Although partly a rehash of previous ideas from an earlier discussion, I present to you the most useless key on any keyboard---the tilde/backwards quotation mark thingie. Yes, have you ever stopped to look above your tab button and below your "Esc" button? A few spanish speakers/typists may use the tilde from time to time (albeit rarely I imagine), but I know of no one who uses the backwards quotation mark thingie.

My question is, did the people who decided what goes on all keyboards just run out of stuff to put on here? I mean, my laptop keyboard is a condensed version of a full-size regular keyboard and the keyboard people certainly found enough room to put the tilde/whatever on here. Hmmm.

Now that I'm through with my rant, I have a question---have any of you (the readers) ever used either of these buttons? I guess the real question is, are they truly useless? And with great power comes great responsibility. Now that you know you have a tilde button and funny looking single, oddball quotation mark, you must find ways to use them. Just kidding. By the way, happy 4th of July everyone. More from the "Useless Series" tomorrow.

5 comments

1. sj on 7/05/2007 10:08 AM

   I have used the Spainsh tilde thing, but not the mark under it. I don't think I had even noticed it prior to this discussion!

    
2. Kristen on 7/06/2007 7:56 AM

   I have used the tilde thing, but not for the intended purpose. As for the other key--never. Wonder what it's official use is?
   
   Here's another "useless" thing, though. When I saw the title of your useless post this is what I thought about: that extra key on your key ring that you never use. It's probably to an old house, an old car, something you inherited with your key ring. Its a key you never use, but are afraid to through it away b/c it might be to something important. Also useless.

    
3. sj on 7/07/2007 8:32 PM

   How funny and true! I carried a key (for years) to our glass doors, which I never used...but, in my mind I guess I thought, "There's always a chance...!"

    
4. Kristen on 7/10/2007 7:15 AM

   So did you run out of useless things?

    
5. Unknown on 8/30/2007 10:09 PM

   I have used it. And not that infrequently. The tilde, that is. The backward diacritical mark is there for those who speak Klingon.