manual typewriter, reaching 60 wpm, a respectable speed. I then used electronic typewriters as well as correcting electronic typewriters. I immediately fell in love with the first DOS-based word processers (…/2p for double space) as they eliminated the need to type all documents twice. I relished the speed of the Commodore 64 at least until an important document was erased by accident when a magnet got too close to the audio memory tape. I graduated to the first true text writing programs, including WordPerfect, before settling into Microsoft word. I have yet to use any speech-to-word programs on the formal basis that I share my office with my wife and talking out loud would disturb her but I do not reject that technique out of hand. So, while far from native, I am willing and able to try technology, at least up to a certain point.

Looking over the 10+ pages of shortcuts, it is clear that my benefit from this webinar will only be partial. I find it quite difficult at my age to remember so many similar combinations even if there is a certain logic to them. It is probably true that age is not the only factor as even my academics in their 20’s are neither aware nor interested in becoming keyboard focused. As in all skills, easy and difficult are highly subjective terms. That said, I strongly believe that with sufficient motivation and effort any person can become decent in any skill. Thus, I will strive to absorb as many of the tips.

As for the ten ones I have marked for special effort, I will share them with you:

Shortcut	Function
Win+Tab (release)	Previous task/document
Win+E	Show file explorer
Ctrl+Shift+N	Create and name new folder
Win+Spacebar	Change keyboard language
Win+.	Emojs and special characters
Ctrl++F6	Switch between documents that are open
Alt+W+H	Side to side documents
Click left side of a row in a table	Add rows
Click left side of a row in a table then press backspace	Instantly delete row
Ctrl+Click	Select one sentence

 

If you find these terribly obvious, you can freely (but quietly please) laugh at me. I deserve it as just punishment for my previous sins. If any are new to you, enjoy. If you did not know any, I suggest taking some kind of course or webinar to improve your knowledge. The process is exhausting but evolution, however belatedly and slowly, is part of living and makes us better in countless ways, always punctuated by a little laughter, of course.

* Picture captions allow the blind to fully access the Internet.

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Thing One, Thing Two, Thing No – a mild diatribe about the use of thing in writing

 

["Nothing"*]

I teach English writing to first-year engineering students in Israel. As their written communication skills in their own language are limited, partly as a result of the adopted European policy to completely separating humanities from sciences as if science people do not need to write, I assume no prior knowledge of writing and teach the basic rules of sentence writing and paragraph organization as well as a few tips on vocabulary. Among them, I tell them that I will not accept the use of the word “thing” and even deduct points for it. This insistence may sound extreme at first glance but one major distinction between speaking and writing is that in the latter the writer has the privilege and duty to carefully consider each word and choose precise terms, which almost always exist in English. My approach is similar to “thing”’s cousins, something and nothing but these words may be appropriate in certain cases.

The justification for being so particular in assessing writing skill is that the process of writing involves not only the initial expression of the thought but also the further refining of its form. As the expression says, there is no good writing, only good rewriting.Readers do not want to read a first draft and naturally expect a carefully phrased text. While true for all languages, English requires extra polishing due to the plethora of language roots that have been integrated, often rather violently, into the language. From Gaelic to Germanic to French Latin and ancient Greek, English is the Frankenstein of world languages, rather imposing but a bit ugly, to the ear at least, as compared to more homogenous languages such as French, Italian, Hebrew and Russian, to name a few. Thus, to produce diamond of a text in English requires effort (and why I appreciate the prose of George Orwell). Furthermore, aside from emotions, English has a word for almost every existing object, especially in science, making it possible to use the precise term. Given the multitude of roots, many of the vocabulary options are far from high-falutin, with the average 11^th grade able to understand if not necessarily spell them. Thus, it is appropriate to demand that writers of English, both native and non-native, use an exact term.

The word thing implies around 325,000 terms as well an additional 375,000 technical terms, according to Dr. Google. As an example, the phrase “things” can be replaced, as relevant, by reasons, excuses, factors, elements, data, objects, feelings, results, causes, effects, events, products and facts, to name just a very few that most English users would recognize and be able to use. As for specific technical terms, people specializing in a specific subject area need to know the exact word in order to express their ideas accurately. In some cases, this precision is a matter of life and death or at least large sums of money. Given the privilege of being able to refine a text before showing to the audience, as compared to spoken language, it is brazenly lazy to write thing unless a person is writing for small children.

As for something and nothing, the same statement is true with some exceptions. A given company may have something special about it but the investor would like to know whether it is the marketing strategy or actual product. There may be nothing you can do about a situation when speaking but somehow having no solutions sounds much more impressive in writing. Granted, if the attribute is so ethereal that a person cannot identify its attributes, something may be appropriate as James Taylor sings: “Something in the way she moves”. Of course, mathematical zero is nothing as Billy Preston noted in “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing”. Sometimes there simply is no precise word to describe all the items as in “These are a few of my favorite things” of Sound of Music fame. So, I never say never and occasionally accept these things.

Fairly or unfairly, people heavily judge writers of English by their choice of vocabulary. Clearly, non-native writers have a lower bar in term of vocabulary choice but that allowance does not waive the requirement to use precise, albeit simple, words when preparing a written text. Clearly, things lead to chaos as Dr. Seuss so well described in this book. However, even he added a number to the shirt of his things to specify them. Proficient writers should have no things.

 

* Picture captions allow the blind to fully access the Internet.

Picture credit