It's All in the Wrist

I chuckled as the camera panned through the office scene during a recent episode of Upstairs Downstairs. The dialogue was serious as the characters acknowledged that war with Hitler's Germany was inevitable. But I was amused by the actress pretending to type, seen only briefly in passing.

In typical Digital Age fashion, her wrists were sharply bent while her fingers tickled the typewriter keys. Anyone who has ever used a manual typewriter knows you cannot hit the keys with sufficient force when the heels of the hands are resting on the desktop. It was a brief, anachronistic moment that I found amusing.

I learned to type on manual and electric typewriters and still hold my wrists and forearms in the alignment necessary to operate these vintage machines. I think it helped prevent repetitive motion problems.

But believe me, I never want to go back to the carriage return, white out, carbon paper, and realigning documents to make corrections. Worse yet - retyping entire letters after they were edited!

I love my compact iMac keyboard with keys that respond to the tap of a finger!