Death of the Typewriter

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And Grant, there was a story on The Wires the other day suggesting that the death of the typewriter has been somewhat exaggerated.

Did you see this?

No, I didn’t see that.

It said that computers have largely replaced typewriters, but there’s still typewriter enthusiasts out there.

And there’s still typewriter stores out there, and in fact, you can even buy an electric typewriter at a place like Office Depot or State Barrett.

I had no idea.

I didn’t either.

I guess for three-part forms, the kind of stuff where you need to have that physical impression on the paper, right?

Exactly.

Yeah, that’s one of the uses of it.

The story got me to thinking about typewriters.

You know, I can remember my granddaddy typing out his sermons on this big black Smith Corona on his roll-top desk back in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Yeah. And then I started thinking about how I learned to type myself in Miss Varnido’s ninth grade typing class and how those keys felt under my fingers.

And then I don’t know about you, but when I was in college, I graduated to an electric IBM.

And I can still remember the way that it kind of shuttered under my fingers.

But Grant, you know, I’m thinking about you. You’re younger than I am.

You probably didn’t even start out on a typewriter, did you?

Oh, I did. Yeah. I started on an IBM Selectric, the home row and all that.

Yeah, and quickly moved to computers.

But I came in right at the transition from typewriters to computers.

And within a few years, all of my professors were expecting papers to be printed from a computer and not to be typed.

I mean, they anticipated it.

It was a lot less mess for them.

Right.

First with the daisy wheel.

Remember those?

Yeah, and correcting fluid everywhere and typing and retyping and redoing certain pages.

Right, and tape, yeah.

And then editing your copy to make it fit just so you didn’t have to type two pages.

You could just type one.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, the story also linked to a site called mytypewriter.com.

And on that site, they not only sell typewriters online, but they have a list of famous authors and their favorite typewriters.

I mean, I had no idea that John Irving still writes on a typewriter.

And so does David Sedaris. I mean, who knew?

I don’t get too nostalgic about typewriters, though.

And maybe it is because I came in at the very end of their importance.

But there is a kind of forced contemplation with a typewriter, right?

You really have to think about what you’re doing so that your editing later is less time-consuming.

You don’t want to have to do revisions over and over and over and retype stuff that is otherwise perfect just because it surrounds something that isn’t.

That’s right.

I just remember when I switched to computers, it really changed the way that I wrote and thought.

You’re right.

You really have to be much more contemplative.

And then there’s the whole sensuous thing of the click of the keys under your fingers.

The tactile response.

And I remember that there are typing programs that will teach you to type on a computer that give you that same audible response so that you are fully conditioned so that when your finger hits the key, you get the feedback answer to know that you’ve struck the correct key.

Oh, really?

Or struck any key, for that matter.

Well, if you have a question or comment about typewriters writing grammar, regional expressions, or any other aspect of language, type us an email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

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