Saturday, February 25, 2012

Now Is The Time

When I was a freshman in high school my mother insisted that I take typing class. This was pretty much an affront to my manly dignity because I knew, like everyone else knew, that typing was a girlie thing. And it was true. Most of the other students in the class were female with only three or four guys.

Back then we typed on something called a typewriter. The thing had a long horizontal roller, in what was called a carriage, that you could vertically insert paper behind and roll the paper so that it was facing you. On the left side of the carriage was a shaped metal rod sticking out. So when I typed each letter, the carriage would slowly move from right to left, and when it would go no further I could reach up and whack the metal rod which would move the carriage back to its starting position. The result was that I would type one line, whip the carriage back and begin another line.

One line doesn't necessarily mean one sentence -- it could be many sentences, or an incomplete sentence. It was simply a finite number of typing spaces. There is one sentence that could exactly fit into those finite spaces.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

You cannot imagine how fast I just now typed that sentence -- at least three times faster than normal. There is a reason for this. During that typing class so long ago, I was required to type that sentence over and over a thousand times. That sequence of keys is locked into my finger's memory.

In 1867 Mr. Charles Weller presented a variant of that sentence as a good typing exercise in his book Typing Test. The actual sentence was: Now is a good time for all good men to come to the aid of their party. Somewhere along the way, country was substituted for party.

We used manual typewriters in that typing class. This meant that the power that made the thing work was the power of your fingers. When one pressed on a key, a little arm with the corresponding letter would whip up and whack a little carbon ribbon that stretched in front of the paper. The end of the arm would smack the ribbon against the paper, and magically the letter would be imprinted in the paper. We found that each key had a separate corresponding arm with a unique letter on the end of it.

That seems kind of stupid and clumsy when I think about it.

We all know what a QWERTY keyboard is -- the first six letters on the keyboard. Most assume that the keyboard is designed this way because it allows for some kind of natural positioning. Not true.

The original typewriter keyboard looked like this:


3 5 7 9 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
2 4 6 8 . A B C D E F G H I J K L M

If you investigate this a little you will discover there is no 1 or 0. Actually there is. The letter I would serve as the 1 and the letter O would serve as the 0. You will also notice that after the numbers in the bottom row we see the alphabet beginning as we know it and it is continued on the top row. It is pretty logical and makes sense that the keyboard would mimic the alphabet.



But those damn women screwed the notion up. I noticed in that typing class that the women flew past us hapless guys in typing speed. They would whiz along like lightning while I sat there trying to find the k key. This is a natural woman thing. Their brains are not only attuned to shaming men at every opportunity, but they have a natural affinity for keyboarding.

Well, this was true even way back in beginning typewriting times. When those women whipped along at breakneck speed on that alphabetic keyboard, the silly machine couldn't keep up. Remember, ever key had a corresponding arm with a letter on it that had to fly up and hit the ribbon and paper. Well, those fast women (are you a fast woman?) had those little arms flying so fast that they would jam up -- two or three arms trying to hit the ribbon at the same time.

So, and you see this all the time, they had to redesign the machine in a completely illogical way just to accommodate those damn women. We ended up with the keyboard as we know it today. The letters, and corresponding arms, were arranged in such a way that it would be harder to jam if typing fast.

When the typewriter came out it was greeted with skepticism. Anything typewritten was rude and impersonal. Actually it was viewed as an affront to receive a typewritten message. It sorta' implied that the recipient was incapable of reading handwritten text. Besides typewriters were mechanical devices and therefore could be manipulated by unscrupulous merchants. And to top it off, putting a mechanical machine between a customer and employees destroyed the personal touch. And then there was the conspiracy theory. It was a machine and suspected therefore that anything typed on it was somehow secreted away where others could read it. This was a privacy concern -- and we still have those concerns today.

The Remington Company first marketed the typewriter, always using images of beautiful women typing. This appealed to women because they wanted to be beautiful too. This also appealed to men, because men are just that way. And there was an underlying message: It is easy enough that a woman can do it.

