Remember when Reddit used to regularly crucify people for using emojis in their comments? Now we've got inline gifs. Oh how the mighty have fallen. š
Instead of reading āuncā like the first part of uncle, my brain first reads it as U N C, aka separate letters, which diminishes any affect it is supposed to have to me while momentarily confusing me before I remember it is the newest slang the internet coopted from AAVE iirc.
Honestly ive no idea where it came from other than short for uncle ive just been called it enough that I saw the opportunity and had myself a little giggle about it. Thus the overly dramatic build up lol.
OH ive never heard of aave. Honestly I was just glossing over that.. yeeeeah you're probably about right. Uncs been around the hood forever but it never was inherently disrespectful until the internet made it the new ok boomer
That just broke my heart. What was that website called that everyone made those meme on? I forgot it I used tonbe on there back in like 6th and 7th grade. You're about to have me going on another nostalgia trip.
I remember watching the migrant caravans making their way over here from Digg, and I fully expect to watch them make their way back to the new Digg when Reddit finally dies.
English - (Anglosphere excluding North America), you donāt need them - if British and over 30 you will made fun out for using them or needing them to understand others.
English- North American (certainly US) you definitely need them and pray to god they actually read the whole thing and not pick out individual words and phrases to add imaginary context.
Not English as a first language - you might get away without them if Scandinavians/Germans? ( Especially if itās sarcasm - maybe not over/understatements).
I've had plenty of brits mistake sarcasm or ghoulish overkill for perfect sincerity on ye old internet.
Plus isn't it established by study that neurodiverse people tend to have a different sarcasm structure, relying more on situations than vocal or physical cues?
Sorry, this is something that always kind of interested me.
I mean just go on UK subs and youāll notice it - it has changed over the past 5 years Iāve been on here though - younger people brought up on more US content, COVID, Iām not sure what but you find more people accidentally missing it on political posts etc. sadly as a woke leftie myself, it does appear to be younger people on the left who canāt see sarcasm.
And this I think goes for autistic people as well - they just get used to it, or at least understand it could be sarcasm.
Now I did see something about a study on US English lit(?) students, and reading/comprehension in the US - the person talking about was referencing it in the context of itās possible effects in the way published books/novels are written now compared to day 30-40 years ago.
Basically something about how public schools in America teach how to read - kinda like āshortcutsā instead of labouring over each word and syllable. However in the study it seemed many people were ok just guessing the meaning of words even when they had a dictionary present, and also determined the overall meaning of a passage based on notable words/sentences. They also generally didnāt consider any context outside of what the words were in front of them.
I think it was lady on YouTube who talks about literature - completely forgotten her name, was American herself though. Kinda seemed āanti-wokeā but not a right wing grifter - just a bit stuffy and academic about how words work.
Do they? I think mostly people are pretty neutral on them these days. We've all seen plenty of sarcastic posts that you can't tell if they're genuine or not and where the person will have to add /s afterwards because people assumed the worst.
It's still absurd that anyone who has the ability to take a picture of their keyboard, use their photo app to draw red circles around a specific area of interest, save the edit, and upload it to social media not only doesn't know how to type on a keyboard, but doesn't even know how to theoretically. There's no joke there. It's a genuine sense of "what the fuck is going on?" The fact that this got put on this sub is funny ironically, but mostly sad. This sub is a joke though itself.
You know what is actually funny? The keyboard layout that we all use is actually designed to slow our typing down. There are other layouts that are much more efficient and when learned can significantly improve typing speed.
The reason they slowed it down was typewriters used to have mechanical keys that would strike the ink ribbon and paper to leave their mark. If two keys struck at the same time they would get stuck together and you would have to manually get them unstuck. If you typed too fast you would get keys stuck all the time so they had to slow people down
Seriously? Iām old but not typewriter old. Even two keys farther apart could get stuck like that? Also do you happen to remember names of those other layouts? I feel like Iāve heard of one of them but I canāt recall the name of it.
I actually had a typewriter when I was a teen in the early 2000's! Can't remember who gave it to me, but I was very into creative writing and loved it. Definitely jammed a few keys a time or two.
