Dec
12th

Computers, Comics, and Typing

Categories: Typing Practice, Typing Tips and Tricks |

Are you old enough to remember the original Charlie Brown comics drawn by Charles Schulz? If so you’ll be familiar with the sight of Snoopy sitting on the roof of his red doghouse, tapping away on a typewriter and hoping to write the next great American novel. Unfortunately, many of his manuscripts ended up using the same opening phrase: “It was a dark and stormy night …” Even so, you’ve got to give credit to a dog who taught himself to type!

Typing is so much a part of everyday life for people in the 21st century that a lot of the old jokes about typewriters don’t apply any more. Instead, they’ve been replaced by jokes about typing on computer keyboards, and especially about texting – we’re sure you’re familiar with the “Damn You, Autocorrect!” meme. (Note: Remember that it’s a good idea to turn off the autocorrect feature in your word processing program so that you don’t miss any mistyped words.) One comic artist in particular, Randall Munroe, regularly shows his characters spending a lot of time typing at computer keyboards, something that’s not surprising when you know that he’s also a computer coder whose interests include physics and robotics. In a recent “What If?” comic/column he talked about the different words and phrases that it’s possible to type using just the home row keys, or just the left hand, for example. His comic is proof that it’s possible to get creative and have fun with typing, especially if you challenge yourself to come up with practice phrases like “Alas, Dad had a glass salad.”

Here are some more comics we found that include references to keyboarding and typing:

“The Typing Tutor”
“Far Away”
“Jim is Typing”
“Touch-Typing”

So don’t stress out about your touch typing study program, and find things that make you laugh when you’re typing. Try practicing your typing skills by transcribing a routine by a stand-up comic, or use Typesy’s text import feature to bring in a funny story to use as the basis for your practice exercises. Relax and have fun! And don’t forget to share this post with your friends – or are you “too pretty to retweet?”


Check out Typesy Community and exchange ideas related to touch typing, keyboarding, learning, technology, and Typesy program itself. Login with your Typesy Account here: https://community.typesy.com/