Now Is The Time For All Good Men

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

Now Is The Time For All Good Men

WRITING for women in this paper a fortnight ago* "Wheturangi" sang a song in praise of the typewriter. And quite properly, too. She was 1 moved to write of the pleasure it ■ gave her, after struggling with shorthand notes, to get down to , the mechanism of which she was mistress. To the onlookpr tlierc Is something fascinating in the work of a really competent typist. Her finger# move so ' quickly and accurately, and, like a finished pianist, «hc doesn't need to keep ] her eyes on the keyboard. Just as a pianist can look round and throw you a smile and a remark, so can the typist. And the beautifully fashioned machine work* fast and smoothly, in keeping with her skill. For those who laboriously }>ound out letters and article* on a typewriter with two, or at most, four fingers, . the spectacle arouses envy, admiration { arid despair. Practice and Perfection It would be interesting to know how many men who use the typewriter frequently, even among those to whom it is a regular tool of trade, have taken j the trouble to master it« keyboard on the most approved lines. Very few, I should say. There must be many who u*e the machine every day but are content to go on pounding on the two or < four-finger system, which is slow, nervewearing, and bad for the machine. I <

liave made several resolutions to learn the. professional method, but they have gone the way of my resolutions to read Hoswell's "Johnson" and Gibbon's "De-

eline and Fall," and to set all my papers in order. An immense amount of irritation would be prevented if we writers would only do this. Just when you've got a sentence right in your mind, the darned thing goes wrong on paper—a "T" for a "W"—or a "J" for a fullpoint. How dissipated a sentence looks when you close it like this}, and the thread of your thought is broken as you bang down the back-space key to correct. There are time* when some of us long to take the infernal machine and hurl it Ixxlily through the window; whereas, if we took the trouble to learn to type, our finger* would flow easily over the keys in delightful liquefaction of our idea*, and our ininds would be one grand sweet song of undisturbed creation. The wives of writers, especially those who work at home, ought to insist on their husbands learning. They might possibly say that if they did their "housework with as little efficiency, and as much nerve strain, they would be wrecks in no time. A Tragedy. It Is an indication of the spread of the typewriter's use and increase in the greater study of efficiency that there are fewer jokes than there were of the kind I have perpetrated above. But I have in one of my scrapbooks an effort of this kind that deserves to be remembered. "Wheturangi" mentions some of the test lines U9ed in typewriting schools. Did she omit "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party," or has this classic test

By Cyrano

been dropped? I hope not, for it is a great line, a Byronic line, worthy of being placed beside "The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the "fold." The dead but not forgotten "Westminster Gazette" set for one of its weekly competitions a poem on these words. Nearly all of the competitors missed the point. Here is the winning poem: THE TYPIST: A TRAGEDY. "Before using the typewriter, always make sure that the shift-key is in position."—Typewriting Manual. "Now Is the time for all good men to come to the aid of'the party." So muttered the Typirt, and typed again— Typed with energy, might, and main—Typed with petulance, typed with pain— Typed it with curses hearty. "Now Is the time when all good med." ("Oh, bother the d!" the Typist said And, feeling round for the n instead. Quite inadvertently touched the z) "To come to the. jid of the karty." "This time," said the Typist, "I'll get It RIGHT." Clickety-elick. with teeth clenched tight And eyes ablaze with a feverish light— Olick-cllckety-cliek went the Typist. "I don't see where any mistake can be; "X know I've touched every single key "And not one wrong," said the Typist in glee . . . But what—oh. what did the Typist see? :?8 5( 3)% 37;% !?! 2??, :%? £ ?;% /x 3, 3)% .5; ?! 3)% 7. !%6 I don't understand the reference to the shift-key, but it is an amusing trifle. I wonder liow much original work ie written straight on to a typewriter. To one accustomed to pen and pencil the task is apt to .be very difficult, and

indeed impossible. Brain and hand are •o accustomed to certain movements that the hand scratches out and writes in new words automatically; the process has_ become part of the routine of composition. Correcting on a typewriter necessitates the use of actions entirely different, and much slower in their effect. To writers accustomed to writing by hand the result is a jarring of the mental machinery. I am writing this article in pencil before typing it, and I find that up to the present I have made 40 corrections in my stride, so to speak, some of them involving the striking out of several words or the writing in of clauses. If such running corrections could be done on a typewriter, which I doubt, it would take me much longer, and fray my nerves to snapping point. Still, it is largely what one is used to. There must be many writers who are accustomed to work straight on to a machine. However, one has a doubt about poetry. Does any poet compose direct, without the preliminary of a rough draft in his own handwriting? In Clear .Form Yet even those who cannot think on the typewriter will cheerfully agree that it is a boon and a blessing to man. It produces clear manuscript, and the amount of labour it has saved editors and proof-readers is vast. The author who submits the manuscript of a book in script, takes, I should say, a considerable rtek. The editor of a newspaper is at the outset favourably disposed to consider a manuscript that is neatly typed with double spacing. He groans if he has to sub-edit one done with single spacing. Typing has enormously eased the reading of correspondence. It has had the effect, I should say, of making many people more careful about what they write. Try writing a "nasty" letter in hand-script and then in typescript, and see how much "nastier" and possibly more libellous it looks in print form. Type-script makes revision much easier; blemishes stand out. The effect on verse is particularly noticeable. Good verse looks all the better in type-script; bad verse all the worse. Print is an even better test, which is one reason why verse should be printed in carefully-

chosen type on good paper. An editor told me once he accepted a poem in manuscript, Kut had to reject it when it was set up—its quality had declined.

There remains the question of what letters should be written on the typewriter. Some people are sensitive on the point, and one has to be careful, but one may be divided between avoiding fcrmality and putting the recipient to the trouble of deciphering a vile hand. Yet the person to whom you write may not know how bad your writing is. Some matters leave no room for doubt; one would not, for example, propose marriage on the typewriter.