The keyboard that opened the office: reduced relative clauses with -ing and past participles

Q: What are reduced relative clauses?

Reduced relative clauses are relative clauses without who , which or that , and without be when it was there. What's left after the noun is an -ing form or a past participle: women working in offices , the layout designed in Milwaukee . They say the same thing in fewer words. The B2 lesson The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai teaches them through the history of QWERTY.

Q: What are some examples of reduced relative clauses?

Four from The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai: Sholes and the inventors working with him had a machine by the fall of 1867. A company making sewing machines agreed to manufacture it. The words typed on the underside of the roller were hidden from the typist. The keys found on your phone still follow the same order. Two use -ing and two use a past participle , depending on who does the action.

Q: What's the difference between a reduced relative clause and leaving out the pronoun?

Both drop who , which or that , but they keep different things. Leaving out the pronoun keeps a subject and verb : the layout Sholes designed . A reduced clause has no subject and no be , only the participle: the layout designed by Sholes . Both are correct. On edio.ai, the B1.2 course teaches the first, and The keyboard that opened the office , a B2.2 lesson, teaches the second.

Q: Is it “the layout designed” or “the layout designing”?

It's the layout designed in Milwaukee : the layout was designed, so the meaning is passive and takes the past participle. Use -ing only when the noun does the action: a company making sewing machines . The same test fixes the keys finding on your phone (say found ). And don't keep be without the pronoun: The layout was designed in Milwaukee is still in use is wrong. The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai drills all of these.

Q: Who invented the QWERTY keyboard?

It comes from the typewriter that Christopher Latham Sholes and his partners built in Milwaukee in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Sholes, a printer and newspaper editor, worked with Carlos Glidden, Samuel Soulé and the machinist Mathias Schwalbach, and James Densmore paid for the work. Sholes and Densmore worked out the layout in the early 1870s. Isaiah's explainer in The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai tells the story.

Q: Why are keyboards in QWERTY order?

The usual explanation is that the type bars of the first typewriter often collided , so Sholes and Densmore put the keys in a non-alphabetical order to reduce the jams. That's the account of ASME, the engineers' society, and it's only one theory. Remington signed a contract to make the machine on March 1, 1873; it went on sale in 1874, and other makers copied it. The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai tells the story.

Q: How do I teach reduced relative clauses to B2 students?

Give every short clause one test question : does the noun do the action, or is it done to the noun? The answer picks -ing or the past participle. Then show what else goes: the pronoun always, be when it's there. The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai moves from Isaiah's explainer and a museum debate to the scheme, a table that sorts doers from receivers and four more drills.

Q: What's a good game for practicing reduced relative clauses?

Try “What am I?” riddles : each student describes an object with two short clauses, and the class guesses. I'm a machine found in old offices and used by typists. The first right guess wins a point. For speaking, the boxes in The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai ask questions like Which invention found in every office today will look old in fifty years?

Q: What's good homework for reduced relative clauses?

Good homework makes students choose the form from the meaning : gaps like I found an old letter ___ (write) by my great-grandmother , a quiz on which short sentence means the same as a long one, and a sort of correct and wrong sentences. All ten homework tasks in The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai check themselves, ending with a museum label and Isaiah's answer to Velma, a retired typist.

This B2 ESL lesson plan teaches reduced relative clauses through the history of the QWERTY keyboard, from a Milwaukee machine shop to the keys on our phones.

Grammar: -ing when the noun acts (women working in offices), the past participle when something is done to it (the layout designed in Milwaukee), with no who, which, that or be.
Topic: How Christopher Latham Sholes and his partners built the typewriter, one theory behind its key order and how typing opened office jobs to women, with words such as typist and layout.
Activities: An explainer, a museum debate and a typist's voice memo, self-checking drills, a chat with a new coworker and boxes to open.

