Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 8, 1993 TAG: 9304070253
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
COMPUTERS MAKE TYPING PAINFULLY EASY
Q: Why didn't the old manual typewriters cause repetitive stress injuries, the way new ones do?A: We are embarrassed to admit that the Why column is banged out on a computer keyboard with the assistance of a Daisy Wrist Rest, which helps protect our dainty little hands from that new malady everyone's talking about, carpal tunnel syndrome.
You ever notice that they're always inventing new diseases? And that people immediately line up to say that they've got a bad case of whatever that is? And that no one in the past seems to have suffered in such a way? Why is pain and whining such a growth industry?
Anyway, this typewriter thing is particularly weird, because people seem to be injuring their hands even though typing is easier than ever before. Here's the explanation: It is precisely because of the ease of typing that carpal tunnel syndrome occurs.
More precisely, in the old days you had to do a lot of things with your hands when you typed on a manual typewriter. In addition to the wild flailing of the fingers you also had to return the carriage with a motion as though you were slapping the typewriter across the cheek. At the end of each page youhad to pull out the paper, roll up another sheet and line everything up again. Plus you were always halting the whole show so that you could dab correction fluid on every other word, because you never learned to type in the first place.
A workout.
Now, with computers, the page never ends. You make corrections with keystrokes. You just tap away, tappety-tap till the cows come home, and meanwhile the tendons in your carpal tunnel in the wrist are slowly swelling and putting pressure on the nerve in there, so that you start getting pins-and-needles feelings in your digits, numbness, nerve damage and finally, and this part we're just presuming, death.
Though even that is better than dealing with correction fluid.
Q: Why do some words have two radically different meanings? Why does "box" mean both a pugilistic act and a rectangular container?
A: If you have small children you probably feel guilty sometimes about bringing them into a world that has so many wars, ancient hatreds, incurable diseases and English-language homonyms.
Let's say you're reading "One Fish, Two Fish" by Dr. Seuss, and you come across the part where the kids play Ring the Gack. How do you explain that "ring," as in a circular object that can be thrown on the Gack's antlers, is not the same thing as the noise that the telephone makes?
And when the little boy in the book boxes with the Gox, how do you explain that "box" in this case is not related to the toy "box"?
(Answer: Plop child in front of "Sesame Street," and let those folks handle it.)
The container "box" comes from the Greek "puxis," which also refers to a type of tree. In Latin the word became "buxis," and by the time it reached Middle English it was simply "box," the same spelling and pronunciation as the word meaning to slap. This convergence was probably due to nothing other than a mangling of the foreign word, from "buxis" to "box." This has always happened, which is why "Detroit" is pronounced the way it is rather than in the Frenchy way that makes it sound as though you're trying to spit out your dinner.
Once the convergence takes place, it's hard to pry the two words apart, because spelling is far more rigid than meaning and there's no way to pronounce one "box" differently from another "box."
"If our spelling system was less fixed than it is, we wouldn't have so many of these homonyms," says David Jost, senior lexicographer at the American Heritage Dictionary.
We forgot to ask him to look up "Gack" and "Gox."
Washington Post Writers Group
Joel Achenbach writes for the Style section of The Washington Post.\