Yes, there are secrets in the MT business, secrets only highly skilled MTs know and will never utter to another soul, except to a few chosen innocents who are taken under the wings of aged MTs and munificently ushered into the clandestine world of the MT underground.
Well, unless you happen to be reading my blog, then the cat's out of the bag.
Secret #1:
Never pay retail. I mean, never type a whole word out manually; that's for typists. MTs cheat. We use shortcuts, macros, templates, whatever it takes. Every time we move a finger to hit one key, that move results in a myriad of characters all hitting the page at once. Hopefully, those characters hit the page in the right order and make sense but, if not, QA will clean it up. I did not say that. When you first start out in MT, make good use of your text expander, embrace it, wring every last letter out of it, make it do the work for you. At some point you will be able to hit only a few keys and produce an entire paragraph of doctorese without chipping a nail.
If you look closely at an MT who does not make full use of her text expander, you will note that she has horridly chipped nails. And just look at her keyboard for the evidence. You'll see the pathetic dents her nails have made in the keys, and the letters on the keys will be worn off. This tells a sad, sad story.
Don't be one of those MTs. Use your text expander.
0 comments:
Post a Comment