The Penmanship Thread

In My Humble Opinion
1

Who here is disturbed by poor penmanship? (By the way, penpersonship just doesn’t even cut it, so don’t get me started.) I know that I am. The last woman that I lived with had pure henscratch for writing which (as I found out later), sadly enough matched her educational background. However, higher education is no guarantee of correct calligraphy. Recall one or two jokes about the handwriting of doctors and I’m sure you’ll see what I mean.

I currently work with a supervisor who is, quite simply, one of the finest that I have ever reported to. Yet, his handwriting is astonishingly poor. I say this because he has shown such a depth of knowledge, in addition to both human compassion and managerial savvy, that I am hard pressed to let him slide on this seemingly single flaw.

BUT I CAN’T! Nor can I let slip the poor writing of just about any able bodied individual. I am rather unapologetic about this. To quote Homer Simpson;

[Homer Simpson]

“Max Power does not apologize for anything, Lisa. I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is.”

[/Homer Simpson]

To me, your scriven word is a large part of what you are. I do not mean to attach too much meaning to the written word and its syntax or grammar, but to the personal artifact that you display in its shape upon the page. What do you wish for people to see of you? What impression, literally, do you wish to make upon the world? I’ve had to repeat weeks of painstaking vacuum metallurgy laboratory experiments, solely due to the fact that the departing technician left completely indecipherable notes in his personal logbook.

I suppose this is the perfect juncture to praise the invention of the word processor and spreadsheet. The elimination of latitude in text based expression has probably redeemed even the combined computer-mutilation sins of Intel, Microsoft and IBM combined (hard as that may be to comprehend). When you consider the unnecessary deaths that have occurred due to unreadable doctor’s prescriptions given to pharmacists alone, the value rapidly becomes apparent.

Without wishing to depart from the graphological theme of this thread, let us combine comments upon the virtues of good penmanship and the wonderful tree and labor-saving aspect of the word processor. Of course, all of this evolves from praising the digital computer and it’s applications, but that is for another thread.

Let’s hear it, yea or nay? Is penmanship still important in this age of computers and screen displays? I say that it is! There will never be any sort of suitable replacement for the timely and immediate expression of thought obtained by putting pen to page. Yes, I admit that almost 90% of all text based expression (since 80% of it is totally business related) could, nay, should be digitally based. Yet, despite the ever-shrinking need to manually write upon a page of paper, I cannot see any reason to allow such a blatant discourtesy to the world as letting slip undecipherable writing.

Does anyone here really think that forcing other people (most often, complete strangers) to spend extra time decoding your out-of-tolerance penmanship is honorable? I have been told that my handwriting is “disgustingly neat”, the word “typewriter” frequently is mentioned. All I know is that people never return my documents because they cannot read them. I also know that many times my submissions have been processed first because of their legibility. Is there anyone else here who holds dear their penmanship?

2

What? You mean some people actually still write?

:wink:

3

I seriously think you’re making too big of a deal out of this. I have horrible penmanship when I write for myself, I can read it, and it takes less time. When I try to write decently I have good penmanship, but it takes a nice long time. I agree with you on the joys and benefits of word processors, I love them. However, you can’t automatically condemn people for the way they write, you’d be condemning the vast majority of teenaged males, and many of them grow up to be perfectly respectable people don’t they?

Kitty

4

You mean, I think, when writing something for others to read. I have messy handwriting, so when I prepare something, I always use a word processor. That takes care of the Honor question.

IMHO, it is good to do so, and I’m glad that you do so.

5

My handwriting is impossibly bad. It looks like the work of a drunk nine year-old with Parkinson’s Disease.

In fact, I fear for the day my stepson is of school age, and I’m expected to write his teacher an excuse note which doesn’t look like a child’s forgery. Seriously!

Worst thing is, I’m a Justice of the Peace, so I’m expected to witness documents for people. Boy, did I rush out and get stamps made up ASAP.

6

I have great handwriting that comes from years of being rapped on the knuckles by nuns with rulers. We practiced all sorts of penmanship exercises daily.

The computer and word processer have made most handwriting obsolete, but there’s always a note from my boss or a handwritten card that can be difficult to decipher. When someone doesn’t try a little harder to make their writing legible I usually think it’s an ego thing. Amazes me that in the corporate world they’ll polish everything but their writing.

7

I am a calligrapher - my letters on the page flow with a very subtle rhythm and flow, each letter a joy to behold, each word laughs, whispers, each sentence commands attention. I’m damned good at calligraphy.

My normal penmanship, OTOH, is cramped and wobbly. If I am writing a letter, by the time I finish, it looks like it was written by 6 different people during an earthquake, the style, slant, and pressure change so much.

8

I think what we should keep in mind is that poor penmanship is not a global thing. In China and Japan in particular excellent penmanship is taught and stressed to school children. From the start, kids are taught the importance of the method of writing the Chinese characters or “ji,” and in Japan they in addition taught the method for writing hiragana and katakana. Each person’s personality shows through still in his/her writing, but for the most part that person’s writing is clear because the method is stressed.

I’ve said all of that to say that in America, that unfortunately is not the case. Perhaps I’m dating myself, but I remember learning basic penmanship in kindergarten and first grade. We had workbooks where we’d have to practice the method of how to write the alphabet in cursive and in print form, but after that all emphasis on penmanship went by the wayside. Now I can barely read my own handwriting. I think this is a shame because there is an art to writing legibly. The school curriculum should be revised to incorporate more penmanship classes among other things.

