# How legible is your signature? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 2, 2010, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870 "2010-10-02T21:52:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/41 "2010-10-03T13:52:09Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > My signature is just my normal cursive, done just a bit faster so it’s not completely legible. Well, that may be the trouble - I don’t have a “normal cursive”. I moved from a school which taught cursive in fourth grade to a school which taught it in third grade - during the summer after third grade. The only time I have ever used cursive since then was when I took my GREs, and we had to copy and sign a statement about academic honesty, and we were instructed to use cursive. It took me fifteen minutes to do what the rest of the group tossed off in five. Plus it looked like a five-year-old’s writing. Anyone else have the same experience? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/42 "2010-10-03T14:02:16Z")
> [@Hal\_Briston](#): > > I used to sign things very meticulously, but about 20 years ago I had a job that required I sign thongs 20 times a day. After awhile, I got tired of being careful about it and switched to my current sloppier style. Well, if I were signing thongs, I might get a bit distracted. So I think it’s understandable if your signature started to deteriorate! ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/43 "2010-10-03T14:38:34Z")
Ummm…oops. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/44 "2010-10-03T15:07:53Z")
Signature? We don’ need no stinkin’ signature! Often I use an initial. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/45 "2010-10-03T15:12:17Z")
I only sign with my initials, which are perfectly legible. My name is way too long to be bothered with writing out. If I were ever asked to sign my entire name, it’d be nothing but gibberish, with only my initials legible anyway, which is why I bypass all of that foolishness. ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/46 "2010-10-03T17:18:29Z")
It depends on what I’m signing. If it’s important enough the ‘6’ is quite ornate, with the rest completely legible. Anything else is authorised with a scrawl of my profanity of the day because nobody cares enough to match it, so I just scratch it. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/47 "2010-10-03T17:30:56Z")
There’s no possible way any living human could determine my name from my signature. ---
**Author:** ![dzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@dzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzero)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/48 "2010-10-03T17:58:30Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > I moved from a school which taught cursive in fourth grade to a school which taught it in third grade - during the summer after third grade. The only time I have ever used cursive since then was when I took my GREs, and we had to copy and sign a statement about academic honesty, and we were instructed to use cursive. It took me fifteen minutes to do what the rest of the group tossed off in five. Plus it looked like a five-year-old’s writing. > > Anyone else have the same experience? Not really similar, but I never got the hang of cursive. I used it until I was in 8th grade but saw that there were some other kids that used print-style characters - i.e., individual letters rather than ones that were connected. At that point I said screw this shit. I can print faster than I can write. Then over the years I developed a very basic sort of shorthand. It’s been a couple of years since I even tried to write in cursive. It was very awkward when I did and couldn’t even remember how you’re supposed to make some of the letters. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/49 "2010-10-03T18:03:08Z")
My signature has 17 characters, including 3 different sequences with 3 consecutive consonants. It would take me forever if I made it clean and purty. As it stands now, you can probably make out 4 letters reliably, and that’s fine by me. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/50 "2010-10-03T18:07:20Z")
My first name is three letters long. That part of my signature is perfectly legible. My last name is Ukrainian in origin and is 10 letters long. That part of my signature is basically the first letter followed by a scribble. ---
**Author:** ![minlokwat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minlokwat/32/2844_2.png) [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/51 "2010-10-03T22:33:50Z")
> [@Hal\_Briston](#): > > …but about 20 years ago I had a job that required I sign thongs 20 times a day. I find this very interesting. Exactly what line of work were you in twenty years ago.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/52 "2010-10-03T22:57:02Z")
I used to work at a place that required us to initial items so we could tell when they expired. Any employee would go to our stock materials and be able to go to the person who initialed them if there were questions. One girl picked up an item I had initialed…stared at it for a minute…then asked loudly…Who the hell is number 14? I wound up marrying her. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/53 "2010-10-04T16:19:34Z")
One of my college buddies had a talent for forging signatures. He was far too honest ever to apply his unique skill to any nefarious purpose, but was frequently challenged by friends to imitate their respective indecipherable scrawls. In many cases, he was was able to produce, in five minutes or less, duplicate signatures that their owners could not distinguish from the genuine article. The one case in which he had real difficulty was mine. My signature is nothing more than my name rendered in painfully legible cursive handwriting. He said that this was the hardest kind of signature to forge, because it involved learning a person’s actual handwriting. YMMV, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/54 "2010-10-04T19:43:15Z")
Well, my first name is perfectly legible. My last name, however, is. . .less so. My maiden and married-but-divorced names aren’t really the same, but the signature looks almost exactly the same. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/55 "2010-10-04T20:18:07Z")
Mine is hieroglyphics. If you can read it, it’s a forgery. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/56 "2010-10-04T20:38:19Z")
First letter of names is legible - the rest, not so much. The first time I signed a permission for my kid, the teacher called me because she thought the offspring had forged it - in the background I could hear “No! Really! That’s what his name looks like!” If it had been #2 son, I would have suspected that the problem was that the signature didn’t match the previously forged documents turned in (no proof that he’d actually ever done that - but it certainly wouldn’t have surprised me) - but #1 had no ability to successfully lie at the time. Joe ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/57 "2010-10-04T22:20:38Z")
I swear we’ve done a thread like this recently … My first name is pretty legible. My last name is OK until you get to the m’s, which in cursive would have something like seventeen humps. I do one or two before signalling surrender with a squiggle trailing off into a line. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/58 "2010-10-05T01:01:23Z")
> [@minlokwat](#): > > I find this very interesting. Exactly what line of work were you in twenty years ago.🙂 Rock star. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/59 "2010-10-05T01:35:26Z")
I learned The Palmer Method of writing in grade school. My signature and handwriting are very legible. Does anyone else remember it? [Palmer Method](http://www.zanerian.com/Palmer.html) ---
**Author:** ![rinni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f6c823/32.png) [@rinni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rinni)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870/60 "2010-10-05T02:53:56Z")
Mine is legible. I pretty much just write my name. My mom doesn’t like this; she says that it would be too easy to forge because I “draw it instead of writing it.” But it’s just my regular writing! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-legible-is-your-signature/555870.md?page=4)