I haven’t handwritten much more than my signature for years … when I was younger [pre internet] I had pen pals, and when I was writing to them, I used to type up a letter on my cr*ppy toy type writer, then copy it out by hand, that way I could correct any spelling mistakes, and have a copy of what I’d written to each person …
throughout the course of time, my handwriting has changed quite a bit. i have notebooks from when i was about 14 and my writing was perfect, but i remember always having trouble keeping up notes in class because i wrote so carefully and slowly. as time progressed, i stopped caring so much and instead of having generic neat teenage girl handwriting, it melded into my own. it’s a mix between cursive and block letters now, and very fluid. it’s also very small, and never quite the same. depending on the mood, the pen, etc, my handwriting changes quite a bit. i can look in an old school notebook and tell the difference between days just by the changes in handwriting, if nothing else.
my brother and father have horrible handwriting, so i have become quite good at reading chicken scratch. when my brother took the sat’s, there’s this part of the registration that you have to copy a sentence in cursive and sign it, saying that you won’t cheat or something, and i had to write it for him in cursive on a separate sheet of paper so he knew how to write it, because he couldnt remember half the letters in cursive.
i can read my handwriting easily, but sometimes others have trouble…my s’s sometimes look like o’s, apparantly.
<--------Worst handwriting on the planet.
My cursive handwriting is and has always been awful!
A quick poll of folks on this thread, who’s left handed? I’ve seen a few people mention that they are. I am as well.
Another lefty here, and my handwriting is horrid. Like quite a few others here, sometimes it’s illegible to everyone, including myself. It’s almost entirely dis-joined, to the point that sometimes individual letters don’t come out in one piece.
I ran screaming away from the Palmer Method script that was taught in school just as soon as I was allowed to write in any other style. You think being left handed and trying to write cursive is bad enough with the smearing? Try having a fourth grade teacher that forbade the use of ballpoint and required everything be written in real live ink with a cartridge pen (like a fountain pen, but fed by tubes of ink instead of dipping). I’d come home at the end of the day with the entire underside of my left arm covered in blue.
My mum, going to school in the 1940s, didn’t have your problem with ink, gotpasswords. Every time she picked up the fountain pen in her left hand, her teacher would give her a stout whack across the knuckles with a ruler. At least now she can write with either hand.
If you’re looking for a book, I recommend Teach Yourself Better Handwriting by Rosemary Sassoon. It helped me turn my shamefully unreadable scrawl into legible script. But don’t expect your handwriting to improve without practice, practice, practice.
I declared victory one day a few months ago (although I still find little problems that I try to fix.) I had written up some character background for a roleplaying game I’m in, and handed it to the GM. My husband looked disgusted and said, “Oh, he’ll never be able to read that!” (The hubby took a certain perverse pride in being the only one who could decipher my scribblings.) The GM picked up the page, and said, “No, her handwriting is readable. Kinda nice, actually.” 
I worked on my handwriting for years and now I have beautiful handwriting, both in cursive and in print. I get compliments on how beautiful and elegant it looks all the time. Also, I recently found out that my secretary showed my timesheets around to some of the other secretaries and bragged about how she works for the only lawyer with legible handwriting in the office!
I’m a righty, but I know at least one lefty with incredibly ornate, beautiful handwriting.
I’m stunned to hear people say that cursive handwriting is worthless outside of elementary school. It’s so much faster than printing! Of course, I have made stylistic changes to the way cursive was taught to me in school, some to make the writing easier and some because I think a lot of Palmer-style capital letters are ugly and childish-looking (ain’t no way I’m making that floppy number 2 and calling it a Q).
And yeah, I secretly judge people with girly balloon-like handwriting or those who write so poorly that their writing is illegible.
And I’m truly puzzled: what’s the point of writing something down if it’s illegible? Why do those of you with illegible writing even bother?
Because a lot of them can read their own writing, no matter how much of a mess it is. My friend is a perfect example- His 8’s are two seperate circles drawn somewhat near each other and not always touching (unlike the rather conventional serpentine 8 which I subscribe to), additionally his b,d,p, and q also have ‘separate’ o sections. so his b’s often look like this- ‘lo’. His ‘r’ and ‘v’ are also pretty much indistinguishable. Regardless, he can read his own chicken scrawl perfectly fine and in fact this gives him some degree of security- if he’s writing something he doesn’t want someone seeing, he’s comforted in the fact that they’ll have one hell of a time deciphering it, much less getting anything out of a quick nosy glance.
