Most of us reading this are old enough to have used a typewriter, often as part of our professions. I didn’t work for a newspaper, but knowing how to type probably kept me out of the Infantry when it mattered. When I was a supply clerk I flew on a C-130 cargo plane and picked up two brand new electric typewriters, bodily guarding them from theft on the way to the plane. A short time later, when I was a company clerk, I had a manual typewriter with very visible rust. If I had to restrike a key, it wouldn’t strike the paper exactly as before.
P.S.: In case someone doesn’t know, the QWERTY keyboard layout was devised so that the keys wouldn’t be likely to hit each other on the way to the ribbon.
One of my nieces (great nieces, actually) loves to write short stories, but her parents limit her screen time, so she asked for a typewriter for Christmas and they got her one.
Fortunately, most of my typing was on mimeograph stencils of Company orders and personnel lists. This was done with a ribbon-less typewriter cutting the letters as weak spots in the stencils.* The best part was that when mistakes were made the weak spots could be patched with a fluid and typed over. The resulting copies looked perfect.
* This is the source of the phrase “cutting orders.”
I learned to type in high school, using a manual typewritier. The class was taught by Brother Dan Elliott, a crusty old bird who would say "Claws, not jaws, gentlemen!" if we started talking in class. My parents bought me an electric typewriter when I started university, and I never used a manual again. I, too, pounded the keys on the electric, at first.
I used that typewritier all through college and in the one graduate course that I took, and have never used a typewriter since. My last memory of using a typewriter is of typing out a term paper in fornt of an old black-and-white TV set, on which the Bears were pummeling the Pats in the '86 Super Bowl. Amusingly enough, the topic was the future possibility of a "paperless office".
My first full-time job was one where we used computers, and I never did use a typewriter on a job. I cam up just as technology was shifting.
Most of us reading this are old enough to have used a typewriter . . .
I learnt to type on a manual typewriter. It was an elective course at my high school, and one of the smartest things I ever did. The irony was, and is, that none of the required courses in high school---British literature, algebra, and the like---I've ever really needed or used much in my life. But learning how to type served me from day one.
Remember, this was long before home computers put everybody in front of a keyboard, so possessing the ability to type (including undestanding what all of the "mysterious" keys were for, and such esoteric things as having to use the lower-case "L" to type the number "1" [because the manual machine did not possess a "1" key]; one also had to make an exclamation point by typing a period, then backspacing and typing an apostrophe over the period, because those old keyboards did not have a "!" key, either.) When I got to college, I was miles ahead of most of my fellow classmates because, by then, I'd purchased an electric typewriter, and I could type my papers myself.
I bagged groceries all through my college years to earn money to pay my tuition. It wasn't brain work, so while I did my job, I'd mentally draught the assignment and when I got a spare moment, I'd grab a lunch bag and jot down my mental writings on the subject as they occurred to me. I'd go home that night with my pockets stuffed full of lunch bags covered in notes. Then, I'd spread them out and type the whole thing up into one smooth work.
My brother, on the other hand, had never learnt how to type, so he always had to wrangle my mother, who'd been a secretary for twenty-some years, to type his college papers for him.
I learned on a manual typewriter as well. Consequently, for years... decades after, my co-workers would ask why I banged on my computer keyboard. It came from learning on a manual. (Also, my very first computer instructor told the class not to be shy about hitting the keys; we weren't going to break them.) I was never a very fast typist. "I type like the wind," I used to say. "10 to 15 WPM with gusts up to 20." But I was the best in my high school typing class at "problems" (such as centering text, for example, either pica or elite).
JD DeLuzio > Jeff of Earth-JMay 16, 2025 at 6:49am
Yeah, our high school pushed typing class as an elective for anyone who wanted to go on to university or college (the future secretaries didn't need the encouragement), and by then I already had older siblings in university who could confirm its usefulness. I had already had some experience with one we had at home, and I quickly got my speed up. By grade 11, I was typing most of my assignments that suited a typewriter.
