I have two 'young people' resident in the house and I have just confirmed that both use both thumbs to txt. I got a rather quizzical look from daughter who asked how else was she was supposed to do it. I sent a txt to my son earlier, the usual message which reads 'please phone it takes me too long to txt you'. I use one finger to txt, takes forever but I just cannot manage to use my thumbs.

I have never come across plastic backing sheets only ones made from cartridge thickness paper and they sometimes came with a pack of typing paper. I bought an Erika 105 which had been owned by someone who taught typing and there were a number of foolscap size backing sheets in the case pocket. They have a scale marked line spaces on the left and millimetres on the right below a dotted line that runs across the page half an inch from the top. I don't think I ever used a backing sheet when typing letters at work since it was usual practice to have two carbon copies only when it was not required to have carbon copies like when producing tabulations did we ever use a backing sheet. The backing sheets that came with the typewriter look a bit fiddly to use and I haven't tried one. I have always just used a normal letter quality thickness sheet for a backing sheet.

Uwe wrote:

retro wrote:

You are not alone there so will somebody please tell me what a 'hipster' is. I did consult the bible of the English language, the Oxford Concise English Dictionary but apparently it is American English. 

"Hipsters" are not a North American phenomenon. KatLondon has shared her views of the hipster situation in England a few times in this forum, so I think it's less a matter of language than whether or not you have a finger on the pulse of current trends. 

retro wrote:

One person, an aunt, who was a great influence on me in my youth spoke and wrote perfect Queen's English and it was not her first language either as she lived in Canada. I am not very good at being politically correct but I believe the correct term is to say she was a native American. I expect I should not therefore say her country was Canada either and I trust that does not offend anybody. 

That was a little confusing because it implied that English isn't the first language of Canadians, which it is. So you're saying is that your aunt is a North American Indian? English may not be native Indians first language, but because of our education system most can speak English as well as any other Canadian, which incidentally is a variation that is much closer to the "Queen's" version than the truncated style used south of us. In short, I'm not surprised that she had a good command of the English language, or that it was a dialect more familiar to you.

Sorry about any confusion. I should have said she was actually a great aunt so must have been born around the same time as my grandparents in the 1890's and was a North American Indian. I had always imagined that she was well educated, certainly better than my state junior school and although she told me a lot about her early life on the reservation I cannot remember school ever being mentioned. She had often written to my father as we

beak wrote:

Well, I suppose it's time I owned up; I don't know what people mean when they say 'hipster'.  Is it American for something the rest of us call something else, or a new beast?

You are not alone there so will somebody please tell me what a 'hipster' is. I did consult the bible of the English language, the Oxford Concise English Dictionary but apparently it is American English. I asked my son, a university student but he said he didn't know and my teenage daughter was even less helpful saying they were people who dressed in weird clothes, used typewriters and fountain pens. I am not sure I subscribe to America and England being two nations separated by a common language. One person, an aunt, who was a great influence on me in my youth spoke and wrote perfect Queen's English and it was not her first language either as she lived in Canada. I am not very good at being politically correct but I believe the correct term is to say she was a native American. I expect I should not therefore say her country was Canada either and I trust that does not offend anybody.
 

Uwe wrote:

Isn't toothpaste a mild abrasive? I like the idea of a soft bristle toothbrush - I always have a couple in the toolbox - but not sure about the toothpaste.

Toothpaste is slightly abrasive, I used to use it to clean the chrome on my motorcycle and cars. It was a lot cheaper than using chrome polish and worked just as well. I have always cleaned the letter slugs with methylated spirits and a toothbrush. I have no idea what it might do to the paint finish on a 1930's typewriter but I always used to put a drop of meths in a bucket of water when leathering off the cars after the weekly wash to prevent any water marks. It certainly didn't seem to do any harm to the Rolls Royce or the Bentley I had to clean every Sunday morning in my youth. I always use a non abrasive polish, Simoniz Original, probably the hardest car polish to use though but my typewriters are gleaming bright if nothing else.