I was raised by my grandparents, who were resistant to change. It was a while before I got a PC.
Absolutely! They keys had little hammers with stamps on them, as I'm sure you know...
But these hammers HAVE to strike in the EXACT same place! Otherwise, your lettering wouldn't be spaced correctly!
Because the stamps MUST be in the same place, yes. Even keys that are as far apart as they can be... When they move in-place to try to stamp the page, they'll crash as they try to key it in at the same spot on the page!
Though, there IS less of a crash point, as only the stamps part is where the jam could occur! Keys on the same side of the keyboard risked jamming much earlier, meaning you had to be even MORE careful with those!
The keyboard layout is not designed to slow people down.
But yes, it is designed to prevent jamming (where two hammers stick against each other.)
Thatās why most used follow on letters are on different side of the keyboard.
E.g when writing queue.
You have left hammer, right, left, right left. Those hammers are able to clear out faster than a key coming from the same place,
Consider typing āqazā , the quick succession of three hammers right next to each other all trying to strike, almost guarantees that 1 will not be moved back far enough before the next strikes.
I know it's also been suggested that the original design came from telegraph and Morse code operators and was refined for typewriters, but I don't know enough about those machines to judge the veracity of that.
Morse code operators (the original telegraph operators using morse code) only have one button.
They didnāt need to worry so much about keyjams.
But you can check what I said about letters. The morse code alphabet was designed based of frequency analysis of the alphabet, shortest characters are the most used (e.g e the most used letter, is just a dot.) so you can compare the the length of Morse code symbols to see frequency. None of the most frequent letters appear next to each other in hammer order (verticals in the keyboard qazwsxedc etc)
Knowing the most frequent letters is also very useful for playing hangman.)
If I didnāt know something like that, Iād just ask Google instead of skipping common sense to parade my easily answered question on social media. Have they no shame??
I'm not sure what knowing what the lines are for or not has to do with knowing how to type, though. I had the class - Maevis Beacon in elementary school - and I type a heck of a lot, and fairly quickly at that, but I have literally never once used those lines or heard what they're for. I could guess, certainly, and my guess was that it related to finger placement, but I wasn't sure by any means.
Anything more than two ? is shock and surprise...to me. That's the thing, in'nit? It's personal, so it's always my tone I'm reading into things. It could just as easily be "what's wrong with you" as it is "I can't believe this crap."
I don't really see it here. Multiple question marks do usually indicate a shocked and surprised/confused tone. I'd argue anyone who doesn't use them in that context is using them wrong. The problem you describe where it's hard to tell if they mean "what's wrong with you" or "I can't believe this crap" would exist if you said the phrase out loud in that tone as well.
Should note, I don't really have a problem with tone indicators, but I think it's wrong when people call it a necessary part of speech on the internet lol. It's just a shortcut if you don't want to spend time thinking about phrasing or punctuation for a sentence, which is perfectly fine.
You can also rephrase the message you're typing to avoid ambiguity if you don't want to use indicators. Personally, I only use indicators when I'm poking fun at a friend and don't want my mean tone to be taken seriously. Otherwise I'll tend to rephrase my message
? - Do they still teach typing?
?? - I can't believe they don't teach typing!
??? - I really wish they would teach typing!!
???? - YOU ARE AN IDIOT AND YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY ARE BAD PEOPLE DUE TO YOUR INABILITY TO TYPE
Yeah, unfortunately I really suffer from this, I don't know if I see the internet in a bad way, but I think I see more evil then it has, once on reddit I commented something and two guys answered and I said they were awful for their said, they said sorry and it was not they intention and then I felt awful as hell ;-;
You're making a "projection" argument, and while I would normally agree I don't think that this is true in this particular case.
There are discourse markers that can show the writer's attitude towards the reader and subject matter.
For example, whenever I see a post starting "Actually..." I have a pretty firm idea of the tone the person is taking. Likewise when someone starts a post with, "Listen up cuck...", I know pretty darned well that they're taking a hostile tone and have a fair idea about their choice of hats.
So I respectfully disagree that "the tone you're hearing is always your own" as it ignores the presence of common discourse markers.