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Typewriters as historical artifacts
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Most of us reading this are old enough to have used a typewriter, often as part of our professions. I didn’t work for a newspaper, but knowing how to type probably kept me out of the Infantry when it mattered. When I was a supply clerk I flew on a C-130 cargo plane and picked up two brand new electric typewriters, bodily guarding them from theft on the way to the plane. A short time later, when I was a company clerk, I had a manual typewriter with very visible rust. If I had to restrike a key, it wouldn’t strike the paper exactly as before.
P.S.: In case someone doesn’t know, the QWERTY keyboard layout was devised so that the keys wouldn’t be likely to hit each other on the way to the ribbon.
One of my nieces (great nieces, actually) loves to write short stories, but her parents limit her screen time, so she asked for a typewriter for Christmas and they got her one.
Fortunately, most of my typing was on mimeograph stencils of Company orders and personnel lists. This was done with a ribbon-less typewriter cutting the letters as weak spots in the stencils.* The best part was that when mistakes were made the weak spots could be patched with a fluid and typed over. The resulting copies looked perfect.
* This is the source of the phrase “cutting orders.”
I learned to type in high school, using a manual typewritier. The class was taught by Brother Dan Elliott, a crusty old bird who would say "Claws, not jaws, gentlemen!" if we started talking in class. My parents bought me an electric typewriter when I started university, and I never used a manual again. I, too, pounded the keys on the electric, at first.
I used that typewritier all through college and in the one graduate course that I took, and have never used a typewriter since. My last memory of using a typewriter is of typing out a term paper in fornt of an old black-and-white TV set, on which the Bears were pummeling the Pats in the '86 Super Bowl. Amusingly enough, the topic was the future possibility of a "paperless office".
My first full-time job was one where we used computers, and I never did use a typewriter on a job. I cam up just as technology was shifting.
Most of us reading this are old enough to have used a typewriter . . .
I learnt to type on a manual typewriter. It was an elective course at my high school, and one of the smartest things I ever did. The irony was, and is, that none of the required courses in high school---British literature, algebra, and the like---I've ever really needed or used much in my life. But learning how to type served me from day one.
Remember, this was long before home computers put everybody in front of a keyboard, so possessing the ability to type (including undestanding what all of the "mysterious" keys were for, and such esoteric things as having to use the lower-case "L" to type the number "1" [because the manual machine did not possess a "1" key]; one also had to make an exclamation point by typing a period, then backspacing and typing an apostrophe over the period, because those old keyboards did not have a "!" key, either.) When I got to college, I was miles ahead of most of my fellow classmates because, by then, I'd purchased an electric typewriter, and I could type my papers myself.
I bagged groceries all through my college years to earn money to pay my tuition. It wasn't brain work, so while I did my job, I'd mentally draught the assignment and when I got a spare moment, I'd grab a lunch bag and jot down my mental writings on the subject as they occurred to me. I'd go home that night with my pockets stuffed full of lunch bags covered in notes. Then, I'd spread them out and type the whole thing up into one smooth work.
My brother, on the other hand, had never learnt how to type, so he always had to wrangle my mother, who'd been a secretary for twenty-some years, to type his college papers for him.
I learned on a manual typewriter as well. Consequently, for years... decades after, my co-workers would ask why I banged on my computer keyboard. It came from learning on a manual. (Also, my very first computer instructor told the class not to be shy about hitting the keys; we weren't going to break them.) I was never a very fast typist. "I type like the wind," I used to say. "10 to 15 WPM with gusts up to 20." But I was the best in my high school typing class at "problems" (such as centering text, for example, either pica or elite).
Yeah, our high school pushed typing class as an elective for anyone who wanted to go on to university or college (the future secretaries didn't need the encouragement), and by then I already had older siblings in university who could confirm its usefulness. I had already had some experience with one we had at home, and I quickly got my speed up. By grade 11, I was typing most of my assignments that suited a typewriter.
The class was taught by Brother Dan Elliott, a crusty old bird...
My high school typing teacher (caucasian) had a snow white afro. Her CB handle was "White Mink."
My nephew wanted my mom's old typewriter (the one I learned on and used throughout college) after she died. I assume he still has it.
One of the local Half-Price Books is decorated with dozens of manual typewriters atop their shelves.
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