Just a Touch of QWERTY

A Faux Real Story

I have both good and bad news for you - and you can decide which is which. I have a few more “Faux Real Stories” to share as part of my gift to you for the holidays. But, the rest of life will start pressing, other topics will work their way to the forefront, and the story telling will become more sporadic.

The truly good news, no matter how you look at it, is that you have a choice to read or not read these stories! And they’ll be here later if you aren’t ready for them now. So, when you ARE ready, settle in and enjoy.

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Tammy and I are grateful that both of our jobs take a break between the Christmas and New Year holidays. With our duties to our employers and the farm, we build up a certain amount of what you could call “professional exhaustion” that requires periodic and purposeful renewal.

Sometimes that renewal takes the form of quietly reading books and interspersing long walks in natural areas in between every few chapters. We often play more board games and create meals that are a bit more complex than normal. And I might flex my creative writing muscles a bit more often.

Soon, however, I will return to the PAN job. I will probably have a bit more energy for it than I did before the break - and that’s a good thing. But, I will also find my email and “to do” inboxes full. There will be a host of writing and LOTS and LOTS of correspndence that will require a reply.

I will be doing a significant amount of typing. After a flurry of email responses and a stint editing someone else's document I will realize, once again, exactly how fast I can type. And, I will, once again, give myself a minute to feel grateful that my Mom taught me how to be a touch typist at a young age.

We had a manual typewriter at home that also doubled as an exercise machine for your hands and fingers. Each key would cause a metal arm to swing towards the paper. As it approached, the typewriter would raise the ink ribbon up so that it was between the top of that arm and the paper. The trick was to strike each key sharply enough that it would impress some ink onto the paper.

The innards of our typewriter would have looked a bit like the one shown below - even though the characters on these keys are very different.

Of course, Mom wanted each of us to learn how to be a touch typist. We learned where the home row was and we taught our hands to know where all of the keys on the keyboard were without looking down (other than to check at the beginning that we had placed our hands correctly over that home row).

Over time, I got to be pretty good with typing. But, our typewriter had a few issues. One of them was the fact that we didn't get a new ribbon very often so I sometimes had to stop and wind the ribbon forward past sections that were tattered to …um… ribbons. The other issue was that if you got going too fast, you could end up with a tangle of those metal arms jumbled up part way between their resting place and the paper. Then you would have to spend time UNjumbling the mess before you could start again.

And, let's not talk about what you had to do if you DID make a mistake.

But, hey! It was motivation to get really, REALLY good at typing.

At the time I was attending junior high they were still teaching typing classes and everyone had to take it. The typewriters were newer and were (gasp) electric. That meant you didn't have to muscle each key to the paper. It also meant you got fewer ...er... jumblings of the keys. Which meant you could type faster. And, of course, they measured your progress by giving you tests to determine the words per minute you could type.

After the teacher reminded me that I did not have to pound the daylight out of the keys as I selected them, I started hitting speeds in the 80 words per minute range and made it to the 90s before class was over. I was curious, so I took a typing test at this site just to see where I would land now. And, that's when I remembered that typing tests require that you translate something from another source to your brain and then to the paper (or screen) as you type.

I'm um... not used to that. After all, most of my typing starts with stuff in my brain that I put onto the screen.

My first attempt was miserable because I didn't realize a couple things. First, single spaces after periods (that's a case where my training failed me). Second, once you are off by one character with this typing test, everything that follows will be an ERROR. Ooops.

Armed with that knowledge, I gave it another try and landed at 76 words per minute and 97% accuracy. Ok. I can handle that.

A Dvorak typewriter keyboard layout - from this NPR page viewed 8/25/22

I remember the confusion my siblings and I had when we were introduced to the QWERTY keyboard that was the boon for all well-trained touch typists and the bane of everyone else. Why in the world were the letters OUT OF ORDER? Who decided that asdfghjkl; should be the "home row?" I mean, at least the darned numbers were in order - but what was with the rest of them? Speaking of jumbled messes!

This interesting article on the NPR website actually talks about some of the alternative keyboard layouts that some have argued would be better. For example, the Dvorak keyboard layout shown above places the letters that comprise 70% of the most commonly used letters on that home row, rather than asdfghjkl;.

It is clear to me that the proponents for the Dvorak keyboard have never typed on a typewriter where you had to slam each key with enough force to make the floor shake. I gotta tell you. If you have to use your pinky finger as often as you would on the Dvorak, you'd be crying to go back to QWERTY as soon as you possibly could.

Or you'd just join the group of people who use two index fingers and "hunt and peck" their way through life.

Well, all right. I'll grant you that the "a" is in the same place. It's that darned "s" that would have gotten me. And, why in the world would you put the "x" where your strongest fingers would be and the "v" and "l" where the weakest ones are?

The article shows another alternative called the Colemak design... and I might concede on that one except for one thing. I'm already a touch typist on the QWERTY keyboard, why would I even entertain the idea of a different keyboard design?

Um. I wouldn't. But, I might consider celebrating National Typewriter Day - it's on June 23.

And now you know. Have a great rest of your day!