In the 1880's, women worked in factories and mills. As the notion of truly legible data gain acceptance women snuck right in to the clerical arena. (Remember that natural affinity of women to type fast and shame men?) Oh, another minor point -- women were paid much less than men and might have had something to do with it too. In 1881 the YWCA offered the first typing school -- and this brought typing into the mainstream.

This is all about the evolution of the idea of typing. I learned to type in typing class on a QWERTY keyboard of a mechanical typewriter. It wasn't too many years later that electric typewriters evolved. To type, you didn't have to bang down on a key to type a letter -- you could just lightly touch it and electrons would flow every which way which somehow ended up with the letter ending up on the paper. Those little typing arms disappeared because they were too cumbersome and were replaced by the IBM typing ball. This little ball had all of the letters on them and would whip around at a dizzying speed as you typed. My favorite invention was correction tape. If you made a mistake you could retype your error holding the little correction tape against the paper and your errors would disappear, then you would retype the whole thing correctly. I used a lot of that correction tape. Then someone got smart and embedded correction tape into the typewriter which made error correction a whole lot simpler.

Then computers came along and made everything a lot less fun. First it was dedicated Word Processing Machines. They were stand along computers that didn't talk to any other computers -- and you would whip out documents and save and print them in no time at all. Now we have -- well, what we have.

I was driving to work the other day and out of the blue that sentence came to mind. As I thought about Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country, my fingers would sort of automatically tap it out on the steering wheel. I thought about the sentence and acknowledged that it was kind of sexist -- but also a bit universal. Why? Where did it come from? Now you know.

24 comments:

  1. I also took typing in high school, Jerry, but as I remember it, I think a barely passed (not to contradict your women-typist conspiracy theory). I can't blame my lack of natural typing ability on being a spaz (which I am, but that has more to do with poor large motor skills, while my fine motor skills are pretty good). Maybe because I saw typing as a steppingstone to being a career secretary, which my artisty nature couldn't embrace.

    It wasn't until the late 1980's, when I decided to type out my first novel, that I took up typing again. This time, I availed myself of 'Learn to Type' software and started from scratch. I actually enjoy typing now. I type best when I've just trimmed my fingernails...I could never understand how women with long nails could type (you know the ones--those portrayed in the media as secretaries, filing their long polished nails).

    One thing I do miss about the old typewriters is the sound of the machine thwacking paper. If I didn't rely so much on 'auto-correct', I think it would be fun to go back to the old typewriter...

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    1. You were obviously a prime example of the True Woman who was just as klutzy on the typewrite as Every Man -- uncorrupted by the foreign innateness of those Other Women to shame men and delight in joyfully zipping past them. I applaud you for revealing this to the world.

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  2. I am a super-di-duper fast typist. In fact, I can't even see my fingers moving right now. It's like I just have stubs for hands. It's freakish.

    I never knew why the QWERTY keyboard came about, but it's a very interesting story. Thank you for enlightening me!

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    1. Sigh. I would have caught up with you on the keyboard if they stuck with the notion of Words Per Minute. But someone, a woman I am sure, came up with the stupid notion of Correct Words Per Minute that brought me crashing down.

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  3. I learned typing in high school as well, I was the only guy in the class that I can recall. We typed to music, and to this day I can't stand the musical ditty, "Alley Cat".

    But the skill served me well in college when my classmates either couldn't type or had to pay someone to type their papers for them. God what I could have accomplished in college if we had had word processors back then!

    We had a word processing department at the bank where I worked. Eventually everyone got PCs and did their own word processing.

    The result of this technology over time is that I have forgotten how to spell.

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    1. We used some kind of Tick Tock song that was madness in the sameness of the rhythmic beat. If you could listen to the men in that class you would hear them falter then rush trying to catch up, as if that would make things all right.

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  4. Talk about a stroll down memory lane. We had a Royal at home. I remember teaching myself on an IBM Selectric when I moved to Chicago in 1980 and then we got Wang word processors and I was all "Wow! I can type a million words a minute." Heh.

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    2. I think we had a mechanical Underwood at home. I later discovered the Selectrics at work. I remember the Wang. Our secretary got one and would all stand around her watching her operate it. I think the general view was, "Nah. It'll never catch on."

