All the many attempts to resequence the Qwerty keyboard to match the alphabet have met with a resounding yawn. Therefore, let's face digital reality, and reorder the alphabet to match the keyboard.
This will provide an immediate and much-needed boost to the economy as everyone goes out and buys new dictionaries.
As an added advantage, all those weird little words beginning with W, X, Y & Z wouldn't be stuck at the back of the dictionary any more, and perhaps more Q words would come back into common usage from being right at the front.-- DrCurry, Nov 15 2002 The piupsi http://www.piupsi.com/ [kinemojo, Mar 15 2006] The kappaphi http://www.kappaphi.org/ [kinemojo, Mar 15 2006] Bork the keyboard http://www.rinkwork...phabet%231159152673 [MoreCowbell, Sep 25 2006] Elmer Fudd http://www.google.com/intl/xx-elmer/ [Dub, Sep 25 2006] DrCurry, could we possibly consider Dvork-ing the alphabet instead? ooh please?
Still I'm all for changing the tides and oceans and continental drift of the public education sytem. Anyway I can help, here's my croissant.-- hollajam, Nov 15 2002 I recall reading studies which gave volunteers a number of various keyboards, of different arrangements, to type on. I forget the details, but the volunteers who I believe had not typed significantly before were given a certain number of minutes to acclimate themselves to the new keyboard and were then timed typing on it. They were then given more hours to practice, and then timed a second time.
People given a random keyboard did about as well as QWERTY in both timings. Those who were given alphabetical keyboards generally did marginally better on the first test but worse on the second. Those given Dvorak did best.
The theory put forth by the person writing up the experiment was that the linear arrangement of the alphabet, and most people's linear conception thereof (e.g. they know that "O" comes between "N" and "P", but don't instinctively know that it's the 15th letter) interferes with their ability to mentally map out the physical spacial relationships between the keys.
BTW, I tought myself Dvorak once. Actually only took a few hours to get to the point that I could type about as well as with QWERTY. My one complaint (which I address in a different "idea") is that the control keys which are in some cases mapped so their physical arrangement makes sense (e.g. the edit keys for Undo, Cut, Copy, and Paste are all in a nice row at the lower-left corner) are jumbled all over the place under the Dvorak layout.
To put it another way, when I think "Copy", I don't think Ctrl-C; I think "pinky to lower-left; index finger where it falls easily." That same move on Dvorak, however, does something entirely different.-- supercat, Nov 15 2002 Q - W - E - R - T - Y - U
I - O - P - A - S - D - F - G - H
J - K - L - Z - X and C,
V - B - N and M
Now I know my Q - W - E's
Next time won't you sing with me?
Sobriety tests would be even more interesting
"Say the Qwertybet bassackwards"
'Yes shir, Occifer... M, N, uh B, V *hic* C, X and Z, Amen - Can I go now?'
"Put yer hands behind yer back, boy"-- thumbwax, Nov 16 2002 Rods: Don't you mean Qwality?-- supercat, Jan 31 2004 a qwerty alphabet would drastically facilitate keyboard usage and with everything switch over to computers why computerize the alphabet too-- redemptionn8, Jan 19 2005 The qwerty layout was designed to minimise mechanism jamming, and thus is slightly more difficult to reach top speeds on.-- not_only_but_also, Jan 19 2005 *aggrees with not_only_but_also* We really dont NEED a qwerty arrangement anymore since keyboards dont jam like typewriters do.-- Seolyk, Sep 21 2005 I was wondering how the new alphabet should be named. Unlike A and B, there are no greek equivalents to Q and W. The closest phonetic approximation would be K and F respectively, which transliterate as Kappa and Phi.
So I suppose the alphabet would be called the "cappafi"? Or, for dvorak advocates, the "piupsilon", or "piupsi"?
I'd have trouble using my dictionary though, if it was in cappafical or piupsical order.-- kinemojo, Mar 15 2006 O soat oz! Ql ngx eqf ltt [XfqWxwwq], oz wtqzl zit qsztkfqzoct. Utkt'l q etgllqofz.-- Pac-man, Mar 15 2006 Would this change Roman numerals, too? Or are those frozen in time?-- phundug, Mar 15 2006 //Utkt'l q etgllqofz// Itkt'l q ekgollqfz, [Jqe-dqf] Fgz lg tqln!-- neutrinos_shadow, Mar 19 2006 Please... QWERTY? Why QWERTY? I am a ',.pyf person myself.-- -----, Mar 20 2006 //could we possibly consider Dvork-ing the alphabet //
Energize the Dvorkatization beams!-- DesertFox, Mar 20 2006 That's a beautifully tangential tryptich of links.-- wagster, Mar 20 2006 It wouldn't be a "Alphabet" anymore... rather Sigmaphi (or something)-- Dub, Sep 25 2006 Bork would be funner! (see link)-- MoreCowbell, Sep 25 2006 Check out some of the languages Google's Language tools can manage (Klingon/Elmer Fudd/Pig latin/Hacker/Bork...)[linky]-- Dub, Sep 25 2006 So now we have a response to a deleted anno about a deleted link posted in response to another deleted anno. I think the surreal thing is working well jutta.-- DrBob, Sep 25 2006 random, halfbakery