Mine changes regularly, depending on what I’m writing on, why, and how I’m feeling. It runs the gamut of cursive-printing and legible-illegible, so reading it really keeps me on my toes !
I had a teacher in high school (around '92) who lamented the loss of the art of handwriting and made us hand things in handwritten. We all thought he was a crazy old Luddite but now I can kind of see it: handwriting is really pretty, and really expressive. I have to warm up if I haven’t done it for a while which I think is a shame.
Mine is so bad I was routinely taken out of normal classes in elementary school to go to remedial handwriting. It remains abysmal to this day. I think it has a lot to do with my inability to comprehend spatial relations.
I could not draw a star until 9th grade. I cannot replicate an ampersand if I have a model in front of me. I cannot draw a human figure save for the stick kind. I cannot make any kind of paper airplane. I took a series of standardized tests in middle school that measure all sorts of skills like language, math etc . . . In the category of spatial relations i scored in the bottom 3%. I am really a charity case.
My cursive handwriting is absolutely atrocious. I don’t think anyone has worst penmanship than I do, and sometimes even I can’t read my own writing.
I usually print if I’m writing for other people to read, but if I’m writing for myself (research notes, diaries–things that nobody else would normally read) or if I’m in a hurry, I’ll use cursive–it just takes less time to join up all the letters. The problem is my thoughts move much faster than my fingers, and I’m too impatient to take the time to make the letters legible–so I end up with a messy scrawl of curvy lines. A lowercase “r” is rendered into an almost inconspicuous bump in the line, my “s” isn’t closed properly so it becomes a bizarre curving shape; I usually slap the cross bar for my “t” just in the general vicinity of the letter without actually crossing the t (ditto for dotting my “i.”)–my lowercase “l,” “i,” and “t” therefore all pretty much look the same to the untrained eye.
I can usually make out my writing as long as I remember the contents. But I feel sorry for all my grade school teachers who had to read it (and who were constantly harping after me for writing illegibly).
Skopo, I may have you beat. Like fruitbat, I was taken out of class often to learn cursive. Didn’t help.
My ‘m’,‘n’,‘u’,‘v’,‘w’,‘r’, and ‘i’ all look very much the same save for length, subtle direction of the bumps, and a dot over the ‘i’, which may not actually be exactly over the ‘i’. To make things worse, my printing is not much better.
Fortunately, I am a little ambidextrous. When I need to write something out, especially when I was in school, I would write out the paper left-handed. I guess I had to concentrate more on writing so it was actually legible.
Now, even if I can’t read the note I wrote, for some reason I remember what I wrote regardless of the legibility of the writing. I just see the words the way they are supposed to look
When I was a kid I was very proud of my handwriting, and this continued through high school – it wasn’t the best ever, but it was SO MUCH BETTER than some people’s that it looked better than it was in comparison. But it’s deteriorated noticeably in the past few years. I have actually considered doing some review. Mostly, these days, I print.
In school, I handled cursive and all that, but quickly lost it. By college, it was so bad, friends knew not to borrow my lecture notes. I could usually make out 90% of it if I concentrated, and tried to figure out the context. Now, its beyond hope. at arms length, I can’t even make out more than half or whatever I write. Got to get up close and ready slowly. People that proclaim they have bad handwriting look at mine and feel good about themselves.
I have very nice handwriting as long a I am not hurried. It is very feminine and definitely legible. But if I am in a hurry it does kinf of blur together a bit…still pretty legible though, just not as visually aesthetic.
I have no particular affinity for any particular style, myself. I just want to be able to write in a way that is nice-looking and legibile. When I refer to cursive, I mean any script with joined letters.
My mom has very impressive handwriting. When she was in school (c. 1940) they had her making loops for hours until she could replicate the spacing and size without even thinking about it. I’d like to be able to replicate her style…well, maybe a little more masculine tho.
Wonderful, yes, and not unless it’s really obnoxious (over bubbly handwriting is not good).
I did calligraphy when I was little (not well, but I did it) and I also got hold of a handwriting analysis book and designed my handwriting based on a combination of what I thought was pretty and what I wanted people to think about me if they ever analyized my handwriting. (I’ve forgotten what I wanted them to think - but I know the vestiges still remain, my letters do not all connect. I don’t know why, but I would have a hard time making them do so, now, even though then it was an intentional choice.)
Ok, I’m weird.
But my handwriting (so long as I’m not asleep when writing) is great. I get complimented on it. It’s not necessarily always legible, but it’s pretty looking.
I have very nice handwriting, which I’m kinda proud of. I’ve worked on it a bit.
I guess I do make a little bit of judgement when I see handwriting; when I first started dating my husband, I was favorably impressed with his handwriting. It isn’t anything wonderful, but it does look reasonably grown-up. It compared well with my former boyfriend’s handwriting, which looked pretty much like it had since 3rd grade, only smaller. That’s the only time I can think of that I’ve done that.
Horrible. I have notes from classes I took not so long ago (5 years?) and I can’t read them. What’s even more impressive is that I couldn’t read them days after I wrote them.
Passing those classes was an interesting exercise.
Amen! So is cursive even taught anymore? I haven’t had to write in cursive since the 8th grade (in my 30s now). I think cursive needs to be officially eliminated from our culture. I can’t think of any reason for it. Doesn’t look that nice, it’s harder to read…just silly IMO. Printing is fine, and mine is completely messy. But then again, why write when you can type?
So many terrible writers! My cursive has gone downhill since school, but once I start writing regularly it comes back fairly quickly. My printing is impeccable, but it takes me a while.
A thing that surprised me about handwriting is that when I hurt my right hand and had it in a cast for 4 months, I had to learn to write left handed. This was not all that difficult for me, and within 2 weeks I had a reasonable, yet shaky gramma looking script. The weird thing was that it did n’t look like my right handed writing. I assumed they’d be the same but for the slant. I was wrong!
I do a lot of scrapbooking, and would often get comments from people asking what font I used on my pages. I would have to tell them, “It’s not a font, it’s my handwriting!” I never thought it was particularly wonderful, really. Later I got tired of writing all my journaling by hand and made a font out of my handwriting (it’s called “Helena’s Hand”), so now when people ask me what font that is I have an answer for them.
Man, oh man, that’s got to be pretty d@mn terrible.
“Disgustingly neat.”
That is one of the more consistent comments about my handwriting I’ve been told over the years. I have a strange mix of all printed caps and some lower case that evolved out of being a left hander who learned to write using a ruler to keep the line of script level. I can write in cursive, but being left handed contributes to a lot of smearing. Typically, I can print as quickly and often more legibly than another person who is writing in cursive.
Someone recently told me that the all-caps-mode was a “military style” of writing. It is supposed to be very unambiguous. Other idiosyncrasies in my handwriting include crossed European style numeral sevens and crossed “null” style zeroes. I also make sure to include a downward hook on my numeral ones, though not so pronounced as the European style (which can look like a seven).
I’ve done a lot of design and drafting work in the semiconductor industry and adopted all of these techniques to eliminate any confusion in the specifications I write. People have looked at my hand drawn drafting illustrations and asked if they were computer generated.
My handwriting is terrible. I can write in cursive badly, and I can print badly.
I used to wonder when I was a kid, “What’ll happen when I have kids of my own and the teacher thinks they’ve forged the absence notes I’ve written?”.
Luckily, computers came along and saved me. Now I worry, “What’ll happen when my five year old gets old enough to use MS Word, and the teacher thinks he’s forged my signature on his absence notes?”
Seriously, my handwriting is so bad it concerns me. My lefthandness can’t be to blame (curse you Zenster!), but I do think there’s a loose connection in my brain somewhere.
