Touch typing (also called touch type or touch method) is typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys. Specifically, a touch typist will know their location on the keyboard through muscle memory. Touch typing typically involves placing the eight fingers in a horizontal row along the middle of the keyboard (the home row) and having them reach for other keys. Touch typing can be done using two hands or possibly only with one.
Frank Edward McGurrin, a court stenographer from Salt Lake City, Utah who taught typing classes, reportedly invented touch typing in 1888.
On a standard keyboard for English speakers the home row keys are: "ASDF" for the left hand and "JKL;" for the right hand. The keyboard is called a QWERTY keyboard because these are the first six letters on the keyboard. Most modern computer keyboards have a raised dot or bar on the home keys for the index fingers to help touch typists maintain and rediscover the correct position on the keyboard quickly with no need to look at the keys.
Read more about Touch Typing: History, Training, Other Methods
Famous quotes containing the word touch:
“It was the feeling of a passenger on an ocean steamer whose mind will not give him rest until he has been in the engine-room and talked with the engineer. She wanted to see with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to touch with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to touch with her own hand the massive machinery of society; to measure with her own mind the capacity of the motive power. She was bent upon getting to the heart of the great American mystery of democracy and government.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)