TO-DAY I am MAKing aN inno6£vation. as you mayalready have guessed, I
am typlng this article myself Zz½lnstead of writing it, The idea is to
save time and exvBKpense, also to demonstyap demonBTrike= =damn, to
demonstratO that I can type /ust as well as any blessed girl 1f I give
my mInd to iT”” Typlng while you compose is really extraoraordinarrily
easy, though composing whilr you typE is more difficut. I rather think
my typing style is going to be different froM my u6sual style, but
Idaresay noone will mind that much. looking back i see that we made
rather a hash of that awfuul wurd extraorordinnaryk? in the middle
of a woRd like thaton N-e gets quite lost? 2hy do I keep putting
questionmarks instead of fulstopSI wonder. Now you see i have put a
fulllstop instead Of a question mark it nevvvver reins but it yours.
the typewriter to me has always been a mustery£? and even now that
I have gained a perfect mastery over the machine in gront of me i
have npt th3 faintest idea hoW it workss% &or instance why does the
thingonthetop the klnd of overhead Wailway arrangement move along one
pace afterr every word; I haVe exam aaa ined the mechanism from all
points of view but there seeems to be noreason atall whyit shouould do
t£is . damn that £, it keeps butting in: it is Just lik real life. then
there are all kinds oF attractive devisesand levers andbuttons of which
is amanvel in itself, and does somethI5g useful without lettin on how
it does iT.
Forinstance on this machinE which is Ami/et a mijge7 imean a
mi/dgt,made of alumium,, and very light sothat you caN CARRY it about
on your £olidays (there is that £ again) and typeout your poems onthe
Moon immmmediately, and there is onely one lot of keys for capITals and
ordinay latters; when you want todoa Capital you press down a special
key marked cap i mean CAP with the lefft hand and yo7 press down the
letter withthe other, like that abcd, no, ABCDEFG . how jolly that
looks . as a mattr of fact th is takes a little gettingintoas all the
letters on the keys are printed incapitals so now and then one forgets
topress downthe SPecial capit al key. not often, though. on the other
hand onceone £as got it down and has written anice nam e in capitals
like LLOYdgeORGE IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO REmemBER TO PUT IT DOWN AGAIN
ANDTHE N YOU GET THIS SORT OF THING WHICH SPOILS THE LOOOK OF THE HOLE
PAGE . or els insted of preSSing down the key marked CAP onepresses
down the key m arked FIG and then instead of LLOYDGEORGE you find that
you have written ½½96%:394:3. this is very dissheartening and £t is no
wonder that typists are sooften sououred in ther youth.
Apart fromthat though the key marked FIG is rather fun , since you can
rite such amusing things withit, things like % and @ and dear old &
not to mention = and ¼ and ¾ and ! ! ! i find that inones ordinarry (i
never get that word right) cor orresponden£c one doesnt use expressions
like @@ and %%% nearly enough. typewriting gives you a new ideaof
possibilities o fthe engli£h language; thE more i look at % the more
beautiful it seems to Be: and like the simple flowers of england itis
per£aps most beauti£ul when seeen in the masss, Look atit
% % % % % % % % % % % %
% % % % % % % % % % % %
% % % % % % % % % % % %
% % % % % % % % % % % %
% % % % % % % % % % % %
how would thatdo for a BAThrooM wallpaper? it could be produced verery
cheaply and itcould be calld the CHERRYdesigN damn, imeant to put
all that in capitals. iam afraid this articleis spoilt now but butt
bUt curse . But perhaps the most excitingthing a£out this mac£ine is
that you can by pressing alittle switch suddenly writein redor green
instead of in black; I donvt understanh how £t is done butit is very
jollY? busisisness men us e the device a gre t deal wen writing to
their membersof PARLIAment, in order to emphasasise the pointin wich
the in£ustice is worSe than anyone elses in£ustice . wen they come
to WE ARE RUINED they burst out into red and wen they come to WE w
WOULD remIND YOU tHAT ATtHE LAST E£ECTION yoU UNDERTOOk they burst
into GReeN. thei r typists must enjoy doing those letters. with this
arrang ment of corse one coul d do allkinds of capital wallpapers. for
lnstance wat about a scheme of red £’s and black %’s and gReen &’s?
this sort of thing
£ % £ % £ % £ % £ %
& £ & £ & £ & £ & £
£ % £ % £ % £ % £ %
& £ & £ & £ & £ & £
Manya poor man would be glad to £ave that in his parLour ratherthan
wat he has got now. of corse, you wont be ab?e to apreciate the fulll
bauty of the design since i underst and that the retched paper which
is going to print this has no redink and no green inq either; so you
must £ust immagine that the £’s are red and the &’s are green. it is
extroarordinarry (wat a t errible-word!!!) how backward in MAny waYs
these up-todate papers are wwww¼¼¼¼¼¼½=¾ now how did that happen i wond
er; i was experimenting with the BACK SPACE key; if that is wat it is
for i dont thinq i shall use it again. iI wonder if i am impriving at
this½ sometimes i thinq i am and so metimes i thinq iam not. we have
not had so many £’s lately but i notice that theere have been one or
two misplaced q’s & icannot remember to write i in capital s there it
goes again.
O curse the typewriter itself is not wolly giltless ½ike all mac&ines
it has amind of it sown and is of like passsions with ourselves. i
could put that into greek if only the machine was not so hopelessly
MOdern. it’s chief failing is that it cannot write m’sdecently and
instead of h it will keep putting that confounded £. as amatter of
fact ithas been doing m’s rather better today butthat is only its
cusssedusssedness and because i have been opening my shoul ders wenever
we have come to an m; or should it be A m? who can tell; little
peculiuliarities like making indifferent m’s are very important & w£en
one is bying a typewriter one s£ould make careful enquiries about
themc; because it is things of that sort wich so often give criminals
away. there is notHing a detective likes so much as a type riter with
an idiosxz an idioynq damit an idiotyncrasy. for instance if i commit a
murder i s£ould not thinq of writing a litter about it with this of all
typewriters becusa because that fool ofa £ would give me away at once I
daresay scotland Yard have got specimens of my trypewriting locked up
in some pigeon-hole allready. if they £avent they ought to; it ought to
be part of my dosossier.
i thing the place of the hypewriter in ART is inshufficiently
apreciated. Modern art i understand is chiefly sumbolical expression
and straigt lines. a typwriter can do strait lines with the under
lining mark) and there are few more atractive symbols thaN the symbols
i have used in this articel; i merely thro out the sugestion
I dont tink i shal do many more articles like this it is tooo much like
work? but I am glad I have got out of that £ habit;