The quick brown fox follows generations of typists
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
The keyboard went through several iterations, including one where letters were arranged alphabetically, but the frequency of use for some popular letters led to frequent jams so the QWERTY keyboard remains a staple. Lantzer remembered going to class with ink-stained hands after changing the ribbon on a typewriter in high school.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Thanks in part to companies like Freewrite and shows like Netflix’s “Wednesday,” which promote old-school typing on old-school typewriters, the touch keyboard is making a comeback.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Santina Murin, a 2011 Canon-McMillan graduate, learned the QWERTY keyboard layout at home, honed her skills in a high school typing class, and can now text on a touchscreen without looking at the keys – “if I’m in a good rhythm,” she said.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Santina Murin, who took typing courses at Canon-McMillan high school, said the fastest way for her to get words on a page is through old-school typing on a traditional keyboard. But, as a Millennial who grew up with typing and tech, she’s also adept at typing on touchscreens.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
The technology has changed over the decades, but the QWERTY keyboard and the necessity of typing has not.
Generations of Americans learned to type with “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” some to the click-clack cadence of a typewriter, others to the plastic pluck of computer keys.
“I can picture the class: It was in El Dorado High School, up in the Sierras in California,” said Arlene Lantzer, a Graysville native who completed high school out west before moving home to Greene County in 1980. “My typing class was over the boiler (room). It was just a unique room, big windows and, of course, the rows of typewriters when you walk in.”
Like so many of her generation, Lantzer learned to type on a manual typewriter in the early 1960s under the watchful eyes of a ruler-wielding instructor. A rap on the knuckles was enough to keep many students typing rhythmically, eyes straight ahead, instead of sneaking peeks at their keyboard.
“For one thing, you don’t look down at your fingers. I think he was using (the ruler) as more of an instruction tool. I just remember never wanting to get struck by it,” Lantzer laughed.
Lantzer also remembers the hum of a roomful of students type-typing away.
“I was always jamming the keys,” Lantzer laughed. “Then the bar that you had to hit at the end of every sentence, the bing, the bell would ring as you’re reaching up. I enjoyed the class, even though I didn’t excel in it. I might have got up to 50 words in a minute. That was the big to-do, getting into that 100-word-per-minute class.”
Lucy DeFrank, who graduated from Jefferson-Morgan High School in 1964, credits swift typing skills for her successful career first in the U.S. Army and then as a registered nurse at Mercy Hospital. She finished her career with lots of typing at a desk job with Mylan, she said.
“When electric machines were introduced, all of a sudden I could go so fast. (A peer) and I got so good that we won fancy pins from the state,” DeFrank said. “I had, like, 120 words a minute in shorthand and I don’t remember how many typing. I was offered, I think it was four different jobs at graduation because of my typing and shorthand. Typing was good to me. It’s helped me all my life, as I went up the corporate ladder as a nurse and then, eventually, you end up at a desk.”
Typing classes and the technology used to compose messages have evolved over the years, but the skill itself remains a valuable tool used in the personal and professional lives of everyone from Baby Boomers to Generation Alpha.
“Every kid is almost born with those skills now,” said Brandon Robinson, superintendent at Jefferson-Morgan School District. “I feel like that’s not even a skill that needs taught. Kids have this inherited skill, whether it’s playing with their parents’ phones. The younger grades, when they’re in kindergarten, first, second grades, they use iPads, touchpads. Every kid is almost born with those skills. Before, typing was everybody has to have their hands on the right keys. Now it’s, are you efficient? It’s not that intense. We don’t have a typing class by itself.”
Robinson said keyboard learning is integrated into elementary curriculum. The same rings true at Albert Gallatin Area School District, where typing skills are honed in grades K through 5.
“We don’t have a typing class, just like we don’t have a shorthand class,” said Lara Bezjak, assistant to the superintendent at the Albert Gallatin district. “Typing is competing for its appropriate place because kids are texting. We’re dealing with competing against the phones and magic thumbs. Do we still teach it? We do. We definitely focus on it from grades 2 through 5. That’s where we hit it the most and where we want those skills solidified, by fifth grade. We preach to kids the use of it, even for note taking – a lot of them do their notes on their iPad, they have their stylus. You can do those things. The necessity still exists to know the keyboard. That’s our belief.”
