The BBC exploited the alleged reasons why we type using QWERTY. It's all quite interesting, my brain and imagination likes these kinds of "this is the amazing history of how XYZ developed" exposés.
What peturbed - nay, made me practically scoff at one of the closing paragraphs was the mere suggestion that we might "do away with" typing because voice recognition was advancing.
Uh. No. She's missing something here.
Call me a pervert (many will, in fact, and not only because I like to hang out in stationers' and finger the reams of A4 and fist the pretty notebooks) - but I like typing.
I began typing on my mum's old Remington Portable. I remember the 'n' key was slightly knackered, offset, twisted. I played with the carriage release, all those
pretty clicks. The bell was pleasing. Some sounds are just .... too yummy.
I graduated onto a modern typewriter, which did not have the same impact upon me as I can't remember what kind it was though I do recall it was grey plastic rather than smart black and silver metal with a leather-like covering on the plywood base. It was an 18th birthday present, practical but without soul. The 'n' key worked, for a start.
University saw me learning what a computer was - a Mac, as it happens. These were the 1980s, after all, and still the only significant computer time I had ever had, thus far, had been on a ZX81.
I have a PC now, and plastic QWERTY is my friend. I need to keep my nails fairly short - in fact, the process of typing is more pleasing to me with shorter nails.
Is it the rhythm? Is it the clunk of the keys - and we all know, each keyboards has its own personality, its unique sound and the way the keys depress.
Is it the slide of skin across the shiny faux-cubes? Is it the sexiness of the process itself - thought to finger to key to screen to audience? Is it that I'm a pervert? Who knows. Who cares?
Incidentally, my phone also has QWERTY but I don't get the same .. y'know.
*would light a post-coital cigarette now, if she still smoked*
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