23rd June: Typewriter Day

Today is Typewriter Day, celebrating a now somewhat obsolete contraption that has been mostly replaced by computers. Here are 10 typewriter facts:

1. For centuries, people tried to come up with a workable device for printing letters on paper so that they looked as if they had been printed rather than hand-written. As early as 1575 an Italian printmaker, Francesco Rampazzetto, invented the 'scrittura tattile' to impress characters onto paper. In 1861 a Brazilian priest made a typewriter from wood and knives and was awarded a gold medal for his invention by the Brazilian emperor. The first commercially sold typewriter was the Hansen Writing Ball, invented by Rev. Rasmus Malling-Hansen in 1865, but only upper case letters could be typed with it.
2. The first typewriter to be a commercial success was was invented in 1868 by Americans Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was a success even though Sholes quickly decided he hated it and refused to ever use it, and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The patent was sold for $12,000, and Remington began producing them in 1873. This was the first typewriter to be called a typewriter and the first to have the now ubiquitous QWERTY keyboard.
3. QWERTY is not the most efficient layout for English-speaking typists as the most common letters are spread around the different rows. There are a number of theories as to why we've ended up with this arrangement. One is that the keyboard was designed to slow typists down - because if they typed too fast, the keys would jam. Another theory is that it was designed so that salesmen could easily type the word "typewriter" quickly and impress their customers by only learning the letters on the top row. There is no evidence to support either of these theories.
4. It is often said that the word "typewriter" is the longest English word (10 letters) that can be typed using just the keys on the top row. In fact, there is an 11 letter word, "rupturewort" (a kind of flowering plant), and a 12 letter medical term, "uropyoureter". So it is only the longest common English word.
5. Even though the majority of people are right handed, 56% of typing on an English keyboard is done with the left hand as the most commonly used letters are on the left hand side. The longest common English word that can be typed using only the left hand is stewardesses. The longest English word that can be typed with the right hand only is johnny-jump-up (a type of flower). The longest common word that can be typed using just your right hand is Lollipop.
6. Some early typewriters did not have keys for numbers 1 or 0 - it was expected that people would use "i" or "O". Many early models would have ribbons striped in different colours so bookkeeping entries could be entered in red.
7. A lot of terms we use today in relation to computer keyboards come from the typewriter era. These include backspace, carriage return, cursor, shift key, tab stop and cut and paste (because that is what typists would literally do - cut out bits of text and glue them).
8. Typewriters were for a long time the main tool used by writers. The first novel to be written on one was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Ernest Hemingway is known for placing his typewriter on a high shelf and standing up to write, and JRR Tolkien wrote Lord of The Rings on a typewriter balanced on his bed, because there was no room for it on his desk. Most writers use computers now, although one exception is Will Self, who believes that using a typewriter forces a writer to do more thinking in their head.
9. Typewriters are not even made in England any more. The last one was made by Brother in 2012, and was immediately donated to the British Museum.
10. The world's fastest typist is Barbara Blackburn. She can type 150 words a minute for 50 minutes and 170 words a minute over shorter periods on a normal day; but when trying really hard for the record attempt, she clocked up 212 words a minute. An interesting fact about her is that she failed her typing exams at school.