The familiar QWERTY computer keyboard features a number of little-used symbols – including the tilde (~) and the pipe (|) – which tend not to appear in everyday email correspondence. But there’s one key that has the capacity to provoke anger and ruin already-fragile office relationships: the capslock. Its unintended engagement can turn a simple request such as “WOULD YOU PLEASE SEND ME THE PROVISIONAL BUDGET” into a salvo of exasperated impatience. One week ago, Brussels-based computer programmer Pieter Hintjens pondered the drawbacks of the key: yes, it’s abused by those unfamiliar with the etiquette of internet correspondence, but it also frequently gets engaged by accident, causing us to type line upon line of upper-case text without noticing, or incorrectly entering case-sensitive passwords. And, most significantly, he felt that its size and prominent location on the keyboard was totally out of proportion with its computing value. He quickly launched a blog, capsoff.blogspot.com, and a website, capsoff.org, to kickstart a movement which might persuade manufacturers to banish the superfluous plastic lump from our keyboards forthwith.

The response from the online community was immediate and overwhelming. “I always rip capslock off all my keyboards,” commented one user, leading Hintjens to ponder: “Maybe it’s time to encourage people to remove their capslock keys and send them to us. How many would we collect? Would anyone care?” Some clearly would; those resistant to change began firing off expletives at Hintjens to demonstrate their devotion to the generic QWERTY keyboard – including players of the online game Counterstrike, who rely on the caps lock to communicate with fellow gamers, and programmers who need it to tap out upper-case code. But Hintjens is unrepentant. “Capslock is like a small pebble in your shoe… it’s so annoying that there’s a whole sub-industry in software programs to remap the thing [i.e. assign a different function to it].” As the online discussion developed, it became clear that the majority of computer users agreed with him, and were brimming with ideas for revamping a keyboard layout which is getting on for 130 years old, and inherited from the typewriter – a device which bears little mechanical resemblance to today’s ergonomic keyboard designs.

Christopher Sholes, the creator of the QWERTY keyboard layout, might be considered lucky that his invention became a cultural standard; many have pointed out its weaknesses over the years, but its employment on the first typewriter – manufactured in 1874 by E Remington & Sons – and all subsequent models made by Remington and their closest rival, Underwood, assured its ubiquity. The story of how the layout was designed to keep frequently used pairs of letters apart so the typebars wouldn’t collide and stick together has passed into folklore, but challenges to its dominance by such layouts as the Dvorak, created by Dr August Dvorak as a supposedly more usable alternative, have fallen by the wayside. Generations of keyboard users have remained perfectly happy with their sedate word-per-minute rates, lazily tapped out by three or four fingers, and were happy to let the QWERTY keyboard continue its popularity in the modern era. The shift key, which on typewriters caused the entire carriage to shift up with an alarming thud, and the shift lock key, which wedged it in position, were both retained by IBM’s first computer keyboards, as they needed a “supershift” option to enter upper-case letters into mainframe applications. Until now, no-one has thought to question its pride of place on the “home row” of the keyboard.

Hintjens has shown a willingness to compromise; he’s happy to have capslock moved, rather than obliterated altogether, and perhaps replaced with a key that’s more commonly used these days – perhaps “Volume Up”, “Eject” CD, or even “Help”. Such is the standard of internet debate that his suggestion was met with cries of “hypocritical jackass” by his critics. One can only imagine the fury that might be unleashed if Hintkens dared to criticise some of them for yet another irritating habit: failing to use any capital letters whatsoever.