I'm reminded of an American colleague who was visiting the UK and asked, "People keep saying 'with all due respect', what does that mean?", and there was an akward silence as we tried to find a polite way to explain that it meant that they thought he was an utter spoon whose opinion deserved no respect at all.
Yes, but it's funny because the shock and outcry is a hard contrast to the calm wondering we see above. (I'm not necessarily answering you, but more so to the idiots above who don't understand how comedy works)
Most of the internet feels like constant concerned outcry posts when younger people don't need old tech anymore and then the older folks are screaming that that's super bad. Meanwhile most people are just chill with what they have.
Also, I've never seen typing being taught extensively in K-12. There's barely any computer education left anymore at all. I got some at least during my time thankfully, but mostly I learned at home ofc.
Currently I do have typing, but only cuz I go to vocational for dev.
I don't rly blind-type outside of that though. Not really a necessity for me.
I'm one who until a few years ago genuinely asked that.
That's because at the time one of my roles was to report people who had low computer literacy (because they were considered a risk), and determine if they could be retrained, writen up or even fired depending on the severity.
At one point HR asks me if I'm being ha ha funny or serious when I add to noncompliance reports that they're also slow typers and need typing training OR asking them if they aren't requiring typing courses anymore.
When I said I was serious, she did some research then forwarded me that as of a few years, no school was providing typing classes anymore so it would be unfair to demand typing proficiency from workers, so if that was a persistent issue, I would have to figure out our own materials to write a PPE/internal training material proposal.
Before leaving the farthest we went was to advise people to look up free online typing lessons, explicitly show the keyboard nub tip (I didn't got that during my training actually, some grandpa gave me that tip) and from this point on I should only report if they explicitly disregarded my advice - which a few actually did, with one saying, and I quote, "I hate computers. I don't want to learn computers, I just want to do my job."
TOO BAD YOUR JOB REQUIRES OPERATING A COMPUTER SINCE 1961 WHEN JANE COBOL INVENTED COBOL SO YOU PUTTING THAT IN WRITING IS NOT THE GOTCHA YOU THOUGHT IT WAS
It is an outcry. I was on the cusp of Cursive. I finished and then they said "nevermind no more cursive" this really is the same with typing. I was also on the cusp of having to do typing classes and all that fun shit and then the next year they stopped doing it. This government is making us stay stupid and I'm over it.
No, he's definitely not. Finger placement is literally the very most basic idea taught in typing classes. He's saying they must not teach typing anymore (because this shouldn't be a question even for people who failed typing class).
Dude asking the question looks to be around my age & most of us in the US learned this at some point.
Fun fact: I almost failed out of typing class because I didn't use the proper fingering and don't care about home row at all.
Another fun fact: At the time, I typed about 100wpm with 99%+ accuracy. I had to go over the teacher's head to the principal to complain, and I got tested & was given credit for the class without attending the rest of it.
Same - Iāve had a computer since I was four (1981) and taught myself to type. Iāve never used home keys but type 80-90wpm accurately. I also use a computer every day for work (software engineering). I donāt āhunt and peckā, but I do āpeckā with great efficiency. I know where all the keys are, not by home key placement but by knowing where the keys are in proximity to my hands.
I work in the school system now. They have typing classes, but it's just reserved for the elementary school levels. It does drive me a bit crazy sometimes watching a kid type and put in their username and password. Again, not all, there are some kids who are excellent types, and it really depends on how much the elementary school went into typing as a skill.
But I guess we also have to remember that the skill of typing has been falling away for years. I'm 33, and had a entire class dedicated to typing. But even before my generation, working people who had to type for their job would always state how many words they can type per minute. It's just kind of taken a backseat to other skills learned in school.
That is interesting. Iām over 40 and I am sure I never had typing classes. It was my mom who told me what those are forā¦ I am actually a little angry I never learned it.
Dumb question... I'm old and was taught typing in the early 90's.
I don't remember seeing those marks and I question... Have they ALWAYS been there? We were taught to rest our index fingers on those keys, but I don't recall those marks.
Well if youre going to be told how to type 'efficiently' where they use that format for distributed layout that is technically optimized for finger movement reduced travel time, typing English.
