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Not only has the meaning of the word type changed (somewhat) over the past few decades, but so too has how we, as people, actually do the action of typing. When I was 9, I made my own newspaper, using an electric typewriter to generate my original hardcopies. It was my mother’s typewriter but the whole family used it for schoolwork and formal business letters.
It was costly, both in dollars and in effort, to make a mistake, which is why we only typed things which we had already written down. Today, I have noticed that only the generations which remember this two-step process of typing, still use the word or phrase ‘type it up’— the younger folks now say text (as in actual text words) or document (as in actual typed up paper).
In addition, with the inventions of spell check, autocorrect and spelling and grammar, most typing is done in real-time. For example, in completing this column, I no longer sit and write out a rough draft, editing with an eraser or linear pen stains, but rather, I sit down at my computer and simply start … typing.
I always have an idea for the column, so the direction is clear, but I often find that when I do my editing, I am copying whole sentences and pasting them in new locations. Sometimes, I delete entire paragraphs and rewrite, only keeping a sentence or two. Most times, I edit out superfluous words or thoughts that seem to wander.
Given that I have a targeted word count which translates into newspaper space, most of my edits are focused on structuring a column which represents my thoughts on a subject in roughly 500-550 words. As a result, I rely heavily on a streamlined and efficient editing process. Typing on a computer is now very easy to do since little effort and skill is required to produce a document which is grammatically correct. However, even though software technology is awesome in cultivating a creative writing process, it does not always cooperate in yielding a document which is 100 percent indicative of what I think I typed. My finger (and brain) might think that it hit the d- when it actually hit the f- and since f-i-g- is also a word, the only way to catch these mistakes is to carefully proofread, which I always do, reading out loud and to whomever is in the room.
In the end, I am now very thankful that, as a writer, my mother insisted that I take (backspace, t-o-o-k, ?, backspace, t-a-k-e) a typing class in high school. This helps me today with my keyboard speed so that I can move on to the editing portion of the typing process. However, on occasion, I switch the language of my keyboard to German, which instantly sends me back to those high school days where I had to learn to hint (backspace, u-n-t) and peck for letters. For this reason, I tend to write out what I want to write in German before I actually ‘type it up’. However, because Germany is a place which also embraces real-time typing, the autocorrect and word suggestion (highlight, Italic) software works equally well ;-)…
B-A-C-K-S-P-A-C-E! B-a backspace, caps lock, A-C-K-S-P-A-C-E!
Kathy Naumann, possessor of NATURALLY curly hair and the understanding that you can’t control everything!
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