Ow

[simont]

It's funny; when I'm away from a keyboard, if somebody asked me, I generally wouldn't be able to tell them which thumb I use for pressing the space bar. The obvious approach to finding out would be to do some mock-typing on a table and see which thumb I find myself using, but that never quite seems to work, partly because tables don't feel enough like keyboards and mostly because when I know I'm doing it as a test I feel self-conscious and am never quite confident I'm doing what I would naturally do.

But today I know very clearly which thumb it is, because as of last night I have a nasty bruise under the right side of my left thumbnail, and now it is very obvious to me that that's the bit I normally use for thumping on the space bar. Ow.

(Still, I've only been at work for a quarter of an hour and I've already evolved a typing posture which just about avoids the most painful bit. I suspect this is an advantage of never having formally learned to touch-type; my ad-hoc typing style is naturally adaptable in the face of the unexpected.)

Comments

[taimatsu]

Sounds painful - how did the bruise happen?

[simont]

Trying to open, of all things, a bottle of vegetable oil in order to cook my dinner last night. The little strip of plastic you're supposed to pull out from between the lid and the neck to separate them helpfully broke off in my hand, so I had to resort to alternative means (brute force and a sharp knife) to get the bottle open. During the process some part of the bottle top (but thankfully not the knife!) inserted itself under my thumbnail with enough force to draw blood.

[uisgebeatha.livejournal.com]

Do you think the bruise was caused by typing? I have an unexplained bruise on my ring finger, and I tend to be the thumpy loud kind of typist who hammers the keys and annoys rooms full of students. ;)

[simont]

See above: no. It takes more than typing to bruise my fingers :-)

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'd been trying to imagine what kind of computer game you might have been playing excessively last night, which might require frequent bashing of the space bar... I suppose trn isn't really a game :-)

[simont]

Though one might argue that thinking of trn as a complicated text-mode video game comes closer to excusing its UI quirks than any other attitude :-)

[1ngi.livejournal.com]

I use the right thumb. Weird. Last night I had convinced myself it was the left. Shows how usless typing on a table is. :-)

[gerald_duck]

Hmm. It seems I exclusively use my right thumb to press the space bar; I thought I used either.

That means it's somewhat futile to rest both thumbs on the space bar when I position myself at the keyboard. Still, not worth breaking the habit of a lifetime. (-8

[pne.livejournal.com]

It seems I exclusively use my right thumb to press the space bar; I thought I used either.

Same here.

[fluffyrichard.livejournal.com]

A quick experiment reveals that I use both thumbs on the spacebar. Usually at the same time! Ahem.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I would be able to -- I simply remember *last* time somebody asked and I worked it out :)

*sympathy for thumb*

[pm215]

Having just got a Kinesis keyboard (which puts a space bar under your right thumb and a backspace key under your left thumb) I can now say reasonably certainly that I mostly use the right thumb but occasionally the left, which now results in annoying backspacing :-)