Students at Albert Gallatin spend one nine-week period each year learning typing skills. Many teachers use web apps like Nitro Type and Typing Club to teach and, through various games and skills tests online, students learn how to type on touch keyboards.
“By the end of grade five, using the various apps that are available, our students do get the introduction each year of different skills, different letters, different parts of the keyboard. By fifth grade, a large portion of them are able to do, by definition, typing without looking at the keyboard,” said Bezjak. “Every day is a challenge because of the technology.”
Technology was changing when Millennials entered school in the mid- to late-1990s, and their typing skills training was a hodgepodge of old-school, sit-up-straight-and-look-forward teaching and new-school typing games.
“In elementary school, we had computers in one room. Five of us could go to a computer,” said Renee Lani, who graduated from Canon-McMillan in 2010. “I remember with elementary school typing, you could pick the course you wanted to do. That’s very ’90s, early-2000s tech. It was more of a game: type, kill the aliens. In high school it was, here is an old-school typing book. (The teacher) would be like, open to this page and type everything 10 times, or something like that. I do remember we did the stare-at-the-screen, you-can’t-look-down thing. At the end of the day, it’s all getting used to where the keys are.”
Santina Murin, who graduated a year after Lani, learned where the keys were on a home computer years before taking typing in high school.
“I remember typing class. I was honestly pretty good at it because I spent a lot of time practicing already on home computers. I felt like I was already ready for it.”
Though she mastered keyboard typing, and then T9 touch-texting on flip phones and easily transitioned to texting on iPhones, it’s that organic keyboard that’s most natural for Murin.
“When I need to release an idea, if I have access to a computer, that’s always going to be my No. 1 because I can type the fastest that way,” said Murin, who used a combination of handwriting, laptop and iPhone Notes typing to write her first book, “Spilled Ink and Images,” in 2020. “You can metaphorically scribble an idea by typing fast. I still get more words out.”
Getting words out may sound different to Baby Boomers, Gen Z-ers or Millennials, but the process of putting words to paper or screen is surprisingly similar. Nearly every American uses the QWERTY keyboard layout – aptly named for the first six letters on the board – that’s been in use since American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes debuted his typing machine in 1874.
“The keyboard’s still laid out the same way,” said Lantzer.
And the memories of typing classes, no matter the era, feel similar, too.
“I remember writing ‘asdfjkl,’ which is the middle line on your typewriter. You did that like a bazillion times,” laughed Joanne Pecjak Malott, a 1979 graduate of Carmichaels Area Junior/Senior High. “You would do the alphabet because it moved you all around. I know there were phrases that she gave us just to type, the brown fox, something or other. You weren’t allowed to look at the keys.”
Malott enjoyed typing so much that she took the course for three years. Her passion for sending words from her fingertips to blank paper was forged one magical Christmas morning.
“There’s only a few things in my life that I remember getting for Christmas when I was a child. I remember getting the typewriter,” Malott said. “Kids today get iPhones; that would be my equivalent. I can remember it clearly: I was young, I was probably 10 or 12. I thought I was a big-wig when I got this Brother typewriter. It had a little plastic case that you snapped down, a carrying case. I thought I was really somebody. I typed everything. I remember sitting in my room, typing. I would do math problems and all that stuff with a typewriter. I typed letters to people. I remember buying ribbon for it so you could type, and paper. It was a really big deal.”
While the machines have changed, typing has never really gone out of style (typewriters are trending as home decor, and as functioning word processors, thanks to Netflix’s “Wednesday”) and it appears the skill will remain a big deal well into the next several decades.
“We do so many things digitally and we’re expected to be able to act quickly,” said Lani, a lawyer who serves as assistant general counsel for a trade association. “Figure out how to type quickly, because it’s a valuable skill. It makes you a more efficient worker. I’m not saying typing skills have to be oh, you can’t look down, make sure you’re always coming back to your center keys. If you have your own flow, even if you have to look down, it’s a necessary skill.”
“So many of the word processors today auto-correct stuff. If you’re generally accurate, it doesn’t matter if you have to look down at your hands when you’re typing. Word is going to change it for you,” she added. “I think the most effective thing in this day and age, assuming everyone’s not using voice to text, is just teaching how people can do it.”