forgive me for disturbing the fluidity of the "random crap" board, but I happened to have a recursive random thought which I figured I might share... albeit a somewhat stupid one.

Hard words to type. There are some. Probably a lot. Recently I realized that the word "hymn" is relatively difficult to type, by which I mean it takes nearly as long as two "average" words. If you type it you will understand why.

Obviously the design of the QWERTY keyboard is really unoptimal for modern use, and for that reason it's sort of interesting to find words that are absolute fail to type on a QWERTY.

I also find it interesting that going from "Y" to "M," like in "hymn" is far more difficult, at least for me, than going from "T" to "C," as in "catch." Actually, the Y-M equivalent on the left hand side of the keyboard would be between T-C, which is relatively easy to type, and T-X, which would be hard to type using your index finger for each key; however, the "X" is covered by the fourth finger.

... I'll do a lot to avoid doing work that I really don't want to do

I also have no idea what prompted me to type "hymn"--it was a few months ago that I had this incredibly productive and fruitful realization, apparently I just thought of it again while typing something completely unrelated.

I've never had any troubles typing on QWERTY tbh.

But then again, I was pretty much born in front of a keyboard, and QWERTY is the only layout I've ever known.

I read that Dvorak takes care of this, and the easiest way to switch to that is just to change your settings in your OS- that will also stop you from doing the worst typing habit you can make: looking at the keyboard.

Which I also do a lot. XD

How is hymn a difficult word to type?!

I'm fairly used to QWERTY and switching now would be hard to do. But I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility.

Switching the layout in software might be fine once you were used to Dvorak, but while you're still learning it, it would be a pain in the butt. You'd have to either switch the key caps on your keyboard or put different labels on or something.

BOD: I wouldn't say it was difficult, but it is slower than some other words.

Right, it's *relatively* hard to type. You can type it but it takes a bit longer than other words because, in my case, I use my right index finger for three letters in a row, which is unusual.

I type fairly efficiently on QWERTY keyboards and I don't have troubles with them normally. I just find it strange that we've been using them all along, since typewriters, simply because people don't like change...

According to wikipedia there are around 300 words that are typed with the right hand only, so I expect those words are "relatively" hard to type. There are over 3000 words typed with the left hand only, so I expect those are a little easier to type.

I've literally never had any problem with that. My right and left hands must be pretty balanced I guess.

Does anyone here actually touch-type properly, using the home row etc?

I've just developed my own form of typing over the years, it's close to touch typing but I tend to reach with my fingers more than if I was typing 'properly'. Nonetheless I can still achieve a fairly high WPM with decent accuracy, last time I checked it was something around 80-90 WPM.

I do use the home row, but I'm not sure if the way I type is proper. I took typing classes at school, but I can't say I really remember what they taught.

I can key from the home row correctly now. At least I think so, if my finger movements vary from anything that's 'official', it's not by much at all. According to typingtest.com 1 minute test, with one error, 70WPM. As far as any specific words that are difficult to type, honestly, nothing really comes to mind; that's not much of anything I pay attention to.

According to that site, I type about 55-60 WPM.

I tend to make a lot of mistakes.

I've kinda done that too. I need to stop, and get a little bit more proper with my typing, but eh. Typing is an art if you ask me, and it's getting lost these days, with cheap keyboards and touch screens becoming the norm. Hell, half of my friends hunt and peck.. and they're around computers fairly often these days.

haha yeah, I suppose I type in a generally traditional way, though I can't be sure...

also, hymn is hard to type not because it uses only one hand, but because it uses just the index finger for each of the 4 letters in a row. It's not that hard it just slows me down. Found it strange, is all.

I also play the piano fairly well and my finger coordination is pretty good. Not sure exactly how many WPM I type, but I'm fairly efficient in my typing anyhow.

hymn hymn hymn wait i'm an atheist why would I type this? On that note I see what you mean, it is a pain in the ass to type.

Lol. Because we Atheists can't have hymns? Come on, there's got to be at least one Atheist hymn. At least one song that praises science and human progress.

Something by the Animaniacs comes to mind...