QWERTY....?

What in the world is QWERTY? If you know, you know. If you don’t, you will. What can I say? I am fascinated by the obvious, inspired by the obscure, and intrigued by the mundane. For some reason, topics or subjects rarely given a second thought by others drive me to want to know more. I guess you could say I find the ordinary intriguing.    

I am not sure if this oddity can be attributed to a left brain, right brain trait, but I’m going with that explanation. In fact, some of my friends have jokingly suggested I “get a life”, while others shake their heads and sigh, “there is something seriously wrong with you!” (Okay, maybe they are not joking, and maybe they aren’t really friends, but I digress.) I fully understand where they are coming from, and I am not arguing with the validity of those statements; I am simply stating facts.

Case in point. Last week, a rare break in call volume provided me a moment of solitude. Surveying the room around me, I couldn’t help but silently snicker at the view.  Cube after cube, every rep facing the same bland wall, sounds of faint, rhythmic tapping sounds from keyboards, and robotic voices masked by white noise, I envisioned a Stepford Wives sequel of sorts. (Again, I digress.) I then glanced down at my keyboard, and there it was, an enigma of profound interest. Staring at the scattered mix of numbers and letters, I wondered about the origin of the keyboard. (I know right? The “get a life” comment makes a little more sense now, doesn’t it?) Anyway, the more I stared at the keyboard, the more I questioned, why? I mean really, who came up with the idea to jumble the keys? What was the reasoning; was there a point? My thought process was soon interrupted by the all too familiar beep in my headphones, reality resumed, and my daydream moment was over. Still, I couldn’t get the keyboard saga out of my mind.

The following Saturday, still curious about the reasoning behind the design of the keyboard, I set out to find the answer. Surprisingly, I discovered I wasn’t the only person who had thought about this scenario, or there would not have been so much research material to explore. I was fascinated by the amount of information there was on this subject. 

Here is the gist of it. Christopher Sholes invented the keyboard design in the 1870’s as a means to prevent keys from jamming, increase typing (wpm) speeds, and prevent errors. Brace yourself, here is the fun part. QWERTY happens to be the first six keys on the top letter row of a keyboard and is the name of the keyboard design. (Admit it, you looked at the keyboard, didn’t you?) Fun fact. To this day, the QWERTY keyboard remains the most widely used layout.  So, there you have it. Information you will probably never need or use, but nevertheless, you will never forget it either. You’re welcome.

Credit QWERTY - Wikipedia