So you have the authority to dictate ISO/IEC standards and you can mandate that one symbol currently only available as a Unicode sequence will henceforth be on the standard English 105-key keyboard. What do you pick (and what gets bumped off)?
The cent symbol, and that’s my $0.02.
Percent thingy.%
Isn’t it on your 5 key?
°
Oh yeah
Euro symbol. And it bumps off … Man, that’s a tough one, but I don’t think I really use the backtick in the top left corner. I think I use every other key and symbol otherwise.
€, assuming we’re talking American keyboards which don’t already have it, would be useful to have.
Or ° so that writing about temperature would be easier.
I’m willing to sacrifice Pause|Break or right-alt for either.
It’s used on this very site for preformatted text. There’s a GUI button, but it’s a bit annoying.
I missed the bumping off requirement. I’d say scroll lock, but that’s a button, not a symbol. I don’t have an answer. Every symbol on my keyboard is hit dozens of times a day at minimum. Can I pick the forward slash on the numeric keypad specifically?
I’ll second the request for a cent sign.
Is the “cent” suggestion serious? Who uses a cent sign? Even in printed matters, I don’t think I’ve drawn a cent sign in 30+ years.
µ or Ω
In the little world that contains my computer-using life, an em dash key would be exquisite. Let it replace the exclamation point. People use too many of those damn things.
Yeah, that’s something I’ve never used on this site, so I’m still happy to let it go.
Am I misremembering, or did we make an exclamation point on a typewriter by typing a lowercase l, backspacing, and then typing a period beneath it.
My vote is for the interrobang.
mmm
Beat me to it.
When I was a teenager in the '90s, we were dirt poor and didn’t have a computer, and my handwriting was messy as hell due to my being left-handed and suffering frequent cramps due to inherited carpal tunnel, and so I wrote most of my school assignments on a vintage Underwood typewriter that had belonged to my grandfather, the kind that came with its own built-in carrying case. (Wish I still had it - it’d probably be worth a pretty penny these days.) Your memory is correct. It also didn’t have a 1 and you had to use a lowercase L instead.
(ETA: I think it might have been apostrophe-backspace-period as @Briny_Deep says.)
Maybe. It was an apostrophe with a period under it, I think. The lower-case “l” (ell, to be clear) was used for a numeral 1 symbol.
¢ (ALT 0162)
Bring back the þ.
I’d get rid of the ^ on the 6 key.
Then I could type: “I’d get rid of þe ^ on þe 6 key.”