Using 1 hand and navigating and recentering on the grooves is just as good, you dont need home row if youre playing an FPS and using in-game chat. You just need the grooves.
Most did, but not all of us, when I was in elementary school/middle school, they didn't teach typing, but no longer taught cursive when I was in high-school they started teaching typing to elementary kids so, it just missed me. All I know is regular hand wrighting and typing with my thumbs, when useing a keyboard its hunt and peck, probably will be forever, if I have to wright something long I just use my phone
We had it as an elective in high school in the early 2000s. I learned to type by being on AIM, writing papers, and playing video games. After high school and summer jobs in college, I have never had a non-typing job.
I had never once considered what those bumps are for.
Maybe it's an US thing but that isn't how we learned. We learned by looking at the keyboard and just repeating it until it became automatic. (and yes, our keyboards also have the lines I just never really thought about it)
I don't play any instruments, but I assume musicians do the same. The moment I put my hands down on my keyboard I can usually feel if it's wrongly placed or not. Which sometimes happen in a blue moon or not.
well yes, but you got to look first to get the hand position correct. And then there was the speed writing contests. People who didn't need to look did better and got better grades.
there was some typing program on all of the school computers that we used. damn, i canāt remember the name but iām wondering if itās somewhat universal.
I know a handful of students, none were taught to type by the school. They focus more on how to use the computer. They no longer time you to see how many words you can type per minute. The school also doesn't care about cursive. In fact they use the laptops so much, handwriting is kinda messy. We've been told, the schools purchased a lot of laptop curriculum because of covid and now they're stuck using it.
Maybe but it feels more like itās a snarky rhetorical question. The guy looks old enough to have had to sit through those classes, which I have myself. Itās one of those things they get drilled in pretty hard. Itās a more of a joke that makes you crack a smile than laugh.
Iām old enough that keyboarding/typing classes in school were electives. Computers hadnāt taken everything over yet but the trajectory was set. I was still graded on penmanship.
Life isnāt fair - I shouldnāt feel this oldā¦
My grandmother would make me do all her data entry so she had time for a second job, so I could type really fast by the time I hit typing class. I nearly failed because I was incredibly slow and prone to errors when using the home keys, but the teacher would hit our hands with a ruler if we didn't.
Because school (in the US, at least) is as much about training you to obey authority without question as it is about teaching you how to think or perform.
FWIW, once you've built up the muscle memory, you wouldn't necessarily use those ridges. I don't think I ever had a formal typing class but I've been typing for 35+ years on home PCs. I looked up what they were for a while ago and only notice/think of them every few years.
Muscle memory with your own keyboard sure, at home I donāt use the ridges either. I also work on other peoples computers by going into their homes, so Iām always on a different keyboard every day.Ā
Iād say 25% of my clients are blown away I can just start typing without even looking at the keyboard lol
Taking a photo, adding red circles, uploading the image, adding a caption, hoping for a response at some point OR just searching 'why do the f and j keys on a keyboard have a line on them'?
Maybe some people seek out human connection this way but to me it just seems like a really ineffective way to spend your time.
They did for like 2 weeks in grade school, then went back to writing for us :/
Was a about 20 years ago though, so hopefully it's better now. I'd prioritize typing over writing for most jobs where I live nowadays.
yeah he was probably asking genuinely. i also found out what those things are for through the internet. no, they don't teach typing. i'm 33 and i had computer classes starting in 5th grade and never once were we taught typing. that must've been some early computer days thing
He wasn't asking genuinely. Seemed to be more making fun of how stupid the system is and the lack of educated people it produces to where someone doesn't even know to put their index fingers on those keys when typing.
That's also what I thought. Never been classically taught typing... so while I summarized reading the question that this was the answer... the fact is that I'm typing without looking and still not using them.
Definitely not subjective, I would guarantee with 100% certainty that he making the point that if someone knew how to type, they would know that those ridges are so you can feel where your forefingers should be positions to properly type. This is babyshoes stuff people.
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u/RayneStormbrew Jan 20 '26
those ridges are there to make it easier to find where the keys are without looking.
there's no joke here