What's inside

Chapter 1Warm-up: keys, clicks and careers
- PictureUnlock
- Spin the wheel and answerSpin the wheelUnlock
- Study the words: machines, keys and office jobsVocabularyTry it
- Look at the pictures and choose the wordChoose by pictureUnlock
Chapter 2Let's read: from State Street to your phone
- Look at the picture: where the keyboard beganPictureUnlock
- Read Isaiah's explainer on The Why DeskArticleUnlock
- Read and mark true or falseTrue or falseUnlock
- Read again and choose the correct answerQuizUnlock
- Match the paragraphs and the headingsMatchUnlock
Chapter 3Let's listen: should QWERTY retire?
- Listen to Isaiah and FlorentinaListeningTry it
- Transcript, for the teacherUnlock
- Listen and choose the correct answerQuizUnlock
- Listen to the Reader's Rebuttal: Velma's voice memoListeningUnlock
- Transcript, for the teacherUnlock
- Listen and mark true or falseTrue or falseUnlock
Chapter 4Grammar: the layout designed in Milwaukee
- Study the scheme: the layout designed in MilwaukeeGrammar schemeTry it
- Choose the correct optionChoose the optionUnlock
- Fill in the gaps with one word: use the verbs in bracketsFill in the gapsUnlock
- Fill in the table: yes or no? Then make the clause shortFill in the tableTry it
- Choose the correct answer: which sentence is correct?QuizUnlock
- Drag the words into the gaps: Isaiah's notes from the museumDrag and dropUnlock
Chapter 5Let's talk: QWERTY on trial
- Choose the right replies: help a new coworkerChatTry it
- Put the parts of Florentina's one-minute talk in the correct orderDrag and dropUnlock
- Open a box and answer: QWERTY on trialOpen the boxUnlock
Chapter 6Homework
- Match the words and the meaningsMatchUnlock
- Unscramble the wordsAnagramUnlock
- Fill in the gaps with the lesson's wordsFill in the gapsUnlock
- Find the matching pairs: words and meaningsMemory gameUnlock
- Choose the correct option: new sentencesChoose the optionUnlock
- Fill in the gaps with one word: use the verbs in bracketsFill in the gapsUnlock
- Choose the correct answer: which sentence means the same?QuizUnlock
- Sort the words into the correct columns: correct or wrong?Sort into columnsUnlock
- Choose the correct option: a museum labelChoose the optionUnlock
- Drag the words into the gaps: Isaiah answers VelmaDrag and dropUnlock

Vocabulary

12 words and phrases from the lesson, each with a picture and audio in edio.

+9 more with pictures and audio in the lessonMore words

layout
typist
typing pool
invention
mass production
carbon paper
machinist
impersonal
ditch

Grammar: reduced relative clauses: -ing and the past participle

A reduced relative clause is a relative clause with who, which or that left out, along with be if it was there: the layout that was designed in Milwaukee becomes the layout designed in Milwaukee. A story of typists, machines and letters gives learners both kinds, and for each one they ask whether the noun acts or is acted on.

The layout designed in Milwaukee, women working in offices

Make a relative clause shorter: drop who / which / that (and be). Keep -ing for an active meaning or the past participle for a passive one.

-ing for the doer, the past participle for the receiver

When the noun does the action, use -ing: a company making sewing machines. When the action is done to it, use the past participle: sewing machines made in New York. The same verb changes form with the meaning: women typing letters, but letters typed by women.

Two kinds of short clauses

Meaning	Full relative clause	Reduced clause
active: the noun does it	women who worked in offices	women working in offices
active: the noun is doing it now	people who are typing on phones	people typing on phones
passive: it was done to the noun	the layout that was designed in Milwaukee	the layout designed in Milwaukee
passive: it is done to the noun	the keys that are found on your phone	the keys found on your phone

Who does it?

-ing: the noun does the action

women typing letters
a company making sewing machines
a cylinder carrying the paper

past participle: the action is done to the noun

letters typed by women
sewing machines made in New York
paper carried by a cylinder

Cut the pronoun, and be if it's there

Start from the full clause and find its verb. An active verb becomes -ing: a company which made… → a company making… With a passive or a continuous, be goes too: the typists who were hired → the typists hired; people who are typing → people typing.

