![]() ![]() But Barbara Blackburn sabotaged the contest.ĭavid Letterman: You know. HZ: To show off her world record-breaking achievement, in 1985 Barbara was invited onto the David Letterman show, to race against the fastest typist on Letterman show staff - also called Barbara. MARTIN AUSTWICK: 150 words per minute, for 50 minutes HZ: And in endurance tests she could type 150wpm for 50 minutes. And Barbara was a champion of both: During minute-long speed tests, Barbara could type up to 170 wpm on typewriter or, on a computer, 212 words per minute. There are two kinds of typing contests: sprints, and marathons. The Guinness world record for typing speed was held by the late Barbara Blackburn. Guinness adjudicators are not standing by as people compete on. HZ: That’s not an official record, to be fair. HZ: Sorry: 122 is impressive in this room but I once went onto the website, and you can see this guy, Ern, is on 291 words per minute. Do I hear 85? 90? Do we have any over 100? What have you got? HZ: Yeah, it’s a good speed when you go to a temping agency and they’re like, “Brilliant, we can get you some minimum wage jobs!” But I bet some of you can type faster. Recorded live at the Hot Docs podcast festival in Toronto in November 2018, performed by me and Martin Austwick, this is a story of champions. ![]() They deliver worldwide, so head to .uk and remember to use the discount code ALL20 to get 20% off. There are plenty more word-based games available from Oxford Games, such as Ex Libris and Anagram, and myriad other games - they invented Jenga! You can shop the full range at .uk, AND you Allusionist listeners can get a 20% discount on your order with the code ALL20. I enjoy a game that rewards good bluffing skills, which I have (or do I? How will you ever know?) AND I also learned a lot, because Flummoxed features words from 120 different languages, I’d never even heard of some of the languages. This episode is sponsored by our fine friends at Oxford Games, who make lots of extremely fun games that you can play with all the family, you can give them as gifts, you can break them out on a random weeknight with your friends and laugh till you hurt, as I did last night: had a very lively game of Flummoxed, in which you write a definition for a word that is convincing enough that your rival players think it’s real. This is the Allusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, leave a flaming paper bag full of language on your doorstep.Ĭoming up in today’s show are feats of speed and endurance, albeit ones which don’t require getting up out of a chair. That’s the date that the first typewriter patent was granted in 1868.Listen to this episode and find out more about it at /wpm. To celebrate all things typewritten, get your old Underwood, Olivetti, or Brother out of the storage room, dust it off, and get ready to join typing and typewriter aficionados around the world on June 23rd. There is an International Typewriter Day. What’s your current typing speed – and what’s your goal for improvement this year? Michael Shestov has the current record for number-only typing, but the jury is out on who has the fastest and most error-free typing totals for full-keyboard typing around the world. Barbara Blackburn (United States) has the official title of the fastest typist in the English language at 212wpm, although other online computer-keyboard typists have clocked slightly faster times in the last few years. The world’s fastest typists reach speeds of more than 200wpm. Think you can do better? Try it yourself! Next, the study participants were given a blank diagram of a keyboard, and asked to fill in all of the letters and symbols on the keys in a standard QWERTY layout – and almost all of them failed. In a collaborative study done in Japan and the United States, people were asked to first type words in a quick typing test most people passed the test, typing between 60-80wpm with fairly high accuracy. ![]() In other words, once you’ve trained your fingers to find the letters on the keyboard, your brain seems to move all knowledge of key locations into the area that controls unconscious muscle movements. What researchers have now found is that even if you’re a skilled touch typist, you probably won’t be able to quickly find those keys with your eyes at all. ![]() The goal of touch typing is to be able to quickly hit the right keys with your fingers, without using your eyes to find those keys first. ![]()
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