Today we're going to talk about some of the prefixes we use rather thoughtlessly in English, without ever really knowing what they mean. What's a "prefix"? The prefix of the word autobiography is auto. It's the bit at the beginning.

This list is by no means comprehensive, but does give guidance on a few tricky ones we may not be using properly. All examples taken from the Oxford University Press "A-Z of Grammar and Punctuation".

Not bad, eh? Who knew "crypto-" meant "hidden"? I didn't. Well, I sort of did, because I just wrote this piece, but you know what I mean.

One of the great things about learning English  as a native speaker is that you don't have to worry too much about things like objective and subjective forms; you pick up the correct forms to use completely naturally, without even thinking about how you're using them. It's only when you start to learn foreign languages that you have to worry about the nuts-and-bolts grammar that makes a language what it is.

One of the rubbish things about being a native English-speaker, therefore, is that it's actually quite difficult to get a good grounding in why we say the things we do. For example: when to use I and when to use me.

I is a subjective form (I'm following him - I'm doing the action in this sentence, so I'm the subject)

Me is an objective form (He's following me - He's doing the action in this sentence, so I'm the object)

Grammatically,  it's not possible to have an objective form of the verb to be. This means the answer to Who's there? should always be It is I. But would we really say that nowadays? Wouldn't it just sound archaic and pedantic? Wouldn't we, instead, say It's me, even though it's wrong?

God, I'd love it if we did, in fact, say IT IS I! in daily life. Sigh. Mind you, I'm still upset that we don't say "Zounds" any longer, so am perhaps not the best person to give advice in this matter.

English is always evolving and doesn't stand still. What's unacceptable for one generation is completely natural for another. I still shudder when I hear people use hopefully to mean I hope that will be the case, but understand that the usage has reached a momentum that can't be stopped. Bah!

A couple of times when it's obligatory, even now, to use I and not me:

Following as and than when writing: Emma is faster than I (although you'd say Emma is faster than me).

Following as and than and then continuing the sentence: Emma is faster than I am and has more hair (subjective form obligatory for both written and spoken forms).

Have me explained this well enough?

Guess what I did a couple of days ago? G’wan, have a go.

Woke up to find my hair had all miraculously grown back? No.

Finally tracked down Halle Berry’s home address? Nope. (Dammit.)

Learned how to touch-type again? Oh yes.

I used to be the worst typist in the entire world. Just-hatched tadpoles could type better than me. But times change. I finally resigned myself to it being the 20th century and having to, as it were, get with the programme back in 1996 and invested in a teaching programme keyboard. And it was great. I’ve been happily typing with eight fingers and two thumbs (and without having to look at the keyboard) for nearly 20 years now. And I’m reasonably fast, although no speed-typing records are under threat from me.

But I’m still not quick enough and I do occasionally feel a bit tired when I've been writing for a while. I was talking to a friend just this morning and she told me how her career as a P.A. came to a shuddering end when repetitive strain injury (RSI) from years of touch-typing meant that her days as a keyboard queen were over. What an incredible shame.

When I’m at work and writing in a flow state, it’s frustrating to not be able to put ideas and ways of phrasing things down on pixels as quickly as they come to me. You're probably the same, no matter how fast you currently type. So what to do?

The Dvorak keyboard will not just add zip to your typing, it'll look after your tendons, too.

But first things first. The keyboard the huge majority of us use to type on is, of course, the Qwerty keyboard. It was invented in the mid-19th century in America and designed to physically separate keys that were often used together in combinations. Why? To prevent letter typebars jamming stuck to one another. So in one way it was a time-saver. By reducing the need to fiddle around with jammed typebars, you had more time to type (and less inky fingers, most likely).

This is the Qwerty keyboard layout:

So we've established that Qwerty was created for a functional reason; not just to be quirky. Or qwerky, as it were (snigger).

In the age of electronic keyboards, however, this design is not relevant. You no longer have the problem of jamming to contend with, so no time saving there. What’s more, the physical separation of commonly used keys means that your fingers have to work hard and cover a lot more ground than they should -- hence my friend's RSI and retirement from being a P.A.

The set-up of the keys is not designed either for speed or the ergonomic wellbeing of your fingers, so RSI is a common problem -- either medically diagnosed or just dismissed as "I’m feeling a bit tired today".

These are two of the issues educational psychologist August Dvorak addressed in the 1930s when he came up with the "Dvorak Simplified Keyboard" layout. He's got the same surname as the composer (duh-vor-jhakk), but a different pronunciation (deh-vo-rack).

Here’s what it looks like:

Doesn’t it look weird having all those keys in the "wrong" place?! A, O, E, U and I in the home row? Heresy.

Forget how it looks; does it work?

You bet. The world’s fastest typist uses Dvorak and has been measured at a -- frankly -- unbelievable 212 words per minute. I'm not sure I can even think 212 words per minute! But if it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me.

So here's what you need to do to use it yourself.

First of all, some good news: you don’t have to buy any new software; everything you need is already set up on your computer’s operating system.

• Go to this page and you’ll be able to set your computer to type using Dvorak in, as it says in the title, just 30 seconds.
• Look at this image to familiarise yourself with the different placement of the keys.

And that’s it! You’re all set. It'll feel a bit strange at the beginning, especially if you look down at the keyboard as you type. Your finger will be pressing on "s", but on the screen you'll see an "o". Don't worry about it. Not looking at your fingers as you type will help.

Not enough? Need just a bit more. Okayyyyy... Pretty demanding today, aren't we? All right, why not.

Here are two tutorial sites that will make it easy to learn how to touch-type with Dvorak:

• This website is very easy and lets you go at your own pace.
• The Power Typing page, on the other hand, times you and gives actual ratings and scores on how you’ve done. It’s fantastic. I highly recommend it.

It will be difficult at first, don’t get me wrong. You’ll be slower than you were… for a while. But once muscle memory gets used to Dvorak, you’ll be typing faster than ever before and with less effort.

STILL need some more? Still? Really?

Right, one more thing and that's your lot. Have a look at this site to get an idea of the effort you’ll be saving by switching from Qwerty to Dvorak. It’s worth it.

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I use a netbook when I'm in the sitting room in the evening, because it's smaller than my study's desktop computer, doesn't have a mass of wires to unplug, my two naughty beagles aren't interested in hiding underneath it and growling at me, and I can raise my eyes from the screen to watch telly at the same time as surfing www.HotHalleBerryPics.com.

The only bad thing about this happy situation is that my netbook's speed and ability to open up web pages quickly is rubbish. And when a site I want to look at (like the Halle Berry one, which doesn't actually exist but I wish did) is stuffed with ads it can take you back to the days of 56K dial-up Internet. Not good times.

Adblock Plus is the answer to your question.

It's a free add-on that works with the Firefox, Chrome and Opera browsers and prevents ads taking up space on your browser page. Here's the page where you can download and add it to your browser:

adblockplus.org

Have a look at a screengrab of how the Guardian looks without it. See the ad for The Vintage Shop?

Nah. Don't want to see that.

Here's the same page, refreshed, with Adblock Plus switched on:

It makes a surprising difference to your Net speed. Give it a try, my itoshii tomodachi.

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