I taught myself to type after I left Polytechnic, on my mother's old manual typewriter, by typing 'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' over and over. It has all the letters of the alphabet, so gradually you learnt where they all are on the keyboard. You had to pay close attention in those days, there was no going back and erasing the mistakes. And you had to hit the keys pretty hard. None of this namby pamby tap tap tapping, it went clunk, clunk, and at the end of each line sprung back with a loud 'ka-ching'.(Linking back to Magpie Tales 89)
lol! I love that you put names of those sounds! It's true. I used to use my father typewriter too and it didn't make the soft subtle tapping we make on our keyboard but a hard metallic clicking noise! There was another sound as well when you could go back and erase one letter, do you remember?
ReplyDeleteThere's a nice feel to this that I can relate to all too well. My 100-word Magpie this week is Poet.
ReplyDeleteThis brings back of memories. I took typing in high school - day after day of typing three-letter words using only the "home row" keys before we ever worked up to the "quick brown fox" bit.
ReplyDeletenice...you capture well the textures of using those typewriters...there are days i miss its hard returns....
ReplyDeletequick brown foxes.....i remember those days....love this Martine! :-)
ReplyDeleteI can hear it yet! Superbly descriptive and poetic!
ReplyDeleteall these nostalgic posts about typewriters forget what you have said - what HARD work typing was! great read
ReplyDeleteI remember those machines. It was sometime impossible to tell who was in charge.
ReplyDeletethis is elegant.
ReplyDeletewelcome sharing a random or relevant poetry with us today.
:)