Pitman's Commercial Typewriting

I found this book at a garage sale the other week and it's been a gread read. Having such a slow and useless scanner, it's far quicker (and also kinder to the falling-apart book) to photograph each page instead. This edition was published in 1939, however this was the fourth edition and it appears that a fair bit of content has been retained from earlier editions. Designed to get you through the tough competitive typing schools of the late 30's and early 40's, this book is one thorough volume. It is 245 pages thick and contains over 190 separate typing exercises as well as all sorts of other interesting bits and pieces about typewriting.

As much as I'd like to share the whole book here, I'm not keen on taking 245 separate photographs and have instead included some of the more interesting bits as well as a table of contents. This way, if anyone sees something of interest to them in the table of contents just let me know and I can share it later on. The pencil markings throughout show that it's owner was a diligent student. The name written on the top of the second page is Janice Smith, however I believe this may have been the second owner, as looking closely it appears a first name written in pencil has been rubbed out and written over...

Table of contents

Parts of the typewriter and care of the typewriter

After a review of the parts and care of typewriters and plenty on the correct posture, fingering, keyboard etc, the book gets into some exercises. Unsurprisingly the earlier exercises are pretty straight forward, if not rather time consuming, considering you have to type each sentence three or five times.

However once you get down towards the pointy end of the book, most of the exercises beyond Exercise #130 are downright fearsome. The book has reproduced different peoples' hand-writing and deliberate mark-ups which must be correctly deciphered and typed. This for me was the real penny-drop reality moment and served as an illustration of the stark reality of exactly what it must have been like to be a typist back in the day. See I used to smile whistfully at the black and white photographs of gorgeous young typists at their gorgeous old typewriters, rather taken with the old-timely romance of it all. But this book really served to give that impression of mine a kick in the guts. Check out some of the later exercises......

Yes, typewriters definitely played a huge role in the emancipation of women, bringing women into the workforce and a bunch of other good things that have helped bridge the gender divide and improve womens standing in society more generally. But the job itself? Long hours of mindlessly reproducing words written by someone else, day after day, week after week. words from one page to another. And not just copying clean text either, but turning your eyes square trying to decipher some idiot's barely legible, marked up, blotted scrawl at the same time! No simple delete procedure, those niggly little muscle aches I tend to get if I type on a typewriter for too long, RSI over the longer term... It must have been hell! This realisation dramatically increased the already considerable respect I had for these women (and the occasional man) of yester-year, but removed any romantic notion of me ever possibly enjoying it as a job myself. The book also covers the use of things one might also expect to come across as a typist...

Behold- the Flat Frame Diaphragm Duplicator!!

The book also includes this overview of the workings of a few typewriter makes common to workplaces around Australia at the time

Finally, on a blank page towards the end of the book, was a number of exam-prep notes written in the beautiful yet unfamiliar old-school cursive of my grandma's generation (for instance: "The main essentials of producing good typewriting are: 1. accuracy 2. neatness 3. speed". Unfortunately the pencil has faded such that it's hard enough to see under direct light and would never come up in a scan or photograph. Nonetheless, I've copied out a letter which was also written on this page. I believe this letter may also have been something required for the exam, but that each student was to write their own letter, thereby giving us a little glimpse into one 15 year old typist's aspirations:

Dear Sirs
     In reference to your advertisement in today's "Times" enquiring the services of a Junior Typist, I beg to apply for the position.
     I am fifteen years of age and for the past eighteen months was a student of a Commercial school. My courses included Bookkeeping, Shorthand and Typewriting, in all of which I am proficient. I have a Junior Typewriting Certificate and my speed on this subject is (illegible- 60?) words a minute shorthand (corrected) speed is eighty words a minute.
     Enclosed are copies of references as to character and ability from Mr J Carey, Public Accountant and Mr R Hunt, Commercial teacher.
     Thanking you in anticipation of a personal interview.
                                                    Yours respectfully



I do wish they had included their name!

Who wants to sell typewriters to the Russians?

Do you have a stack of wedges in the corner? Do you have a whole pile of plastic Brothers and Silver-Seikos sitting unused and unwanted? Here is your chance to donate them to a worthy cause and even raise some Rubles for your troubles! 

Concerned with data security and leaks of confidential information, the Russian government is buying up old typewriters to use in place of computers (refer to the link below). The typosphere needs to get Putin on the phone and fast!!

