qwerty
pronunciation
How to pronounce qwerty in British English:
UK 
How to pronounce qwerty in American English:
US
Word Origin
- qwerty
- 1929, from the first six keys on a standard typewriter keyboard, read as though text, from top left. Mechanical typewriter patented 1867; the QWERTY layout itself is said to date to 1887, dominant in U.S. from early 20c.; it is not meant to slow down typists, but to separate the letters in common digraphs (-sh-, -ck-, etc.) to reduce jamming of swing-arms in old-style machines. It actually speeds typing by requiring alternate-hand strokes, which is one reason the alternative DVORAK keyboard is not appreciably faster. Remnants of the original alphabetic typewriter keyboard remain in the second row of letter keys: FGH-JKL. The French standard was AZERTY; in Germany, QWERTZ; in Italy, QZERTY.
Example
- 1. Is there much difference between a smartphone with a qwerty keyboard and a netbook ?
- 2. Researchers have discovered that words typed on the right side of a qwerty keyboard , for example pool , tend to be thought of as more positive than those typed on the left side , say desert .
- 3. Separately , rim will tomorrow launch its latest attempt to produce a viable alternative to the iphone . The blackberry 9800 has both a touchscreen and a slide-out qwerty keyboard .
- 4. Some applications include allowing the mobile phone to become a tv remote control or allowing a mobile phone to be used as a qwerty keyboard input device .
- 5. Killicoat argues that the ak-47 's popularity is down to technological " lock-in " of the kind that is widely thought to have given us the qwerty keyboard .