I’ve heard “snappy” applied to the best typewriters, the worst typewriters, and nearly everything in between. While almost everyone uses it with a positive connotation, the noise of the depth and breadth of machines it’s used to describe has drowned out any signal of actual meaning for me.
I hear someone say that a “typewriter is snappy”, and it translates to me as the tautology that a “typewriter is typewriter-y”. Yet I know the difference between the action of an Olympia SM3 versus an Olivetti Lettera 32 are as markedly different from each other as a Remington Quiet-Riter is from an Olympia SG1. Even a freshly cleaned, oiled, and properly adjusted Royal KMG with a brand new platen is dramatically different from that same machine just out of a barn after 77 years of dust collection, cobweb accumulation, and abject neglect. Yet I know people who would call both of them snappy without a moment’s hesitation.
I get the feeling that many are attempting to use the word to describe the “action of the machine” rather than just the noise it makes or the “voice” it presents. One might say some sound flat and tin-y while others are solid and sonorous. One might describe a typewriter with a new platen as having the velvety sweetness of a romantic crooner. These words all get at something. They strive to touch the soul of the machine and how it functions. Snappy as an adjective to describe a typewriter has lost touch with the soul of typewriters. We need some new words!
What other words could we use to better describe the “action” of a typewriter’s key levers and typebar assemblies? Words that give more depth and actual meaning to the joy of typing on the wealth of machines that one might run across in the wild?
If you were to put these new words onto the perpendicular axes of speed (fast versus slow) and a measure like key travel distance (deep versus shallow) where would they sit? Are there other axes we should consider plotting the “soul of a typewriter” on to better situate descriptive words of typewriters, their condition, qualities, and how well they work? Maybe we include an axis of “press” from soft to firm? How might we verbally quantify the touch and feel of the keys and how they respond to the variety of typists? How might we better capture the engineering of a machine and how well it has been maintained? There are miles of distance between the performance of a Hermes 3000 and the typewriter-like simulacra known as the Maplefield Classic Portable Manual Typewriter. We need some words to help convey this to someone who lacks the personal experience.
I’ve got some ideas already, but I thought it would be more interesting to put the idea out to the creativity of the community to see how far we might expand the universe of the idea first.
What better words could we be using to expand the experience of the space?