Bisbee daily review., 1911-07-23

Every enc who uses a typewriter f7S experienced at time the sensa- tien of awe which arises upon be- holding a simple English word turned into a cryptic by means Of what appeared 10 be a head-in col dision between the brains of the operator and his, or her, fingers.
 A weird and wonderful spelling of even the smallest words is a daily occurrence and careful observation shows that nearly every operator twists the letters in the same way, when he twists them at all. thereby proving that the tendency Of all human minds is to work along the same lines in the combined manipu- lation of thought transmission and manual achievement.
 A prevalent fault IS the omission of a syllable. One author who dis carded the pen some time ago and writes his matter directly on the machine inevitably writes "coning, for instance, instead of -'conspiring, and quite as inevitably he has writ ten the two or three words following before he slowly realizes that the omission was made. He was interest ed to notice that a linotype oper ator on one of the New York dailies had made exactly the same error three times in a column report of a political speech, where coming ap- peared twice and "conacy' stood once in place of conspiracy.
 Two brains several hundred miles apart had worked in exauy the same manner in connection with the same combination of letters. In both these cases the thought cur rent showed greater speed than the muscle activity, but the linotype op- orator could not utilize the friendly india rubber eraser and correct his lapse, so he allowed the matter to go to print just as he had cast it.
 A more prevalent form Of this same fault, coming from the same cause, is the omission of the first letter or first syllable. The mind thinking the words is intent upon the sound of the word as spoken, not upon it's written aspect, and the fingers following tardily, try to catch up with the thought current by either skipping entirely all the letters preceding the accened sylla- ble or by dropping ou one or wo of them.
 .When the reverse of the above con- dition prevails and the fingers arc more rapid than the thoughts, let ters are doubled and trebled Occur will be written occur when the fingers are waiting for the mind to tell them what did occur that they may set it down. With the thought still bent on the doubling of the "c" the fingers double the fol- lowing letters as well during the momentary delay, while the repeti- ton of whole words shows also a tagging mentality and the peTipheries autonomous through nervous activity.
 This hardly ever happens with the linotype operator, for the req. son that he is following copy and his fingers do not have to wait for his mind to formulate the next word or to decide possibly which or two words is the preferable one 10 use. If does occur very frequently with writers who compose directly on the machine.
 The typist who cOmpOses as he ouerates has. a threefOld responsi blitv. for as the cells of creation re- suond to the command of the will while thoughts are conceived, shaped and transmitted. the fingers must be quick to transcribe and the vision sharp a swell for punctuation and mechanical detail
 The three controls must De niceiy balanced, for a laxiness in muscle control results in the omission oi letters. sometimes even Of "nois words. and spacing Is oDllfratsa one word being run into another. A Iaxness of visual control f-Auiti in period of being placed it tbe middle Of a sentence ih place "l a comma or semicolon. or or th' use Of a small letter instead or capital The period being me sni phatic stop is the one most oi'ei