1 of 1- Fleetwing
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Interesting article about a typewriter as pedagogical tool
- Uwe
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Re: Interesting article about a typewriter as pedagogical tool
Fleetwing wrote:
...exclamation point... the lack of such a key in older typewriters is a comment on the evolution of how we communicate.
I think it's more of a comment on the inherent character limit of typewriters in general, and that an exclamation mark is easy to create using two more commonly available characters. Regardless, I have a number of machines manufactured close to a century ago that have exclamation keys, so it isn't a case that they didn't exist, nor have I noticed that a newer machine would have a higher probability of having an exclamation key than an older one.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- Fleetwing
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Re: Interesting article about a typewriter as pedagogical tool
I don't think the author of the article was thinking much, if at all, about the inherent character limit of typewriters in general. It's not clear to me from the article that he even knows how to create an exclamation point (I'd have thought he would have said how to do it).
Rather, I think his point in bringing the machine to his class was to show what the state of the art in personal communications was back 100 years ago, and how typewriters' capabilities reflected that state of communcations. It was interesting that his students opined that a typewriter, if created today, would feature emojis -- that's what they seem to perceive as being the future direction of personal written communication.
I am sure you are right that a number of machines made a hundred years ago did feature the exclamation point -- I don't have anything older than the late 1930s myself. There may also be some of that vintage that feature a numeral 1 (rather than using the lower case l). But my sense is that the 1 and !, usually on the same key for reasons of keyboard capacity, became commonplace really only relatively recently (post-1960), at least on portables. And my question is whether that is because people started using the exclamation point more in writing, thus making a dedicated type slug more of a market necessity.
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Thread Starter- Gabby Johnson
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Re: Interesting article about a typewriter as pedagogical tool
Times change, I suppose, but I've never explored the galaxies of emojis, or the emoticons that are closer to the creation of a missing exclamation point on a typewriter. To an old fogie like me they seem a lame shorthand attempt to add meaning to the words that are written -- and pretty much meaningless to me.
Having learned to write on a 1950s Carona typewriter, I avoid exclamation points habitually because of the backspace routine it once required. Better to punch up the sentence so that it makes its own point.
Up on the Internet, I shy from strings of exclamation points and caps-lock shouting as marks of someone unable to articulate their thoughts, so I don't waste my time trying to decipher what they might mean.
Still, I applaud the professor for bringing his Royal into a 21st cenbtury communications class. He's a real teacher.
- beak
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Re: Interesting article about a typewriter as pedagogical tool
The exclamation mark is easily and quickly made on most machines by holding down the shift and the space-bar together and then hitting ' and . one after the other. Some machines result in the mark being half a space to the right, some don't.
I have seen quite a few old letters in which the mark appears slightly to the right of its normal position, and I guess this is the cause. A professional typist would backspace, of course, but the above method soon becomes habitual, and the slight space can help the appearance of the mark, IMO.
Try it on your machine if it has no dedicated key.
Sincerely,
beak.
- Fleetwing
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Re: Interesting article about a typewriter as pedagogical tool
The exclamation mark is easily and quickly made on most machines by holding down the shift and the space-bar together and then hitting ' and . one after the other. Some machines result in the mark being half a space to the right, some don't.
I have seen quite a few old letters in which the mark appears slightly to the right of its normal position, and I guess this is the cause. A professional typist would backspace, of course, but the above method soon becomes habitual, and the slight space can help the appearance of the mark, IMO.
Try it on your machine if it has no dedicated key.
Thanks, I do know how to make an exclamation mark on a machine that doesn't have a dedicated key. (And I've spent time, typewriter by typewriter, trying to see whether the upper case or lower case period aligns better with the apostrophe.) The ultimate point of the article relates to how communication has changed over time. I think Gabby Johnson gets it -- and I guess I include myself with him about having "old fogie" status regarding the use of emojis.
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Thread Starter- beak
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Re: Interesting article about a typewriter as pedagogical tool
My point was that the backspace is unnecessary, and always has been.
It seems clear that nothing at all may be read into the fact that the one-stroke exclamation mark is available or not at any particular date. You will find quite recent machines which lack the required slug. It is more a matter of design decisions and marketing, which areas are beyond the looking glass in many if not most instances, IME.
Sincerely,
beak.