I think people who write in all caps are just lazy, and many people write in all caps because they just plain suck at proper capitalization. I know this was a big thing in school, with girls (almost exclusively) who couldn’t give a damn about what needed to be capitalized in an essay, and so just wrote a whole paper in caps, and often not having any comments/deductions over capitalization. If writing in all caps on the internet is rude and crass, why shouldn’t it be so in ordinary writing? Sure if you want to write a quick, important message or something, but a 750 word essay?! come on! :mad:
Mine’s lousy if I have to write something quickly. Used to be my cursive writing was rarely used, but good and my print writing was bad. Now my print writing is ok and my cursive writing is horrid if done quickly (I have a problem with forgetting to close my a’s and make my d’s tall enough) I like doing math in cursive–easier to tell apart the x’s and y’s. My caps aren’t perfect Palmerian–especially the D’s, G’s, Q’s and W’s. When I print, my letters tend to be on the round side.
Remarkably bad, thanks for asking.
We need a name for this, as it’s how I write, too.
I type anywhere from 90-100wpm on average and sometimes I’ll actually send my husband, seated 6 feet away on the couch, an IM to his laptop rather than speak because I’m so keyboard dependant…
…and so my handwriting is just frightening. Any given bit of writing from me will start out vaguely legible, and then deteriorate to the point where I leave out letters (sometimes even words) and have to go back and stick them in and hell if I can read any of it later… I just get impatient with the speed limitation of dragging a pen or pencil across paper.
The sad part is that I’ve taken drafting courses. I’ve taken calligraphy courses. I can do proper drafting lettering and calligraphy just fine. I can draw reasonably well. I just can’t write to save my freakin’ life.
And don’t even try to decipher my signature.
This has given me a kinda cool idea for a new page at www.teemingmillions.com … handwriting samples!
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=204500
Then it’s not truly “illegible”, is it? I’m talking to the sort of people who have posted in this thread who say they can’t read their own writing.
I think some people who have bad handwriting are just too lazy to try to improve it. But some people with bad handwriting seem proud of it because they claim they’re too busy to take the time to write legibly (as if it takes that much more time!). This “I’m too important to have legible writing” idea is very big with the doctors and lawyers I know and probably helps to explain why doctors and lawyers are so notorious for having bad penmanship.
When I get a letter or note or document that’s handwritten by someone with such poor penmanship that it’s illegible, I often feel rather affronted by the rudeness of such an act. It’s as if they’re saying their time is too important to spend it on good handwriting, but my time is so worthless that I surely must have all day to try to decipher what they’ve written.
I only print. I haven’t used cursive since I was a wee boy.
BUT I PRINT IN BLOCK LETTERS AND ALL CAPITALS. WHEN I WRITE A QUICK NOTE, IT LOOKS LIKE I’M SHOUTING AT EVERYONE.
I don’t have many friends.
My handwriting was respectable up until about a year and a half ago. I always thought it was neat, it wouldn’t have won awards, but at least people could read it. Last spring I broke my right wrist and ever since then, my handwriting has been shite. It’s kind of strange because it’s not like my wrist isn’t fully functional, it works just dandy on every other task which a wrist is required…
Really? Even with a sense of humor like this?
Your post caused me to make a half-laughing, half-coughing (I have pneumonia), half-spluttering sound that frightened my cat. (Yeah, that’s three halves.)
My handwritting is a mixture of cursive and printing, (handwritting analysis books call this “printscript.” I’ve been complimented on it many times. It sort of looks like calligraphy, just more… exaggerated, I guess. I’ve gotten pulled out of classes to make place cards and things like that, so I’m glad I have nice handwritting for that, if nothing else.
To answer your second question, I’ve read a few things about handwriting analysis, so when I receive something handwritten, I’ll often look for certain characteristics, just to see if anything interesting jumps out. I never take what I pick up on as concrete, just as something to watch for in the person if I interact with them later.
Ahhh! I feel better after skimming the posts about non-aesthetic handwriting. Let’s say that mine is time sensitive. That means after a certain period of time even I can’t figure it out. :dubious: 
So if I need to send a message in writing, it is usually printed.
I have good handwriting. In fact, I’ve gotten compliments over my recent style. My best handwriting is cursive that slants to the right in a flowing manner. I always admired how people in the 18th century wrote their cursive and have been trying to improve mine like that. It hasn’t worked out the way I want it to, but others think it’s neat.
My print is pretty much the same. I slant it to the right, like italics. I can write faster that way.
My handwriting sucks. I can’t write in cursive anymore, not that I ever really could write in cursive legibly in grade school anyway. It’s so bad that I had a teacher when I was in the 7th grade who would berate me in front of the class on a weekly basis because she had problems reading my assignments (I offered type everything for her like I did for all my other teachers, but she was a bitch and wouldn’t let me) My printing comes in two flavors: One style for notes only I plan on reading later and another for note I expect other people to read. For the former style I’ve pretty much invented my own equivilant alphabet that’s easier for a leftie to print quickly. I’d wager I’ve replaced or seriously altered about 2/3’s of the alphabet this way. I can read it just fine, even notes that are a few years old. The latter style is just standard print lettes written so poorly that even I have problems reading it, though it’s a lot easier for other people to decipher than the one with my own letters.
Oh yeah, I’m a leftie btw.