Making a hash of it
Anyone who has ever used a keyboard will be familiar with the vagaries of random fortune when it comes to tapping the wrong key, a phenomenon that doesn’t necessarily fade into the distance even when modern technology specifically designed to prevent or protect the tapper against the problem is applied.
Thinking back now, I would hazard a guess that I first used (or attempted to) a ‘sit up and beg’ typewriter owned by my parents in around 1956 or 1957, about the time that Elvis was starring in his first movie (Love Me Tender) and preparing to do his stint in the US Army – not that I knew that then.
In those days, of course – because one was so young and each new day felt about a year in duration – one naturally assumed that the world had attained a state of ultimate scientific progress during one’s elders and betters’ era.
In direct consequence such technological advancements as did become publicly available to us seemed to arrive with a frequency comparable to that of a blue moon.
Bear with me here as I list such milestones as my first exposures to a portable typewriter as a Christmas present in my early teens, electric typewriters, the joys of the stencil-technology that led to my earliest stabs at publishing and use of correcting fluid and – eventually, of course – such modern aids as predictive text and AI-based machine-learning of one’s individual peculiarities.
Having become reasonably adept at it – and having subsequently found in practice my feeble attempts to learn the five-finger variation that today’s youngsters acquire at birth were always inferior in effect and speed – I have remained a two-finger exponent all my life.
There are quicker means of recording speech and/or composing drafts, e.g. shorthand and stenography. At one time in my career I had a male secretary who was a master of both and could produce accurately-dictated work at a rate in excess of 130 words per minute, a constant source of wonder.
Another company I worked for produced subtitles via stenography for broadcasters of live news.
The software deployed applied predictive text technology. The subtitlers concerned began by building up in advance a bank of pre-loaded words or shorthand ‘ticks’ [e.g. when the individual typed “PM” the words “Prime Minister” would automatically appear on screen] and by this route passages of speeches and news bulletins would be rendered ‘readable’ in real time by those who were deaf.
However, because humans and human-built software were involved, ‘mistakes’ were inevitable.
One of the highlights of our annual Christmas parties was the moment we played on a big screen – for internal consumption only – a video reel of our funniest or weirdest ‘bloopers’.
I mention all the above today because overnight I spotted the following piece by Ettan Smallman on the website of the – DAILY MAIL
