FluencyLesson 15 of 20 · Prose
Symbols in prose
The shifted number row and the last few keys: exclamation marks, brackets, percent, money, at-signs and ampersands, where prose actually uses them.
- New keys
- =[]\
- To pass
- Done when the check reaches 94% accuracy and 37 words a minute.
Lesson 15 is locked
It opens when you pass the check in lesson 14 (Digits in prose). Lessons open one at a time, in order.
Hold Shift and the number row becomes a row of symbols: ! above 1, @ above 2, # above 3, $ above 4, % above 5, ^ above 6, & above 7, * above 8, and the brackets ( and ) above 9 and 0. Each is typed by the same finger as its digit, with the opposite hand holding Shift, exactly as capitals are. The exclamation mark, which Foundations had to leave out, is a right Shift with the left little finger on 1: both little fingers again, so it deserves a few slow repetitions.
Beside the hyphen sit the equals sign and, with Shift, the plus; at the right end of the top letter row sit the square brackets and the backslash, right little finger reaches that the on-screen keyboard does show. None of these is common in ordinary prose, but all of them turn up: prices with $, rates with %, addresses with @, pairs with &, asides in (brackets), and the occasional exclamation. A typist who has to hunt for them breaks rhythm at exactly the moment a reader is paying attention.
The drills below use each symbol the way prose does, with its usual spacing: no space inside brackets, no space before a percent sign or an exclamation mark, a space either side of an ampersand. The check asks for thirty-seven words a minute through all of it.
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