Right, so, I have a confession to make. I am a left-shift-key discriminator (or a right-shift-key abuser, your choice).
What is an LSKD (or RSKA)? Simply put, it is someone who uses his or her right shift key almost exclusively when capitalizing letters. Just reverse the terms if you abuse your left shift key.
I learned how to “touch type” (or whatever you want to call it) in grade 4, and I‘m proud of my speed and accuracy on the QWERTY keyboard. I’ve pondered learning something like Colemak, but I don’t have the time to devote to retraining myself, unfortunately.1
Unfortunately, as with most abilities, I‘ve developed some bad habits with typing. The abuse of the right shift key is one that particularly annoys me now. I was taught that you hit the shift key with the opposite hand of the letter you’re capitalizing. So to capitalize “S”, I hit the right shift key; to capitalize “I”, I hit the left shift key—except not so much. I’ve developed this habit of using the right shift key, even on characters on the right side of the keyboard.
This habit has numerous disadvantages: it cramps up my right pinky, wears out my right shift key more, and makes my left hand feel even more dominated by my right hand (just not fair!). I am trying to train myself out of this behaviour, but I fear I am set in my ways.
Sigh.
- [ 1 ] Yes, that is a code phrase for “I’m lazy.” Good catch.
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It isn’t the shift key that suffers here, it is the left control key. I’ve abused it to such extend that it makes much more noise when pressed then any other key on my keyboard, including the space bar. (And this laptop is barely half a year old. :/ )
On one side, I gues it is odd that people only use either the left or the right shift key, control key, etc. but on the other side, it does simplify things a lot to just have one key for a specific action.
I am a LSKA as well. I‘ve noticed that I never use the right shift key. Sometimes I do try to use it but it feels so awkward that I can’t use it for long periods of time (aka never more than once). So I just give up and accept my habit for what it is. 
I‘m not surprised to find that I’m an LSKA. I‘m a lefty for one thing, and for another thing I’m always afraid I’ll hit the Enter key on this keyboard when I type. Maybe I was raised with the shift key on only the one side. All I know is that my right shift probably doesn’t feel sad… he’s bigger than the left shift and knows it.
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I guess that would make me a LSKA?
I use the Left Shift Key exclusively. I don’t think I’ve ever touched the Right Shift Key on my keyboard except when I’m brushing over it to get to the Enter key.
Your blog layout breaks in Opera, by the way.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 3:53 AM