I was listening to the radio on the way into work this morning. They were talking about the new American Girl movie that they are making. Apparently the movie is set in the 1930's and the actress was expected to type on a typwriter. Her first comment was how do you delete. I couldn't help but laugh. My, how times have changed.

When I started taking typing lessons we only had manual typewriters. By the time I was a senior and taking my second year of typing we actually had some electric typewriters. We had enough so that each student could type on them one week out of the semester. It was quite funny watching us try to adjust to the electric typewriters after being on a manual and then the readjustment at the end of the week.

I was not the fastest typist in the class but I do remember the thrill I had when I broke 100 words a minute without any mistakes. Back then you got 5 words taken off your score for every typo. That definitely made you watch out for mistakes.

Accurate typing was really stressed back then. A thesis and many reports were expected to be typed without any mistakes or corrections. That meant that you could not erase or use correction fluid on any typos. I have experienced that feeling of frustration after making a mistake towards the end of the page and having to take it out and start all over again. Or that feeling of satisfaction when you finsihed and knew that it was perfect.

Today my speed is gone. Thanks to delete, backspace and copy and paste I have no problem getting those reports out. Thanks to the computer my work is checked for misspelling and correct grammar. The thesaurus will even help me when I forget the word I'm looking for. Yes, times have definitely changed.