Is the Qwerty keyboard the only example of a device being deliberately designed to be ergonomically unfriendly?
The Qwerty keyboard was not designed to be ergonomic at all, it was designed so that the keys on mechanical typewriters were less likely to jam. Those letters least likely to occur next to each other in text are adjacent on the keyboard. You need to have learnt to type on a mechanical typewriter (as I did) to appreciate this fully.
Mike Channon
The Qwerty keyboard is not, in itself, un-ergonomic; the most-used letters are grouped in the centre of the keyboard by convention. My great aunt had a small Smith portable typewriter from the 30s with four rows of letter keys; of course it was virtually impossible to use any conventional keyboard with any speed having become accustomed to it.
David Cormack, Dumfries
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I visited five skating rinks in London during the new year period. All skating was in the anti-clockwise direction. Why is this?
Roughly 90 per cent of us are right-handed, so when we begin skating we hold on to the edge rail with our right hands, thereby travelling in an anticlockwise direction. Anybody going clockwise would be going against the flow.
John D. Eadie, Stamford, Lincs
Although I cannot say why skaters in London choose to skate in an anti-clockwise direction, I can say that in Germany they alternate direction every 30 minutes or so. At the changeover time, the music stops and an announcement of the change is made and, being in Germany, is immediately obeyed by the skaters. I understand this is done to even up the wear on the ice rather than to meet the needs of skaters.
David Seekings, Yoxford, Suffolk
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It must be the Coriolis effect in reverse. It would be interesting to know if skaters in the southern hemisphere skate round clockwise, or at the equator (are there any?) go nowhere in particular.
Tony Titchener, Seaford, Sussex
My theory of why skaters skate in an anticlockwise direction on ice rinks may be because people find it easier to cross the right foot over the left while rounding the curves, assuming that most people are right-footed. Hilary Winter, Penn, Bucks
Why do we pronounce Berkshire and Hertfordshire and Derbyshire as though the “e” were an “a” ?
I realise Will Perry’s pronunciation reply was referring to the first vowels of the counties - but no resident of Berwickshire would say “Berrick-sha” - it is “Sh-y-re” as with all Scots counties with that ending. When we lived in Ross-shire, my mother, who was English, had the same difficulty and often had to explain to her English friends that we did not in fact live in the Soviet Union.
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Jenny Mayhew
Why do we use the 24-hour clock for our railway and airline timetables but not for anything else?
Because in most activities that take place daily there is no question of doubt as to what someone means by saying, for example, nine o’clock or five o’clock. Railways and airlines operate services over a 24 hour period, as incidentally do buses, which your questioner omitted to mention.
Tim Mickleburgh, Grimsby
We immediately know the origin of a man called Taff, Paddy or Jock. Is there a similar word for Englishmen?
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Charles McCarthy, Stamford, Lincs
Why is it that most dogs have black noses?
Hunter Hamilton, Milton Keynes, Bucks
How do TV and radio ratings work? For example when it is announced that 2.5 million people watched a certain TV programme, how are these figures arrived at?
H.P.L. Jepsen, West Horsley, Surrey