by Charles Miller

Apparently, the term "lost art" dates back to at least the early 1700s and has been used to describe various skills that have atrophied then been forgotten. This week I am contemplating a lost art occurring in the 21st century that I have chosen to blame on the advent of the smart phone.

It was more than six decades ago that I took a summer school course during which I learned a new skill, and some magic. The skill was learning how to type on a manual typewriter, and the magic was that even though there were only 44 keys on the keyboard of that old typewriter, there was a magic that allowed it to produce 88 different characters. The magic was called the [Shift] key.

The teacher explained how the keyboard might appear to have only lowercase letters, but that by holding down on the [Shift] key it was possible to type an uppercase letter. All the students quickly learned that if the [Shift] key were pressed but released before typing a letter, it did not work; it still produced a lowercase letter. One had to hold down the [Shift] key and continue holding it down while typing a letter, and only then would an uppercase letter be typed. One student complained that "Now ALL the letters I type are uppercase!" Somewhat exasperated, the teacher had to explain "Let go of the [Shift] key!" Eventually everyone in the class got the hang of typing uppercase letters by holding down the [Shift] key, continuing to hold down the [Shift] key while typing a letter, and not releasing the [Shift] key until after an uppercase letter was typed on the paper.

Much to my frequent annoyance, this is a skill that seems to have been lost to many people today, and I blame it on the advent of the smart phone. Smart phones and tablets have on-screen keyboards for typing, and their layout does include a [Shift] key, but it does not work as described in the last paragraph.

The [Shift] key may be referred to as a "dead" key, because by itself it usually does nothing. Try pressing the [Shift] key on an old typewriter, on a computer, or a smart phone, and you can expect no character to be produced. The dead [Shift] key needs to be used in conjunction with some other key before it does anything.

Computers have led to the advent of several different dead keys. In addition to the [Shift] key, computer keyboards can include other dead keys including [Control], [Alternate], and [Windows] and on Mac keyboards [Command] and [Option]. Many laptops have a mysterious [Fn] key. All of these are technically "dead" keys that by themselves do little or nothing. The dead keys are used most often in combination with other keys.

For example, holding the [Shift] key while pressing the letter p magically creates an uppercase P. Holding the [Control] or the [Command] key while pressing the letter p often opens the Printer window. This is called a "combination key" and there are dozens of such combinations that you can use on your computer.

All you need to do is to remember the lost art detailed in the third paragraph above. Hold down the dead key, and continue holding down on the dead key while you press the second key; then let go of both keys making sure you do not let go of the dead key before you press the second key, and that you do not continue to hold down the dead key after you press the second key.

After you have relearned the lost art of using the [Shift] key, you can then discover there is more to your computer keyboard than you ever knew existed. As mentioned earlier, old manual typewriters usually had 44 keys that could be used to create 88 different characters. Your computer keyboard still has the basic layout of about 44 alphanumeric keys, but mastering the art of using dead keys can allow you to create 500+ different characters, including diacritics and other special characters such as € ½ ¥ ♪ æ § & ¢ that do not appear on the keyboard. Dead keys are also used for controlling your printer, screen brightness, font sizes, sound volume, and much more… but trying to explain that in further detail is best left to another day.<

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Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant with decades of IT experience and a Texan with a lifetime love for Mexico. The opinions expressed are his own. He may be contacted at 415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.

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