Step	Example
1. Find who / which / that and its verb.	a company which made sewing machines; the typists who were hired by offices
2. An active verb? Drop who / which / that and use -ing.	a company making sewing machines
3. A passive (be + past participle)? Drop who / which / that and be.	the typists hired by offices
4. A continuous (be + -ing)? Drop who / which / that and be.	people who are typing → people typing

The main verb gives the time

A reduced clause has no tense: women working in offices can mean women who work, worked or were working. The verb of the main clause decides: In 1900, about 77 percent of the stenographers and typists working in America were women. Today, people typing on phones use the same keys.

The time comes from the main verb

A reduced clause has no tense of its own. women working in offices can mean women who work, who worked or who were working: the main verb tells you. In 1900, about 77 percent of the stenographers and typists working in America were women. Today, people typing on phones use the same keys.

From State Street to your phone

The machine designed in Milwaukee was manufactured in Ilion, New York.
Sholes and the inventors working with him had a machine by the fall of 1867.
A company making sewing machines agreed to manufacture it.
The words typed on the underside of the roller were hidden from the typist.
A magazine written for stenographers counted 47 makes of typewriters by 1891.
The keys found on your phone still follow the same order.

When to keep the full clause

A modal keeps its pronoun: people who can type fast, a layout that could replace QWERTY. Two other short forms are both correct: the layout Sholes designed, which has its own subject, and the layout designed by Sholes, which has none.

When to keep the full clause

Keep who / which / that with a modal: people who can type fast, a layout that could replace QWERTY. And don't mix up two short forms that are both correct: the layout Sholes designed (no pronoun, but its own subject: Sholes) and the layout designed by Sholes (no pronoun, no subject, no be).

Common mistakes

Four slips from the scheme: the layout designing in Milwaukee (say designed), Women worked in offices learned… (say working), the keys finding on your phone (say found) and The layout was designed in Milwaukee is…, where be stays after the pronoun has gone.

The layout designing in Milwaukee is still in use.
The layout designed in Milwaukee is still in use.
a passive meaning (it was designed): the past participle
Women worked in offices learned new skills.
Women working in offices learned new skills.
an active meaning in a short clause: -ing, not the past simple
The keys finding on your phone are QWERTY.
The keys found on your phone are QWERTY.
the keys are found (passive): found
The layout was designed in Milwaukee is still in use.
The layout designed in Milwaukee is still in use.
drop be too, or keep the whole clause: the layout that was designed…

More lessons on this grammar: Relative clauses lessons and exercises

Try the reduced relative clauses exercises

Try them yourself: these are the same exercises your students do in edio.

What's in the lesson

21 auto-checked exercises
4 games
1 article
1 grammar scheme
1 set of word cards
2 audio clips
2 pictures
2 transcripts

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

shorten a relative clause with -ing when the noun does the action: women who worked in offices → women working in offices
use the past participle when the action is done to the noun: the keys found on your phone, not the keys finding
drop be together with who, which or that: The layout designed in Milwaukee is still in use, not The layout was designed in Milwaukee is…
keep the full clause when it has a modal: people who can type fast, a layout that could replace QWERTY
argue whether phones need a new keyboard: Phones should get a layout designed for thumbs.

Lesson 9 opens Turning points, unit 3 of English B2.2 · Culture and Society. It shortens the relative clauses of B1.2 lessons 21 to 24 with the participles of B2.2 lessons 6 to 8, and lesson 10 moves on to preposition + which and whom. An invention story, full of things made and found and people working and learning, needs both kinds of short clause.

Students spin a wheel of questions about typing, handwriting and office jobs, then learn twelve words, from rearrange and collide to typing pool and carbon paper, with pictures and audio. Isaiah's explainer for The Why Desk, the course's magazine, follows the keyboard from State Street to our phones, with a true-or-false task, a quiz and headings. He then argues with Florentina, a museum volunteer, about retiring QWERTY, and Velma, a retired typist, answers back in a voice memo; both are AI-voiced. The grammar chapter has the scheme and five self-checking drills, among them a table that asks who does the action. In the speaking chapter, students help a new coworker by chat, order Florentina's one-minute talk and open boxes that put QWERTY on trial.

