I’m not the greatest of typists; I’m very much of the two-stubby-finger variety. In addition to my poor digital dexterity, I put it down to the layout of the keyboard. Who came up with it, and why do we persist in using it?
The first practical typewriter was developed as long ago as 1868 and patented in the US by Christopher Latham Scholes. It had a moveable carriage, a lever for turning paper from line to line, and a keyboard which was laid out in alphabetical order.
However, there was a fundamental problem with the layout of the keyboard: when typists worked quickly and used keys that were adjacent to each other, the keys kept jamming. This meant that the typist had to stop to free the keys.
Worse still, the keys on the earliest typewriters struck the back of the paper, and so mistakes became apparent only when the paper was removed from the machine.
Scholes scratched his head, realised he was unable to solve the problem of the sticking keys, and concocted a Plan B – a disposition of the characters in a way that would slow the typist down.
After much experimentation and using a study of letter-pair frequency prepared by the brother of Scholes’s principal financial backer, Amos Densmore, he settled on the QWERTY arrangement. He considered the new arrangement important enough to include it in his next patent application in 1878. Scholes went into PR overdrive, claiming that the new keyboard’s arrangement of letters was scientific and would boost speed and efficiency.
The reality was anything but. The most accessible row of the typewriter keyboard is the middle one. Although about 70 per cent of words in English can be typed using the letters A, D, E, H, I, N, O, R S, and T, only A appears on the middle row.
Only about three hundred English words can be typed using the right hand alone whereas around three thousand can be typed using just the left. As most people are right-handed, the keyboard layout favours our left-handed brethren. At the very least, the hands have to travel further over the keyboard than would have been the case with an alphabetic layout.
For office technology at the time, the advantages of having a typewriter outweighed the disadvantages in terms of speed and efficiency that the QWERTY keyboard imposed, and so typists learned the new layout and got on with it.
There have been attempts to (re)introduce a more logical keyboard arrangement. The most successful was the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK), developed and patented by August Dvorak, cousin of the Czech composer, and revealed to an unreceptive world in 1932.
Dvorak had been inspired by the work of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, pioneers in the field of workplace efficiency. Unfortunately, it never caught on – although even on modern computers, you can still find the layout as an option buried deep in the software settings.
It seems strange that we have continued to use a solution to a technological deficiency of the earliest typewriters, particularly as almost all of us now pound away on keyboards that don’t have keys that have to make an impression on a piece of paper. This is clearly an interesting example of how we have adapted to technological deficiencies rather than changing the technology.
Martin Fone is author of 'Fifty Curious Questions', from which this piece is an excerpt – find out more about his book or you can order a copy via Amazon.
Curious Questions: Why do the British drive on the left?
The rest of Europe drives on the right, so why do the British drive on the left? Martin Fone, author
Credit: alamy
Curious Questions: Why is a day divided into twenty-four hours?
We've been counting things in convenient chunks of ten for thousands of years, so why on earth is a day
Curious Questions: How do you make the perfect cream scone?
Curious Questions: Do you get wetter running or walking in the rain?
Does running in the rain get you out of it quicker? Or do you just run into more water more
Credit: Alamy
Curious Questions: Do carrots really help you see in the dark?
We've all been given the familiar advice by parents anxious to get us eating our vegetables, but is there any
Credit: Photo by FLPA/Hugh Lansdown/REX/Shutterstock – Bullet Ant (Paraponera clavata) adult, standing on leaf in rainforest, Tortuguero N.P., Limon Province, Costa Rica
Curious Questions: What is the world’s most painful insect sting – and where would it hurt the most?
Can you calibrate the intensity of different insect stings? Martin Fone, author of 'Fifty Curious Questions', investigates.
-
Which of Henry VIII's wives was just 19 when she died? And nine more brainteasers in the Quiz of the DayHow much is that house? What's that crazy picture? And which of Henry VIII's wives was youngest when she died? It's all here in Tuesday's Country Life Quiz of the Day.
-
How the high street can change for the betterThe high street might not be dying, but it's definitely changing and in some places, it's changing for the better. So, what can the centre of town in the 21st century look like?
-
The Country Life Christmas message by Revd Dr Colin Heber-Percy: ‘The most powerful person in the world’ is not an emperor, high priest or CEO, but a helpless baby in the arms of a loving motherRevd Dr Colin Heber-Percy on how Christmas shows us that ‘the most powerful person in the world’ is not an emperor, or a high priest or the CEO of a tech company, but a helpless baby in the arms of a loving mother.
-
Curious Questions: Did the Victorians pave the way for the first ULEZ cameras in the world?Martin Fone takes a look at the history of London's coalgates, and finds that the idea of taxing things as they enter the City of London is centuries old.
-
Curious Questions: What are the finest last words ever uttered?Final words can be poignant, tragic, ironic, loving and, sometimes, hilarious. Annunciata Elwes examines this most bizarre form of public speaking.
-
'Keep thy device clean': Country Life's Tech CommandmentsWe all use our phones too much. The least we can do is agree on a set of rules for modern etiquette in a digital age.
-
Curious Questions: Why do we still love pirate stories, 300 years on from Blackbeard?Tales of swashbuckling pirates have entertained audiences for years, inspired by real-life British men and women, says Jack Watkins.
-
Curious Questions: Why is race walking an Olympic sport?The history of the Olympics is full of curious events which only come to prominence once every four years. Martin Fone takes a look at one of the oddest: race walking, or pedestrianism.
-
Curious Questions: Where does the phrase 'daylight robbery' come from? It's literally about the theft of daylightMartin Fone tells a tale of sunshine and tax — and where there is tax, there is tax avoidance... which in this case changed the face of Britain's growing cities.
-
Curious Questions: Is there a way to win at rock, paper, scissors?A completely fair game of chance, or an opportunity for those with an edge in human psychology to gain an advantage? Martin Fone looks at the enduringly simple game of rock, paper, scissors.