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1788362/Comment:-Kremlin-turns-back-to-typewriters-to-avoid-leaks

Revisiting the FuNk- Part 2

Instead I blew this chance completely and have ended up selling them in their different colours with uninspiring accurate descriptions. What has been interesting, is that nobody wants a silver typewriter. All typewriters were put on Gumtree one after the other. The black and green SJ’s attracted a huge amount of interest and both sold within a couple of days. One sold to a girl in her early 20's, who patiently listened as I excitedly demonstrated all the features to her, before I worked out she was only going to use it as a display. The black one went to a friend who wanted to display it at his work alongside some super old-school computers. The silver one on the other hand was put on Gumtree with the same description, same photo location and the same price, but hardly attracted any interest at all. It sold yesterday to the second of only two enquiries in almost three weeks. Go figure...? The silver one sold to a 30-someting chef-looking guy who was looking for a replacement "everyday typer" since his last one gave up the ghost. Before it sold I did however type up lyrics to a couple of Jonny Cash songs...

This example demonstrates what happens when you restore a dry ribbon with WD40 but don't give it long enough to dry and don't clean the grub out of the letters on the typeslugs first. In the 30 minutes between the seller phoning me up and arriving at the doorstep I changed the ribbon to a shop-bought ribbon and de-mucked the type slugs and gee it made a difference. Unfortunately the proof is at the house of the new owner.

 

P.S. Sadly I can take absolutely no credit for these "SJ's in the wild" photos aside from lugging the bastards outside. Props to the more artistically capable girlfriend.

Today's news

Air hose upgrade a blow to typewriter repairman

Many service stations around Brisbane are progressively upgrading their tyre inflators from the older style units with mechanical pressure gauges (left) to the newer digital pre-set pressure units (right).

While the older style tyre inflators are operated by attaching the nozzle to the tyre, checking the pressure on the dial located on the hose and inflating as necessary, the newer digital variety require the user to input the desired inflation pressure into the unit before attaching the nozzle onto the tyre. The machine then automatically pumps or deflates until the pre-set pressure is reached. The key difference between the two  is that the newer version will not blow air until it is attached to the tyre, whereas with the older style is user-operated by the press of a button and blows air on demand.

This progressive upgrade to the new digital pre-set units has proven a real blow to the local community of Brisbane typewriter repairmen. Especially those on the lower end of the socio-economic scale who cannot afford air compressors with which to blast the dust out of their recently purchased typewriters. The Impatient Press recently caught up with Graceville local Gus Higgins:

“I picked up a grubby old Royal 200 from a garage sale down the road and naturally hopped straight in the car to pop down to the local servo and blow out all the crap. But to my horror they’d upgraded the air hose.... Bugger me if I didn’t then have to drive two whole suburbs just to find a servo with the old style air hose. What do they expect you to do? Gather up enough puff to blow it out yourself? With this emphysema I’m lucky to blow out a candle!”

One of the main perpetrator of this upgrade is Airtec Corporation- a leading manufacturer of digital service station tyre inflators. 

Source: http://www.airtecaustralia.com.au/products/forecourt-inflators/

A statement on their website offers: “Airtec continues to conduct research and development to meet the needs of its customers and provide the most advanced, highest quality technology available” (reference above). However no mention is made anywhere about how their accurate and convenient new tyre-inflation technology may have unintended and disastrous consequences; leaving increasing numbers of ailing typewriter repairman like Gus collapsed on the garage floor for want of oxygen.

Airtec were unavailable for comment yesterday, as they were contacted well outside of business hours.

Now, a short word from our sponsor.....

Max Cullen- Lawn Enthusiast: I had been starting to notice some unsightly bald patches on my otherwise emerald green front lawn. I went down to the local garden centre looking for some cooch seeds, but the lady behind the counter pointed me in the direction of Remington SJ Lawn Repair. 

Doubtful of the results, I went and sprinkled this seed mix in liberal quantities on the affected patches of lawn and watered it in. Lo and behold, only three weeks later I’ve now grown three gorgeous SJ’s on my front lawn and the bald patches have all but vanished. Thanks Remington SJ Lawn Repair! 

