The name of this blog is QWERTY-- because the image of individual typewriter keys working together to produce something great speaks to me of creativity in community. I also love the combination of sound and touch and sight that comes together when the type-writing is going well.

So I was pleased when Michael Ward forwarded the link to this article from the BBC News on the QWERTY keyboard.

Look down from the screen on which you are reading this, and wonder. Q-W-E-R-T-Y. How on earth did this pattern of letters get so locked into our language?

It seems so random. Patchily alphabetic, and in places wantonly arbitrary.

Yet it is also the ultimate software - hard-wired into tens of millions of brains and hundreds of millions of fingers around the world.

Want to read more? Here's the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10925456

In doubt about the premise of the article? Try typing QWERTY three times really fast. Hah!

tapping the keys of Warnie's typewriter

 When I visited C.S. Lewis's house, The Kilns, I was delighted to see that his brother's typewriter was on display. Warnie typed up manuscripts, wrote letters, and drafted his own books on that sturdy machine. Something very satisfying in the patterns and textures and sounds of an old machine. Something very humbling to touch lightly on the keys of history.