All ten homework tasks check themselves: a word match, an anagram, gaps with the lesson's words and a memory game, then options in new sentences, -ing or past participle gaps, a quiz on sentences that mean the same, a sort of correct and wrong sentences, a museum label and Isaiah's answer to Velma with words to drag in.

Grammar:: reduced relative clauses · participle clauses after a noun · -ing for an active meaning · past participle for a passive meaning
Topic:: the typewriter · QWERTY · Christopher Latham Sholes · Milwaukee · women in the office · turning points · The Why Desk

Teaching tips

Ask students to look at their phone keyboards before the reading: why aren't the letters in alphabetical order? Collect their guesses, then read to find the usual explanation and why Isaiah calls it one theory.
Write two full clauses on the board, a company which made sewing machines and the typists who were hired by offices. Students cross out what can go, turn made into making and read what's left aloud.
Play the museum dialogue twice: first to decide who wants to keep QWERTY, then to catch the short clauses, such as the keys used most and the women hired as typists.
Put QWERTY on trial after the boxes: one half of the class defends the old layout, the other argues for one designed for thumbs. Every speaker uses two short clauses, such as people typing on phones.

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The whole course: English B2.2 · Culture and Society

32 more lessons for adults at B2 in American English, with the same Why Desk team in Pittsburgh. Each lesson answers one question about how Americans learn, work, travel and remember, from the law behind the 40-hour week to the oral histories of StoryCorps. Learners link ideas in formal writing, report what is said and believed, and pack more into a sentence with participle and relative clauses. The practice exercises check themselves.See the course

Unit 1 Learning reimagined
adjective suffixes and negative prefixes, mixed conditionals, provided that and on condition that
Unit 2 Work-life balance
be required to and be entitled to, present and perfect participle clauses, participle clauses after conjunctions
Unit 3 Turning points
reduced relative clauses, preposition + which and whom, which for a whole clause, noun + preposition
1. Lesson 9 · you're hereThe keyboard that opened the officeReduced relative clauses: -ing and the past participle
2. Lesson 10Earthrise: the photo that changed how we see EarthPreposition + which and whom
3. Lesson 11A city of white palaces for six monthsSentence relative clauses: which for a whole clause
4. Lesson 12The count that took eight years?Noun + preposition: a need for, a solution to, access to
Unit 4 News and truth
although, whereas and while, the impersonal passive, despite and however, is said to have
Unit 5 Travel that gives back
so as to, in order to and so that, modifying comparatives, linkers of reason and result, verb + object + preposition + -ing
Unit 6 Sport and society
verb + noun collocations, what phrasal verb particles mean, a for-and-against essay, nouns from phrasal verbs
Unit 7 Buildings and heritage
past participle clauses, quantifier + of which and of whom, report language, turn out and prove
Unit 8 Generations
adverb + adjective collocations, three-part phrasal verbs, negative and echo questions, prepositional phrases

Questions about this lesson

What are reduced relative clauses?

Reduced relative clauses are relative clauses without who, which or that, and without be when it was there. What's left after the noun is an -ing form or a past participle: women working in offices, the layout designed in Milwaukee. They say the same thing in fewer words. The B2 lesson The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai teaches them through the history of QWERTY.

How do you reduce a relative clause?

Find the pronoun and its verb, then ask who does the action. If the noun does it, use -ing: a company which made sewing machines → a company making sewing machines. If it's done to the noun, drop the pronoun and be: the typists who were hired → the typists hired. Keep the full clause with a modal: people who can type fast. The scheme in The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai lists the steps.

What are some examples of reduced relative clauses?

Four from The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai: Sholes and the inventors working with him had a machine by the fall of 1867. A company making sewing machines agreed to manufacture it. The words typed on the underside of the roller were hidden from the typist. The keys found on your phone still follow the same order. Two use -ing and two use a past participle, depending on who does the action.

