That Dirty Qwerty Thing

By Angelo Paino

“Please let me type that for you!” my wife pleaded. It wasn’t that I had written anything spectacular or even that I had a brainstorm of an idea. The fact was that she could not stand to watch me type. My hunched over, head down, hunt and peck approach made her wince like a baseball fan at a park where Roseanne Barr was singing the national anthem.

I tried not to relent. I’d made up my mind that if I was going to be any type of writer worth my salt, I was going to master this typing thing.

My first introduction to typing occurred in my first year of high school. Going completely against the grain of the mid-70’s cool male persona, I signed up for a typing class. I disguised my true intent by telling my friends it would come in handy for typing essays and assignments, but the real reason was to meet girls. Unfortunately, because my focus was everywhere but on the keyboard, I gained very little in the way of practical typing knowledge, but I reasoned that it wasn’t my fault. I mean really, look at how the keys are arranged. How did we get stuck with that?

I found it interesting that a company that also manufactured guns-- E. Remington & Sons-- built the first practical typewriter, invented by Christopher Latham Sholes and marketed in 1873. This seems ironic, since I’m sure the arrangement of the keys even then prompted many an individual to consider obtaining one of those guns for use in purely evil ways.

I learned that there was actually a name for this malicious mix of alphabet characters. It’s called “QWERTY,” named after the first six letters in the top alphabet row. And no, Christopher Sholes was not a sadistic maniac who was out to drive people insane. He arranged the letters that way to keep his machine from jamming up, and we’ve been stuck with it ever since.
 

I really have tried other ways. Even when I attempt to perform ten-finger typing, my two index fingers unconsciously take over. After tapping a few keys, my other fingers curl up into my palms like snails retreating into their shells. Finally, my wife could stand it no longer. Being a self-taught typist of incredible speed and accuracy, she was determined to make me her project.
 

“Position your hands correctly over the keyboard, then forget about looking down,” she instructed. “You should only look at the monitor so you can correct any mistakes as soon as they happen.”
 

I focused. My back was arrow-straight and my hands hovered over the keys like a Harrier jet, ready for action. I conjured up a sentence and began typing. Hu. ny nane id Anfrlp Paobi,.
 

“What is that?” she asked.
 

“I’m introducing myself, like those sticky name tags they give at seminars. You know,

‘Hi, my name is…’”
 

“Never mind,” she said. “Just backspace the mistakes, correct them, and don’t look down.”
 

Fortunately, the backspace key is much larger than the letter keys, so I hit it the first time. After a few more of my attempts at “touch-typing,” my wife had to go for a walk. In her absence, I immediately reverted back to hunting and pecking.
 

Despite her offer of “you just write them and I’ll type them,” I am holding firm. Someone even told me that there is a Hunt and Peck Society that sponsors hunt and peck races and contests. What do these people know? They know that Mr. Sholes never imagined that typing would ever become faster than handwriting, which is around twenty words per minute. If he did, he would surely have come up with something better than QWERTY.
 

So for now, I endure the jokes about “How many words per hour?” or “Heeere chicky, chicky, chicky.” Those people know which fingers I type with.


Angelo Paino is a freelance writer based in Komoka, Ontario, Canada (yes, there is such a place). A self-confessed outdoor fanatic, he has been a field editor for Outdoor Canada magazine for more than five years, as well as a contributor to other outdoor and hobby magazines. He is currently awaiting replielays on two book proposals and numerous article submissions and can be reached at ampaino@golden.net.

 

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