My text was I think misleading. I meant to say that accents were neither
here nor there in the arrangement of the keys. The French didn't choose
the AZERTY arrangement of the keyboard on the basis of using or not
using accents, but only because, presumably, it was the best solution to
the stuck hammer problem. At least, that is what I surmised.
And, unacquainted with day-to-day English life as most Americans, I
don't always know what was decided there and what here (in the US),
though I'm never arrogant enough to think that it's all been decided here.
(Actually, and despite living in Paris for 6 years, I'm something of an
Anglophile, but that's another story--check out my Inspector Morse site
at http://www.windofkeltia.com/morse and my Allo, Allo page at
http://www.windofkeltia.com/allo .)
Russ
A.J.Mechelynck wrote:
Russell Bateman wrote:
Of course, we all realize that the original difference between AZERTY
and QWERTY was the analyzed solutions to the problem of the
likelihood of two typewriter hammers striking the platen in close
enough succession that they would jam together and get stuck. Accents
arose as a distinction only because the French decided, based
presumably on a letter frequency analysis that AZERTY was the optimal
key arrangement based on letter frequency in French words while
Americans (I've never noticed what they type on in England) chose
QWERTY. It was always a puzzle to me in my childhood as to why the
keys weren't arranged in a more obvious fashion. It wasn't answered
until, as I was acquainted with the Dvorak key layout, it was
explained to me why typewriter keys had been arranged like that in
the first place. Of course, now, it's all just tradition--strong
enough that the Dvorak guys haven't carried the day and the chording
guys are just a lone voice in the wilderness.
I don't follow what you're saying about accents (typo?). The French
have used accented letters since (IIUC) before Gutenberg invented
printing. Yes, the various typewriter keyboards are supposed to be the
result of some ergology research, but I don't know the details. IIRC
the QWERTY keyboard was invented in England at a time when that was
the leading industrial country in the world. W is quite rare in French
while -ez is part of the universal second-person-plural ending of
verbs; but wouldn't the latter make one think that placing z next to e
(well, next on the keyboard, and separated by only S 3 X in the
machinery) would cause _more_ jamming in mechanical typewriters? The q
is safely away from the u...
Best regards,
Tony.