What's the difference between a reduced relative clause and leaving out the pronoun?

Both drop who, which or that, but they keep different things. Leaving out the pronoun keeps a subject and verb: the layout Sholes designed. A reduced clause has no subject and no be, only the participle: the layout designed by Sholes. Both are correct. On edio.ai, the B1.2 course teaches the first, and The keyboard that opened the office, a B2.2 lesson, teaches the second.

Is it “the layout designed” or “the layout designing”?

It's the layout designed in Milwaukee: the layout was designed, so the meaning is passive and takes the past participle. Use -ing only when the noun does the action: a company making sewing machines. The same test fixes the keys finding on your phone (say found). And don't keep be without the pronoun: The layout was designed in Milwaukee is still in use is wrong. The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai drills all of these.

Who invented the QWERTY keyboard?

It comes from the typewriter that Christopher Latham Sholes and his partners built in Milwaukee in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Sholes, a printer and newspaper editor, worked with Carlos Glidden, Samuel Soulé and the machinist Mathias Schwalbach, and James Densmore paid for the work. Sholes and Densmore worked out the layout in the early 1870s. Isaiah's explainer in The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai tells the story.

Why are keyboards in QWERTY order?

The usual explanation is that the type bars of the first typewriter often collided, so Sholes and Densmore put the keys in a non-alphabetical order to reduce the jams. That's the account of ASME, the engineers' society, and it's only one theory. Remington signed a contract to make the machine on March 1, 1873; it went on sale in 1874, and other makers copied it. The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai tells the story.

How do I teach reduced relative clauses to B2 students?

Give every short clause one test question: does the noun do the action, or is it done to the noun? The answer picks -ing or the past participle. Then show what else goes: the pronoun always, be when it's there. The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai moves from Isaiah's explainer and a museum debate to the scheme, a table that sorts doers from receivers and four more drills.

What's a good game for practicing reduced relative clauses?

Try “What am I?” riddles: each student describes an object with two short clauses, and the class guesses. I'm a machine found in old offices and used by typists. The first right guess wins a point. For speaking, the boxes in The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai ask questions like Which invention found in every office today will look old in fifty years?

What's good homework for reduced relative clauses?

Good homework makes students choose the form from the meaning: gaps like I found an old letter ___ (write) by my great-grandmother, a quiz on which short sentence means the same as a long one, and a sort of correct and wrong sentences. All ten homework tasks in The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai check themselves, ending with a museum label and Isaiah's answer to Velma, a retired typist.

How do you practice reduced relative clauses one-to-one?

Describe a busy picture together: the teacher asks Who's the man in the corner?, and the student answers with a short clause: the man fixing the copier, the woman wearing a green sweater. Then swap roles. The chat in The keyboard that opened the office on edio.ai works alone: Selma, a new coworker, asks about the office, and the right reply is the layout used on all our computers, not using.

Are there interactive exercises for reduced relative clauses?

Yes. Without an account, this page plays three parts of The keyboard that opened the office, a B2 lesson on edio.ai. They are Isaiah's museum debate with Florentina, a table that turns full clauses into short ones and Selma's chat on her first day at work. An account opens the rest.

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About this lesson

What's inside

Vocabulary

Grammar: reduced relative clauses: -ing and the past participle

-ing for the doer, the past participle for the receiver

Two kinds of short clauses

Who does it?

Cut the pronoun, and be if it's there

The main verb gives the time

From State Street to your phone

When to keep the full clause

Common mistakes

Try the reduced relative clauses exercises

What's in the lesson

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

Teaching tips

Teach the whole lesson in edio

Start a free trial

Open the lesson

Teach it live or as homework

The whole course: English B2.2 · Culture and Society

Unit 1 Learning reimagined

Unit 2 Work-life balance

Unit 3 Turning points

Unit 4 News and truth

Unit 5 Travel that gives back

Unit 6 Sport and society

Unit 7 Buildings and heritage

Unit 8 Generations

Questions about this lesson

Teach this lesson with your students