 

Breaking news: writer actually receives payment for work

In other news, a thin parcel arrived at my front door the other day, postmarked from Pheonix Arizona. This was exciting not only because Pheonix is a long way away, but that what was inside was something that represented the first time I had received something material for a piece of my writing. A “payment” if you will. A while ago Ryan Adney put a call out on his blog inviting people to write a short essay on a topic pertinent to the typosphere. The writer of every essay received a very groovy poster. In the past I have received a school report card with an A on it for English. This was OK. More recently I received university funded air tickets to a faraway place when a piece of my writing got accepted into a conference. That was even better. But receiving material payment for your writing? C’est magnifique. Some may call receiving a poster for a short essay more of a reward than a payment, but for the purpose of inflating my ego like a new digital air hose to an underinflated car tyre, I am calling it a payment. Sure a poster won’t pay the bills in quite the same way a $10,000 cheque from Time Magazine will, but in many respects, receiving this hand-designed, hand-posted organic creation from a fellow typospharian is even cooler (provided one has other gainful employment, which I do). So many thanks to Ryan for this. Mine is currently taking pride of place above the “everything” table in the living room.

Revisiting the FuNk

A post of Robert's from back in April showcased a "totally dope" typewriter that he restored himself; a restoration that Cheech and Chong would have been incredibly proud of. So in the same vein as my earlier post on the funkiest video-game aliens of the 90's, inspired by Robert's psychedelic creation, and by Ton who recently re-visited the Polt, I decided it was time to re-visit the FuNk.

Robert Messenger collection

Before I started a blog myself, I enjoyed reading about different typosphere contributors poking fun at the propensity of certain typewriter sellers to use words such as FuNkY and aToMiC in order to sell their Brother/Kmart/Craftomatic/etc typewriters (quite sucessfully) for far more than they were worth. Part of me used to scoff and grumble, aghast at these silly buyers forking out the same amount of money for a plastic Kmart that would almost buy you an Oliver 5; flustered by these snake-oil salesmen with the temerity to con simple minded buyers out of their hard earned money with little more than creative words... But then another part of me, the ironing board cover salesman within me, thought: "Actually, no. Good on you!". Because a good transaction is not measured in dollars; rather it constitutes a transaction in which both parties walk away completely satisfied.

Some background first. As a holiday job during university, I used to sell top-of-the-line ironing board covers from one of those small stalls you'll find in the thoroughfares of most indoor shopping malls. Bear in mind this was pre-financial crisis, when people had money (or at least credit) and of a Saturday morning I would spruik these ironing board covers as well as other outrageously priced bourgeois laundry items. Admittedly the ironing board covers were pretty good. "Yes indeed, these last over twice as long as conventional covers (stroke the cover at this point). When one side finally starts showing wear, or if you happen to burn it accidently, just turn it over (demonstrate this) and you've got a brand new cover (shiny smile)". But these covers were $40 each and that was 8 years ago, but they still sold like hotcakes. As an instant-noodle-eating university student, this blew my mind. The stall was just down the escalator from a department store in which you could spend $9.50 and buy a (admittedly slightly inferior) cover which did basically the same thing, just without the personalised spiel and smartly dressed young salesman encouraging you to stroke it first.

So after rationalising it this way, I thought "good on all these creative typewriter sellers and their colourful language to match their colourful plastic typewriters!" At the end of the day eBay runs on keywords and maximising your target market is a good thing. It's not that I propose it's a good idea for everyone with anything from a Sholes Visible to a Yost 5 to a plastic Brother to start using this language, but if you've got a machine that justifies it, lets create some imaginative ebay ads!!

Now considering the particular success that the words fUnKy and aToMiC seem to be getting, I think let us first concentrate on these. In defining the terms, I reached straight for my Concise Oxford Dictionary; admittedly slightly long in the tooth these days. While the definition of "atomic" was as expected, the definition of "funk" surprised me slightly.

Thus it can be seen that if one is advertising something as "funky", one is actually advertising something that is incredibly scary or at least disreputable. I suppose this partly fact true, at least of the typical price offered.

So what is "funky" these days then? To investigate, I trawled some ebay listings while on the train to the city. Aside from typewriters- in my very limited sample size- it appears that "funky" is most often attributed to clothes, while "atomic" is more often attributed to furniture. The two words were quite regularly found together and when they were together, they were marginally more likely to be written in the fUnKy AtOmIc style. "vintage" and "retro" were also commonly associated with many things funky and atomic.

With more time, I'd love to keep an inventry of the many different Japanese typewriters sold on Australian ebay and attempt to work out the average marginal increase in sale price achieved by describing one as funky and/or atomic. If anyone has done this or has the time to do this, please let me know!! I would also welcome comments from overseas typospharians as to whether this same FuNkY aToMiC marketing is quite so prevalent outside of Australia?