QWERTY or AZERTY?

You ever noticed that keyboards in the US start with the letters Q-W-E-R-T-Y at the top left part of the keys? In France keyboards start with the letters A-Z-E-R-T-Y and that is not the only difference. The M letter is in a different place on QWERTYs than it is on AZERTYs, same goes for commas ( , ), exclamation marks ( ! ) and several other signs. QWERTYs have " ñ ", and accents, AZERTYs have " ù " and " ç ". And the biggest difference of all is that numbers need to be typed holding down "shift"on AZERTYs while this is not the case on QWERTYs. Needless to say, jumping back and forth from one to the other can be a little tricky.

I learned and typed on QWERTYs for over 10 years, but then I came to France and it's been around 6 years that I've been typing on AZERTY keyboards for the most part (I used to own a QWERTY laptop when I first got here but it is long gone). So what does that make me? a QWERTY or an AZERTY?

My recent trip to the US/MEX really makes me wonder about this. When I got to San Antonio a couple of weeks ago, for the first three days I simply could not type two words withouth it looking like jibberish. Emailing or blogging was a pain and it usually took me 3 hours to write out a simple post! By the second week I had sorta gotten used to QWERTYs again although I was still getting "m's" instead of "ñ's" and "& - é - (" instead of "1-2-3"...... I was happy I could type two sentences without having to delete three thirds of it but it was taking me time to get back into my QWERTY suit.

I came home on tuesday and on wednesday I was back at the office with my AZERTY computer waiting for me. I was prepared for it to take at least as long as it did in the US to get used to the keyboard again but by the end of the first afternoon I was typing away as if I'd been born an AZERTY all along! It was as if the fingers had never touched a QWERTY before and I have to admit I feel pretty guilty.... does this mean that I have permanently become an AZERTY?

I never once thought one could stop being a QWERTY, I mean, I used to spend entire summers typing for hours while my mom dictated her translations and all my school work and homework and even most of my thesis was typed by what I then thought were expert QWERTY fingers. My friends would be awed at how fast these digits could fly when on a roll (thank you Secretarial Workshop in Jr High!). I even learned how to write in french while being QWERTY! I used to take my laptop to class and simply type phonetically everything the teacher was saying. Then in the evening with a little help from hubby and Word's Spellcheck slowly my notes would start to make sense.

So how can it be that one just stops being QWERTY all of a sudden like that? And what does this mean on the grander scheme of things?

Everyone knows an expat must make an extra effort in order to re-learn how to type on AZERTYs (you must eat, sleep, dream AZERTY when learning it!) but does this slowly make you forget your QWERTY roots as well? Does trying to fit in with the AZERTYs make one guilty of treason with QWERTYs? Does the fact that fingers may feel more comfortable typing on AZERTYs necessarily mean that they will not be able to go back to being 100% QWERTY ever again?

Does there come a moment in time when one has gone too far and can never go back to being QWERTY again?

Fned (writing in AZERTY)