Silly USians

[cosmolinguist]

I don't think I've ever heard anyone laugh as much as I made Andrew laugh when, after we'd mentioned football somehow, I told him 'Just before I left, my dad asked me if Manchester has a soccer team.'

He didn't believe anyone could need to ask this, 'it's like asking if they make films in Los Angelos.' But that was only after about five minutes, when he could talk a bit again.

Yes, I realize that I just said 'film' and 'football' and am using only single quotes--I told you I'm getting slightly more British--but I think I know why the convention here is to use the single quote marks where Americans would use double ones: the keyboards here are different so the double quote isn't on the same key as the single quote. Some of it makes sense, like you're more likely to need a key with £ on it here than you are in the U.S., but I really have no idea why the @ and the " have swapped places.

Comments

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

Don't you say film in the US?

And yeah, the @ and " keys bothered me for a bit. But then they bothered me for even longer when I got back.

ps: you're going to hate the keyboards in France.

[cosmolinguist]

I've heard about keyboards in France--my friend and recent roommate studied there last year--but it's okay because I don't really plan to go to France, much less type things while I am there.

And no, we don't say 'film.' Only pretentious people say that. Most people say 'movie.'

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

Since when did you not count as a 'pretenious person'?

[kwakhed.livejournal.com]

manchester united were playing somewhere in the l.a. area last summer... it must've been a sunday because i went to my usual british pub in santa monica for karaoke that night...

i have never seen a livelier, more dedicated bunch of fans... at least 70% of the patrons were wearing manchester united jerseys... the songs for the team would be sung at random with everyone joining in, and i still can hear their "theme" in my head, which one of the guys took the mic to lead the pub in...

so i understand why andrew was amused... :-)

[ivana-duboise.livejournal.com]

Key placement is relative. Why are QWERTY keyboards used more often than DVORAK?

[karaksindru.livejournal.com]

Good question. The only answer I can think of is it's not in human nature to change, and QWERTY came first (in wide use, anyway)

I'll trust you know the origins of each layout, since you actually know what DVORAK is ..

[ivana-duboise.livejournal.com]

I know that QWERTY came along 'cause when typewriters were around people kept breaking them 'cause all the keys where in logical places -- i.e. alphabetically -- so some guy mixed all the keys up and that's where QWERTY came from.

DVORAK was invented by John C. Dvorak 'cause he thought it would be cool to have his own keyboard layout named after himself. I'm inspired now to come up with a HOWELL layout ... where the second 'l' is there simply for redundancy.

[karaksindru.livejournal.com]

typewriters breaking specifically because the heads of the keys would jam together, because people were typing too fast, so QWERTY was developed specifically to slow typers down. And, unless I'm mistaken, the DVORAK layout was developed to be more efficient and less stressful on the typers. Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome is far less common among DVORAK typists.

[dawgdays.livejournal.com]

QWERTY kept the frequently used type arms from hitting one another. (This will make sense if you've seen an old manual typewriter.) It also slowed down the typists so the type arms would jam less frequently.

August Dvorak developed the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard in the 1930s. (John Dvorak is a columnist for IT trade journals.) See the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard) for more info.

[comradexavier.livejournal.com]

Specifically, the QWERTY layout breaks up the most common letter-pairs between the two halves of the keyboard, because it's much easier to jam a mechanical typewriter if two keys are pressed on the same side. Since not all pairs can be so broken down, common pairs with both letters on one side are split between rows, giving the first letter's arm time to strike and swing clear while the typist reaches to another row.

As per ivana_duboise's original question, the main reason I haven't learned the Dvorak layout is that I end up using many keyboards on many computers, many of which aren't mine, and hand-coordination is difficult enough for me that it would be torturous to switch back and forth.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

It's spelled 'antagonised' :-p

[cosmolinguist]

I hate you. No really, I do.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

Also it's spelled 'Angeles', with an e