As children grow up, they have to deal with quite a few disappointments in life. They learn that goblins, the tooth fairy, and that other guy in the red suit don’t exist. They discover that green vegetables are not just a side dish; and they are found with the QWERTY keyboard.
The child works very hard going through the daily positive brainwashing process of learning the letters of the alphabet; a-for-apple, b-for-a-ball, c-for-a-cat … until finally all twenty-six are imprinted in his mind in the right order and a world of reading and writing awaits him. Much of the latter part of this world will be explored using word processing packages like Microsoft Word, and kids these days are introduced to these programs at a young age.
However, a child’s first encounter with a computer can be quite a shock. Looking at the keyboard for the first time, the child is horrified to discover that none of the letters are in their correct place; it is as if someone has made a huge anagram of the alphabet, and everything the child has learned has flown out the window. Cautiously, the child begins to write using this unusual new arrangement, with the index finger curved and the tongue protruding, a typing speed of 3 to 5 words per minute is achieved using the catch and peck method. Of course, with practice, the child can soon become proficient at using the keyboard, but why are the keys arranged in this alphabet soup shape in the first place? The answer goes back to the days of the first typewriters.
In the late 1860s, an American inventor named Christopher Scholes developed the first rudimentary typewriter with a group of associates. The keys on this early machine were originally arranged in alphabetical order, but this caused problems with the typebars getting stuck when typing at high speeds. To remedy this, Scholes repositioned the keys in order to keep the most frequently used letters separate, and the result is the QWERTY keyboard.
Not long after this, however, improvements in typewriter design put an end to the interference problem, so technically the QWERTY system was no longer necessary, but it has survived even into the age of inkjets. computers, where there are no type bars to block.
However, it does have its rivals, the best known of which is the simplified Dvorak keyboard, which was patented by August Dvorak in Seattle in 1936. This layout was meant to challenge, but never conquer, QWERTY, despite having several advantages over it. , such as simplicity to learn, greater comfort when typing and favoring the right hand.
Although this layout does not resemble the familiar QWERTY, it can be mastered in no time, and it is worth noting that the world record for typing speed, held by the late Barbara Blackburn, who reached a top speed of 212 words per minute, it was achieved using the Dvorak system. The simplified Dvorak keyboard is available on all major operating systems, but despite well-founded claims of superior accuracy and ease of use, it has failed to dislodge the stubborn QWERTY layout.
So, after surviving for over a hundred years, does the QWERTY layout on the modern computer keyboard have anything more to offer than that of early typewriters? Well yes and no.
All the keys are in the same places, of course, but it takes a lot less effort to type than on a manual typewriter. But the real difference lies in the sheer number of symbols and special characters that can be inserted into documents using keyboard shortcuts that there simply wouldn’t be room for on a typewriter. Open Microsoft Word and review them by clicking Insert/Symbol, and navigate through the many menus. You’ll find that there are a wide variety of symbols and characters at your disposal, from the commonly used arrows, ticks, and foreign currency symbols, to fun ones that include a smiley face, skull and crossbones, yin and yang, and, for those festive cards, that guy in the red suit.
You can create your own keyboard shortcuts quite easily for these characters, which means the ones you use regularly can be typed directly on the page, adding punch to important documents and fun to less formal ones. When you consider that some typewriters can only print an exclamation point by typing apostrophe, backspace, period, you can see how far we’ve come.
It’s worth taking the time, perhaps through a training course, to explore the hidden world of Microsoft Word. There are many other features that this powerful tool has to offer.
