Misspellings

How fast do you type? I type somewhere around 100 wpm. Oh, sure I can do gusts up to about 125, but sustained speed seldom exceeds 100. Why do I type that fast? Well, that's a longer story.

I had nine weeks of typing my senior year. I wanted to go home early, but this was back in the days when you did what you were told to do (I graduated in 1965). So, forbidden to go home, I took typing. I did all right, but I developed a nervous tic, sort of. I started ghost typing instead of just drumming my fingers. Practice is practice, though and over time, I became a very fast typist.

The very first day I was in the Army, they had us all lined up and trying their best to scare the shit out of us more than we already were. We were about to be dismissed when the c.o., a captain whose name was never important to me for some reason, asked if there were any questions. I held up my hand. "What's your question, soldier?" He barked. They never spoke normally, for some reason. "Sir," says I, "Is this where I tell you I can type faster than you can speak?" Never let a comedian know that you think he's funny. The captain, tightly controlling the urge to giggle, if captains giggle, shot a quick side glance to my drill sergeant who rolled his eyes to keep from smiling, firmly replied, "No, that's later." It did come later, too. My MOS (military occupational speciality) was 93B or Speed Typist. (That number may not be right, it's been too long ago and my DD-214 is at the office, but the Speed Typist is the translation.) My weapon for the two years I was in the army was a typewriter.

What I am not, however, is an accurate typist. Oh, sure, I could take the easy way out and use Spell Check, but half the time I forget and just make the post without adequately proofing it. Spell check is great for finding those words you consistently mispell and your eye never notices, because it's just impressed into your mind wrongly. Bachelor is one of those words for me. I have always added a "t". I know better but cannot break my fingers of the habit of adding that t.

While reading my Sitemeter log, I noticed a hit coming from a Google search page where someone had searched for "confirmed batchelors" and Ms. Google says, "Don't you mean confirmed bachelors? Yeah, maybe they did, but the very first hit was an old posting by yours truly here hinting about being Gay by calling myself a "confirmed batchelor." That's a bit embarrassing, but we all have a favorite or two massecrations of the language. I just made up that word, but I work with lawyers, so making up new words out of old ones comes naturally now.

Okay. Nap time.