"I have worn a watch for so long now that its neither part of my dress or a mere time keeper, it is a part of ME. I feel very odd if I dont have the old Timex strapped on. Plus, Its easier just to glance down and check the time instead of having…"
The Typewriter
Gentlemen,
This week i had locked myself up at my parents house without a computer, to prevent myself from being distracted from my studies. Obviously, this worked great and led to a new discovery: The typewriter.
One of the things my grandmother left behind after moving to an 'old folks home' was her beast of a typewriter, a Remington Rand capable of handling A3-size paper. As my handwriting is downright juvenile (i recently compared it two the handwriting of a two-year-old who had a dramatic blender incident) and i wanted to write some letters and work on my books, I thought i'd take it out.
After some oil and elbow-grease i finally got it to work, and i started hacking away. I was immediately surprised at how manly and therapeutic it is to write on the thing. It takes much more effort and consistency to write on it than on a computer, but the best thing is that you can't erase anything. If you make a mistake, you'll have to do everything over, causing you to really THINK before you ACT, which I consider a very manly trait.
As the 'grinning colossus' weighs 30 pounds and I already had a full pack, I didn't want to hump it all the way to the station. Upon coming home, I immediately started searching for a smaller type Remington Rand, and found one for about 20 dollars. I'm picking it up on Monday, so I can start my diary, and go on writing my books.
I was wondering what your views are on typewriters, the manliness of it, and especially if any of you have an idea whether it's good or not against Repetitive Stress Injury.
Hope to hear from you!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kilted Bear on
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Sounds like you are hooked. I have been debating about setting mine back up. Sort of like when I use my fountain pen.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Weitzel on -
I think that typewriters should come back as an older typewriter will require a person to truly think about what they are writing before they type it out. Otherwise, if it is an older typewriter with no "correction" ribbon, you will have to start over or make corrections by hand.
I think another manly habit we need to get back into is writing letters, not emails but, genuine letters, using a fountain pen.
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Permalink Reply by The Dutch Dastard on -
Good point, even though it's really hard to justify these days, as you'd mostly do it with people really really really far away. When my ex-gf was in Australia for half a year, we used to write each other 'letter'-like worddocs, even keeping to etiquette. They used to be at least two pages long, and usually we wrote daily or twice daily......we were disgustingly in love back then....
I do have rather fond memories of real letters though. My dad and his best friend wrote each other a lot through the years (especially as we lived abroad a lot). As the guy is my second dad, second brother, and one of my best friends (generally family, and I see his family as my family), we get together often enough, and once a year to ski.
One of our favorite evenings is when we get together, and read the letters to each other. So much fun to read out loud what your dad and his best friend were up to in university.
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Permalink Reply by João Bernardo de Sousa e Silva on -
Totally agree with you!
I've been trying to bring it back by writing letters to a friend of mine from Germany that I met while studying abroad and it seems to be working pretty well. For me the whole process of the letter writing is a wonderful experience that I think the next generations will not be able to experience, manly because the internet made communication too easy.
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Permalink Reply by Native Son on
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The old manual typewriters will prevent Repetitive Stress Injuries. That's because they require a series of wholly different hand/wrist movements to use them.
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Permalink Reply by The Original Cody on -
don't like 'em.... I enjoy easily editing my papers... Plus changing my font and double spacing would be annoying.
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Permalink Reply by Native Son on
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"...changing my font...would be annoying."
Yes. Especially since you can't change the font on an old-style manual typewriter. That's something you do with IBM Selectrics or the Olivetti style machines that used Daisy Wheels...you know, 1970's era word processors.
The Dastard was talking about old fashioned manual office typewriters...big, heavy, and not designed to "gild the lily" with fancy typography or multiple fonts.
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Permalink Reply by The Original Cody on
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don't care...
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Permalink Reply by Sloan on -
Nice discovery.
I know a few writers that have gone that route. They pick up the portables so they can write while camping etc.
They also say it has improved their copy editing because they have to be so thorough.
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Permalink Reply by Buffalo Bill on -
I'm a poet and I love using my old smith-corona galaxie to type out first drafts. Besides the obvious benefit of being distraction-free, it allows me to push through a first draft with minimal self-correction. Unlike yourself, who view the inability to correct mistakes as a slowing force, it seems to speed me up. I make plenty of typographical errors when I'm pounding out the first drafts of my poems. I still write most of my work by hand and on the computer, but the typewriter is a whole different animal and really adds a different element to the writing experience.
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Permalink Reply by João Bernardo de Sousa e Silva on
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I've just bought a typewriter about a month or so and I find that it helps me a lot, as a writer, to overcome writer's block and to speed up the creative process because I just don't have all the distractions you have on a computer and I have to be very careful about spelling mistakes so it helps me concentrate. I really enjoy the whole experience
Hope you enjoy your typewriter!
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