old school typos

long ago, and far away. Ok – more than 50 years and in the middle of the country. Does that sound better than saying….”once upon a time” or “in a galaxy far, far away” or any of the other expressions that seem to lead you to the conclusion that you are about to hear a story. Perhaps a fairy tale, maybe a tall tail, or just a blearily remembered version of a long ago event.

But this is not a story, it is real and many of you may remember exactly the same thing. I am talking about the era before computers, before word procesasors. Back to the days when a terrific high school graduation present was a portable typewriter for anyone headed off to college. Obviously, when you had to write a paper, it was written long hand by one method or another, then typed ONCE. Preferably without error….

[and you wondered where “typo” came from? No, you didn’t because you remember typing and typewriters. You remember typing as an elective that could be taken in secondary school. And, for the lawyers in the group – you are more than familiar with those yellow legal pads and might even remember the days when lawyer wrote things out and there were actually secretaries that typed them for you.]

There was this funky stuff that came in a small bottle resembling a thickened nail polish. It was called white-out (or correction fluid). If you made a typing error, you carefully rolled the paper up, painted over the error, blew it dry, rolled it down and tried again. Most faculty accepted neither handwritten papers by 1968, nor once that suffered from a serious case of white measles. Several years later a type-over tape was developed. Even later, with the advent of typewriters with a double ribbon (one portion of which was for erasure).

I had one of those portable typewriters. Other than my undergrad thesis which was subject to a number of really strict formatting guidelines, I typed all my own papers.  Hitting return involved not my little finger but a hand/arm motion to move a lever which in turn actually retuned the whole roller carriage to the start point on the right side of the paper. (I imagine that the Mid-Eastern typewriters of their day worked in reverse for the left->right written languages.)

I have no clue as to what happened to that type writer. It must have been given away, lost, forgotten somewhere along my journey after the mid 1970s. I obtained my first computer in 1984 when we moved back to the US from my first Germany tour to attend grad school at John’s Hopkins.  I know it was gone by then.

And what started this whole chain of thought was actually not typewriters, but 3×5 cards. But I will save that for another day.

In other news, for the sixth morning in a row, George has actually had detectable platelets and is now producing white blood cells. None of it is at “going home levels” yes, but that looks like a possibility in the next 7-10 days if this stem cell transplant continues to take hold.

 

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About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
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19 Responses to old school typos

  1. Cat says:

    Oh yes, that all important first typewriter. I saved my pocket money for sooooo long to buy mine. I typed all my teachers’ college exams on that one. Then there was the golf ball one (remember those?) I typed my doctoral thesis on – with all the fuss of absolutely no errors or corrections allowed and the special golf ball that had to be inserted when you needed a mathematical symbol for something like “chi”. I had to borrow that typewriter – which meant sitting in the research unit at weekends typing it. We must compare notes at some point!
    Very pleased there is some positive news about George at last. May it continue!

    • Holly says:

      Golf Ball! Yes, thank you! I was trying to remember what it was called. In the US they were first available on the IBM Selectric….

  2. Ruth says:

    First, yay for detectable improvement!! Re typing, and all the advances along the way…I learned to type on an old Underwood, like nearly all of my generation. Correction tape ruled the day, as teaches did not want to see White Out used in the classroom. Fun fact: I completely skipped the electric typwriter and the Word Processor portion of the Road to better machines, and went directly from that old, non-portable Underwood to a computer. What a learning curve!!

    • Holly says:

      the only reason I ever was able to use an electric typewriter was that the U of MN library where I had one of my many part time jobs going through school had them. Me? I could hardly afford paper.

  3. Valerie says:

    Oh Holly, how you have made my own memories flood back!

    I was a legal secretary. After graduating from Secretarial College in the 60s with a Private Secretary’s Certificate, I worked in a couple of different firms before I left England to migrate to Australia. I, and my then English husband, lived in Brisbane for our first year here. I very easily found a job in a law firm where I was hired as a private secretary to one of the partners.

    This was in 1970 and automated typing was just being introduced. At this stage, though, I was still in front of a Golf Ball. The point of my message is that I clearly remember typing a Brief to Counsel – hard copy and five carbon copies. It was around five pages long. Needless to say the word judgement appeared many times. My boss (known to be a bit of a grouch who had difficulty keeping secretaries as a result, though I did not know this at the time) brought back the neatly prepared original and five carbon copies and told me I had spelled the word ‘judgement’ wrong. You are possibly thinking the same thing. However, just recently arrived from England, I was spelling the word which is the first occurrence in the Oxford English Dictionary! There is an alternate spelling without the central ‘e’.

    I told him so and stood up to him that I would next time spell it the way it was used in his firm as I was unaware. This changed our relationship! The other secretaries were horrified at what I did but it changed life in that office. A green 21yo standing up to a partner in a not insubstantial law firm (they are, of course always a notch above any other business) was something unheard of. But there you go.

    Sounds promising that George’s treatment may have been successful, this time. Fingers crossed.

    • Holly Doyne says:

      thank you so much! I had forgotten to mention carbon copies. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I saw carbon paper. And now, there are multiple languages in the world processors for you to chose your spelling from. The best ones let you decide between UK, US, OZ and CA. Not sure where South Africa would fit.

      George started in Legal Services where things were no where near as fancy.

  4. April says:

    This is funny,,,, because I was a terrible typist, hated it. Now there is that wonderful little thing called UNDO.
    Wasn’t there a Cat Stevens song about us not needing our arms or legs?

  5. Steven says:

    Great news!!!

  6. Anita says:

    Great news about George! I’m still praying for him to be replenished with all good things… including health.

  7. Donna says:

    ONCE? I only wish. I had A’s in all my subjects and typing ruined my grade point average. I got a C . My right hand was always ahead of my left hand, no matter how I tried. Thnank you, being an example. Typing paper became a nightmare, as my papers all had white measles, and I would stay up until three a.m. trying my best to get it perfect. I don’t recall ever achieving that goal. Naturally, computers became my best friend. My new nemesis ? Spell check auto correct.

    So glad to hear about George. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

    • Holly Doyne says:

      It wasn’t that I was that good at typing. It was that having someone else type papers cost about $1/page as I remember. Of course, the amount did include the paper but still. I was making min wage at $1.20/hour. I just didn’t have the money.

  8. Chere' says:

    We’re thinking of you both daily, lately with baited breath. Thank you for this good news!

    And I remember all the elements mentioned, including being wakened around mid ight for a student who needed her paper typed, by 8am of course. That alone was enough to take my B.S. in under 2 yrs., to end her bs….

    • Holly says:

      Oh, yes.

      • Chere' says:

        No magic, I only took typing my senior year because it was one semester, &though EVERYone
        knew I’d be great at it because of my piano skill. I knew that was no indication of same and in
        fact, it would be a detriment. Sure enough, I barely pulled out of a “C” hole to “A-” the week
        grades were final.

  9. Christine says:

    I am glad George is doing better ! Ich drück die Daumen dass es weiter aufwärts geht !

    About the typewriter ….. I hat an IBM, heavy and huge ! In those days I really loved it !

  10. Mitch says:

    Good news about George.

    And I still use 3×5 cards…and Ayden plays with my manual typewriter. So there!

  11. Alison says:

    YAY!!! Go GEORGE!!!

    And I fully understand what I assume is the impulse to want to just simply roll the card into the typewriter and be done with it. Richard’s old Selectric might still be around here somewhere.

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