Talking of typewriters I saw this yesterday, about an episode I'd forgotten.
"For those of you to remember, ChicagoBoyz reminds us that what finally demonstrated that the memo supposedly destroying George Bush's reputation in the Air National Guard was created in 1974 with Microsoft Word using Times New Roman. And the left is still defending the accuracy of this time travel project."
dearieme - interesting, the number of people who are aware of the differences must be fairly low and decreasing all the time. I remember a chap who sold an early word processor package for the Commodore PET saying that word processors could make documents look odd to people still familiar with typed text.
I used to have a beauty at university back in the 1970s. Really big, felt like a cast-iron frame, with little bevelled glass windows in the sides. It sat on a pad of thick felt as it made a thunderous racket. 1940s vintage, maybe? I probably picked it up for next to nothing. I wish I still had it.
I remember when word-processors came out, some creative writers said that they had a bad effect on their writing. Being able to make later changes and cut and paste text meant that they got a bit sloppier and their writing became less precise and "baggier". I guess you put a lot more thought into the initial stages of composition when any mistakes involve ripping the paper out and starting again, or faffing about with tipp-ex.
Sam - I had an old Olympia, 1930s I think, where the letter 'o' always left a little hole in the paper. Later I acquired a better, Japanese one. I think it did make me more careful, but even minor errors were a pain to correct and it didn't seem to stop me making them.
Word processing does change writing style. Too easy to cut and paste. Often leaving tell-tale signs in the finished piece; repeated paragraphs, incomplete phrases…. Not to mention auto-correct inserting the wrong word, which is undetected because a correct spelling goes unmarked.
djc - yes, it's a problem with blogging too. As you say, cut and paste and edits do leave traces and the piece has to be read carefully to pick them up, but then there is a tendency for the eye to skip over errors through already knowing what the text is supposed to say. Incorrect words probably put there by auto-correct are not uncommon in the media.
6 comments:
Talking of typewriters I saw this yesterday, about an episode I'd forgotten.
"For those of you to remember, ChicagoBoyz reminds us that what finally demonstrated that the memo supposedly destroying George Bush's reputation in the Air National Guard was created in 1974 with Microsoft Word using Times New Roman. And the left is still defending the accuracy of this time travel project."
From Clayton Cramer's blog.
dearieme - interesting, the number of people who are aware of the differences must be fairly low and decreasing all the time. I remember a chap who sold an early word processor package for the Commodore PET saying that word processors could make documents look odd to people still familiar with typed text.
I used to have a beauty at university back in the 1970s. Really big, felt like a cast-iron frame, with little bevelled glass windows in the sides. It sat on a pad of thick felt as it made a thunderous racket. 1940s vintage, maybe? I probably picked it up for next to nothing. I wish I still had it.
I remember when word-processors came out, some creative writers said that they had a bad effect on their writing. Being able to make later changes and cut and paste text meant that they got a bit sloppier and their writing became less precise and "baggier". I guess you put a lot more thought into the initial stages of composition when any mistakes involve ripping the paper out and starting again, or faffing about with tipp-ex.
Sam - I had an old Olympia, 1930s I think, where the letter 'o' always left a little hole in the paper. Later I acquired a better, Japanese one. I think it did make me more careful, but even minor errors were a pain to correct and it didn't seem to stop me making them.
Word processing does change writing style. Too easy to cut and paste. Often leaving tell-tale signs in the finished piece; repeated paragraphs, incomplete phrases…. Not to mention auto-correct inserting the wrong word, which is undetected because a correct spelling goes unmarked.
djc - yes, it's a problem with blogging too. As you say, cut and paste and edits do leave traces and the piece has to be read carefully to pick them up, but then there is a tendency for the eye to skip over errors through already knowing what the text is supposed to say. Incorrect words probably put there by auto-correct are not uncommon in the media.
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