My dear husband looked at me the other day and told me that my handwriting was getting more and more like my father’s every day. Since his writing is almost completely illegible up and down peaks, I found this comment to be less than flattering.
This observation was prompted by Jim’s inability to decipher the illegible scrawl in my appointment book that denoted a certain client’s name. Why he could not tell that a couple of peaks with a valley followed by a squiggly line meant “Mary” is beyond me.
After we traded a couple of bons mots about my handwriting and penmanship in general, he suggested that it wasn’t that my writing was getting bad, it was that it was getting much more efficient as I was leaving out a bunch of unnecessary loops, dots and up and down motions. I can tell what the cryptic entries mean, so basically I am using a sort of short hand, if you will.
Anyway, this whole subject led to me thinking about how my hand writing has changed since I was a kid, struggling to learn to write and follow the Palmer Cursive writing system. I recall receiving a C grade on a penmanship exercise. Being the sort of challenging child that I was, I approached the teacher and inquired as to why I was getting such a poor grade for an exercise that was completely legible. She informed me that my letters did not look like the ones in the handbook. Whereupon I informed her that when she wrote on the board her letters didn’t look like the book either, so what was the big deal? I believe I was sent to the office for that bit of insubordination.
Of course, this was the woman who informed the class that porpoises were fish and when I pointed out to ther that they most certainly were not, they were mammals, argued with me and told me that she was the teacher. So I got out the World Book Encyclopedia and showed her the entry on porpoises and dolphins. I got sent to the office that time too. The principal was actually sympathetic with my plight, and so we sat and had a pleasant chat for a while, then he sent me back to the classroom with the advice that perhaps I’d get along better if I tried not to argue with Mrs. Swisher, even though (or perhaps especially if) I was correct and she was not.
But I digress.
I happen to have a sample of my handwriting dating from the fifth grade (I was 10 1/2). This is an entry in a handbook I made under the tutelage of my mother, which I joyously entitled:
This is the entry on making a hand-bound buttonhole.
I notice that I left an “h” out of the last “stitches”, which doesn’t surprise me much considering how many times I had to write that word during the course of producing this handbook. I also find it interesting that even at the tender age of 10.5 I was cutting corners — observe the efficient crossing of both t’s in “stitches” with one line.
And now, for your delectation, what I wrote about that entry this evening.
I see I have dropped the double t cross over the years in favor of hooking the next letter to the crossing. Just for fun, here is my very careful signature circa 1963:
I just want to say that the skills I acquired while doing this little project have stood me in very good stead over the years, and I actually referred to this little book a couple of years ago when I was trying to remember how to do a French seam when I was sewing some extremely prone to ravel silk.
Thanks Mom!
I actually got a U (for unsatisfactory, equivalent to an F) in penmanship at about the same age. I got a whipping for it. Later in my life, my mother said I should have been a doctor instead of a nurse, because I already had the bad penmanship down. Little did she know that all these years later, I rarely write anything without a computer, not even a check. The one thing she did right was insist I take typing in high school, which has stood me in good stead for the computer age. Thanks for that, Mom.
My handwriting was also once a lovely cursive but years of computer use has ruined it. Now it’s a scribble.
Me too, charlotteotter. I used to constantly get compliments on my handwriting … not anymore.
My handwriting was dreadful – and still is.
Thank Bob for computers.
The only place I’ve ever managed to be neat was when I was making book-keeping entries in my beloved ledgers. There’s something very satisfying about well disciplined rows and columns of figures – especially when they balance first time.
Of course – computers now do all that too.
Silverstar, I was never punished for bad grades. We were strongly encouraged to make them better and no one was allowed to skip homework, etc. My mother insisted that I take typing in high school too. But it was because if I knew how to type I would ALWAYS be able to get a job as a typist or secretary. No one knew how important that was going to be, computers did not exist when I was in high school.
Charlotte and az, I never have been known for my lovely cursive. But you could read it.
Teuchter, I know what you mean about neat ledgers. I worked for the Business Office at the SF Conservatory of Music for a while and learned to love it when the neat columns balanced. I can do numbers just fine, it is when I am trying to write as fast as I can think that things get out of hand.
Hiya,
All of a sudden everybody is talking about handwriting. Here in the UK it is a topic of many TV chat shows this week.
I often wonder how these topics come up all over the place at the same time. Like hemlines and fashion colours.
My handwriting is actually improving with age inspite of decades of PC writing. But only in pencil. Can’t do it in ink or with a biro.
Had to send a letter of condolence, which I feel has to be handwritten. I wrote it in pencil, then scanned and printed it off darker, to look like ink. Devious or not? I meant well
Ellie, the positively curly handwriting of your youth must have a delectible interpretation. The words ‘stitched’ and ‘whipped’ almost dance off the page.
BTW, that type of tutelage at the age of 10 put me off hand sewing for the rest of my life. I can still see myself sitting there, struggling with a rolled hem. Brrr.
jo
Handwriting… I did write readable once upon a while… However that was changed during Med School when you constantly take notes at lectures etc.
The same goes for my signature. You sign so much daily that it diffuses into something…”artistic… rather rapidly. I did have a very readable signature the first year or so after my divorce was over – I switched from my ex’s family name to my present – now it’s “very artistic”
I won a handwriting prize at school, many, many years ago. But now my handwriting varies from decent-if-artistic to decipherable-only-to-me-scrawl, depending on how fast I’m having to write and whether I have a good pen. I can’t abide biros.
Interesting that Jim spotted that you have effectively developed your own ‘shorthand’.
And what a wonderful record – your stitching book – to pass down the family. In a hundred years, imagine how completely alien both the activity and the handwriting will be!