New York Times, Wednesday, July 15, 2015

There is some debate about this, but most sources say the longest common words that can be typed all on one row of the keyboard are repertoire, proprietor, perpetuity, and TYPEWRITER.

The first commercially successful typewriter was invented by a Milwaukee newspaper editor named Sholes, and his initial 1868 model had the letters in two rows and in alphabetical order. Old people like me remember how the metal typebar arms would swing up and hit the inked fabric ribbon.

The two most common letter combinations are TH and ST, and their proximity on the keyboard caused frequent jamming. The Remington company (famous for sewing machines at the time) bought the typewriter rights in 1873, and their research led to the QWERTY layout we use today. Supposedly, they wanted technophobic salespeople to be able to peck out "TYPEWRITER QUOTE" from just the top row (to WOW the customers), so the arrangement was not completely based on ergonomics. Typewriters are passe now, but it seems the QWERTY keyboard is going to be a central part of our lives for the foreseeable future.

Hope you enjoyed the puzzle!

I enjoyed Bruce's story — funny to imagine some typewriter executive demanding that his product team have the typewriter PRODUCE MAGICAL WORDS! Actually, it's just funny to imagine a typewriter executive. Seems like there's a "Mad Men" story in there somewhere.

We've had a couple of "words that can be typed with only the left hand" or similar ilk, but I can't remember this particular incarnation. It's neat that TYPEWRITER is the final themer, although I would have liked the full TYPEWRITER QUOTE. I know it would have made for a very long clue — prohibitively so, likely — but it's such an amusing tale.

Generally, single-word themes are not my cup of tea. Multi-word phrases help distinguish the "better crosswords" from the computer-generated dreck you see in small-town papers. Here, I do like REPERTOIRE, as it's a fun, colorful word, and PERPETUITY is one us finance types enjoy, but PROPRIETOR falls a bit flat for me.

Interesting trade-off of colorful fill and gluey bits today. I love the inclusion of OPEN MIC and EAT DIRT, two brilliant 7-letter entries. EYESORES and ARTISTRY are pretty nice, too, as are CAMERA CREW and even TELLS TALES. During my solve though, all the bits like ULEE, APO, the Maleskan SERE, etc. became my predominant impression.

As important as it is to work in stellar longer fill, I think it's even more important to make your shorter fill to emulate an NFL place kick holder — never be noticed.

I like it when a puzzle makes me think. That TYPEWRITER punchline did just that, and I also wondered what real phrases could be made using just one typewriter row. Might have been really cool to make the first themer from all keys in the top row, the middle themer from all keys in the middle row, and the final one from the bottom row. Fun when a crossword inspires new thoughts.