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Word: toad (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
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National Handwriting Day passed last month without parades. But the occasion may deserve to be celebrated, belatedly, with an updating of a part of The Wind in the Willows, a new chapter in the life of Toad of Toad Hall...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Essay: Scribble, Scribble, Eh, Mr. Toad? | 2/24/1986 | See Source »

...Toad gave up pen and pencil years ago, when he discovered the Smith-Corona manual portable typewriter. Toad loved his Smith-Corona. He played upon it like a flamboyant pianist. Now he massaged the keyboard tenderly through a quiet phrase, now he banged it operatically, thundering along to the chinging bell at the end of the line, where his left arm would abruptly fire into midair with a flourish and fling home the carriage return...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Essay: Scribble, Scribble, Eh, Mr. Toad? | 2/24/1986 | See Source »

...Toad ever put pen to paper, it was reluctantly, to scribble in the margin of a college textbook ("Hmmmmm" or "Sez who?" or "Ha!"), or to write a check. Over the years, Toad's handwriting atrophied, until it was almost illegible. Who cared? Sonatas of language, symphonies, flowed from the Smith-Corona...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Essay: Scribble, Scribble, Eh, Mr. Toad? | 2/24/1986 | See Source »

...length, Toad moved on to an electric model, an IBM Selectric, and grew more rapturous still. Toad said the machine was like a small private printing press: the thoughts shot from his brain through his fingers and directly into flawless print...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Essay: Scribble, Scribble, Eh, Mr. Toad? | 2/24/1986 | See Source »

Then one winter afternoon, Toad came upon the marvel that changed his life forever. Toad found the word processor. It was to his Selectric as a Ferrari to a gypsy's cart. Toad now thought that his old writing machines were clattering relics of the Industrial Revolution...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Essay: Scribble, Scribble, Eh, Mr. Toad? | 2/24/1986 | See Source »

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