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  5. What a terrific post!
    "This also appealed to men, because men are just that way." :)

    I had a manual type writer - and remember the thrill of using an electric (they had them in my father's office). And yes, the correction tape - especially the tape that was built into the machine - that seemed like a kind of miracle.

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    1. The correction tape thing was a stunning invention. Somewhere along the way Correction Fluid came out too -- which served the purpose albeit a little messy. I found a bottle of correction fluid in the closet not too long ago, and I am still trying to find a use for it.

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  6. My dad ordered me to take typing in high school. I hated it then but have appreciated it for the rest of my life as I became a journalist.

    I, too, did not know the reason for the invention of the QWERTY keyboard but I can remember keys jamming when I was trying to go to fast.

    Likewise I can remember when I got my first IBM Selectric forced on me at work. Those electric keys were so sensitive to someone who had been hammering away on manuals all those years.

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    1. We hate to admit it, but our parents got it right on this count. Do they still offer typing classes in school. I guess they must. Do they call it typing? Or keyboarding?

      Yes, electric typewriters were a challenge. It seemed as if they would type if you just breathed on them.

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  7. I learned to type on an electric one - thus I never got the feeling of whacking the carriage back in place. Even though I felt it was a fairly useless class back then, I must say it's come in handy - especially with the advent of computers.

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    1. Carriage whacking was a satisfying feeling. It not only signified an accomplishment -- typing one line -- but helped relieve the tension of being hunched over the machine.

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  8. I made a deal with my typing teacher. If I promised NOT to take
    typing II the next year, he would pass me. I was horrid. In those days, mistakes were glaring and permanent. I think that very pressure doomed me.
    Today, I type like a whiz, comfortable that any mistake can be easily corrected.
    Thanks for the memory trip into a dark part of my life:)) Computers Rock.

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    1. I too didn't take Typing II -- and I noticed that most of the male graduates of Typing I didn't sign up for it. To us Typing was torture and we avoiding enduring more.

      Today no one is concerned about correcting errors typed. But like Robert said above -- we have forgotten how to spell because of it.

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  9. When I took typing in 8th grade we had manual typewriters but when I got to 9th grade they had transitioned over to the electric ones. I barely passed the 8th grade class and completely failed the 9th grade class. I just couldn't (and still can't) do it without looking at my fingers. I didn't touch any keys again till my first computer 4 years ago. Btw...great post!

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    1. That is the toughest habit to break -- peeking down at the keyboard when typing. I notice that even the fastest 'hunt and peckers' have their eyes locked on the keyboard as they punch away.

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  10. Oh gosh, why will I never forget A quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog......... Couldn't have been the nun rapping my fingers with the ruler or anything...... Corporal punishment with a side of Marshal Law anyone ..... :}

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    1. Oh yeah. They always came up with those exercises that made you use all of your fingers, even the pinky one. With the manual typewriters it was quite an effort to make your less-used fingers jam the key down hard enough.

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  11. I took Typing in high school too in the 90s. Electric typewriters. My teacher used to stand at the front of the room and chant letters and we all typed along like we were part of some strange band.

    One particular lesson got me kicked out of class. After typing along while the teacher bellowed, "F, R, F, space! F, R, F, space!" for fifteen minutes or so, the ridiculousness of it all overcame me and I dissolved in uncontrollable giggles. I was kicked out of class.

    I'm surprised you didn't enjoy typing class more, being surrounded by all those women!

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  12. i also took typing as, what i thought was, a waste of time. It is the best thing i have ever done...no explnation needed. I did take a lot of ribbing from the "boys" especially when i was selected as the first alternate to go to UIL (a state organized competion amongst the Texas schools - for those reading from out of state)...plus in the "old days" the typewriters in our lab were blank so you had to read the wall chart and use "placement"...

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  13. I've been typing in my sleep...or my near-sleep state...since high school typing class. I discovered that my unconscious would send me messages that way. I would be almost asleep and feel my fingers moving slightly against the pillow. Following their movement on an imaginary keyboard, I'd find myself typing something like, "God, I hate that guy," over and over, which would be my first clue that I was going to break up with my boyfriend or quit my job or whatever.

    Right now, they're typing, "This might be a tricky time for Jer to be dissing women." Hmmm.

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