Regarding handwriting being obsolete, no I don’t think so. It’s nice to have word processors, but I think we still need to write things out by hand because we may not always have a computer or palm pilot or whatever these newfandangled things are available, and what do you do if the power goes off or the computer blows up? Also there are still things we need to use pens for like signatures. I’m a nerd though. I love graphology, amateur at it that I am. There’s something thrilling and fascinating about getting a note or letter that is handwritten. I savor reading handwritten material because it’s special. It’s indicative of someone who took the extra time to write something out, and then I also try to determine something of the personality of the person based on his/her handwriting.

9

I hate cursive. Never, ever use it except when signing my name. I wish more people would stick to basic, unadorned printing.

10

I can write legibly if necessary, but I’ve never had pretty handwriting. I was always racing to keep up with my brain, so there was no time to be neat… word processors have been a blessing to me.

My personal peeve has to do with people who “stylize” their penmanship so that it may be attractive, but it remains indecipherable. And don’t get me started on weird ways some folks dot their i’s…

11

My penmanship is terrible, to my eternal shame. All I can say is that I was forced to be a “righty” instead of a “lefty”, and it seemed to do something to my coordination. I’ve always had terrible handwriting.

What’s hard for me is that I hate looking at bad writing. When it’s as large and childish looking as mine, it makes you assume that the writer is a dumbass with nothing important to say. I keep vowing to spend more time improving my writing, but it keeps getting worse (meanwhile, my typing speed is way up).

12

While I myself HATE HATE HATE people who have illegible handwriting (and poor spelling, but that’s another thread), I am ashamed to admit that…my cursive is nigh-on illegible.
I couldn’t even read it myself at times when I was growing up. Then my engineer father took it upon himself to teach me block printing as done on blueprints. Much better and it has that cool industrial chic quality. Very occasionally, like on birthday cards or when copying poems for my wife on special occasions, I’ll use cursive, but it’s a pain in the ass.
I guess this wouldn’t be so bad if my mother wasn’t an elementary school teacher, and had all the necessary penmanship guides when I was growing up. I don’t actually think it’s necessary to survival any more, but it is bloody civilised.
Now if we can just teach composition and how not to sound like a gopher hopped up on methamphetamine when typing emails, then I’ll be happy.

13

I have “elegant” cursive. That causes dizzyness after about a page. (All those long slanted lines, all the thin letters…) The long thin disease as infected my printing too, but that is at least readable without asprin.

None of it is particularly pretty. I taught myself calligraphy so I can write nice letters, but that is about it. (snail mail letters.)

Is it important? Um…for close friends, yes. Those are the only people who see my handwriting. Anything remotely offical I type up and print out. I see handwriting as another sign of love, trust and care. And I don’t do it much for stranger’s eyes. (Beyond that whole ‘sign here please’ deal.)

Professionally? I don’t know. I haven’t spent much time in “the real world” but in academia we pretty much stick to our own notes or type everything.

14

I think I must have had a premonition when I was a kid because I never put much effort into penmanship. I’d always get C’s instead of my usual A’s. Hell, I can’t even write cursive anymore. I just print. And you know what? The only thing I use handwriting anymore is to write grocery lists. Even when I writes for papers and articles it’s usually in a half-symbolic shorthand I use to quickly jot down ideas only intended for my own eyes.

Which is good, because my handwriting, even when I TRY to be neat, looks like someone soaked a bunch of epileptic caterpillars in ink and threw them on the page.

15

I actually had a handwriting tutor when I was a kid. My mom bought me a goofy-looking stuffed spider to represent my handwriting, which looked as if a drunken spider had been dipped in ink, and left to wander about a wasteland of paper for a night. In the dark.

I learned to type when I was 12. And this year, I got a palm pilot. Do you have any idea of the joy I feel when I write the little characters, and they come out legibly on the screen? It’s rhapsodic.

It’s not always laziness that causes poor penmanship, no matter what endless generations of nuns may have to say about it. Some of us just suck at it.

16

Poor penmanship pisses me off like few other things. My feeling is that if you’re writing is illegible, print. If you can’t print legibly, teach yourself.

We have a communication book at work where we relay messages to other staff members and write daily logs. I consider it fairly important that I know what is going on and if I can’t read your writing this causes some problems for myself and everyone else.

I once commented on one of my co-workers handwriting which is usually pretty good. She had written some medical info about a client except that I couldn’t tell which client it was due to the similarity of the names. I told her that her r’s were indistinguishable from her n’s. She was really pissed off until a few other people made the same comment.

Now she prints these people’s names. End of confusion.

People tell me I have “beautiful” handwriting or that I write like a girl. What the heck does that mean?

17

My penmanship declined steadily through elementary school, and it was a relief when I entered junior high school and we were allowed to print if we so desired. So, like a good little illiterate, I happily printed everything in a legible font rather than struggle to scribe it.

However, I’ve now noticed that even my printing has become haphazard - for example, when I print the word ‘WILL’, it looks more like ‘LLLLL’, as every letter segues into the one after it. I suppose if I’m going to put pen to paper to write a word without lifting the pen, I may as well use cursive, but that’s even more illegible. A word that ends in ‘NG’ turns out as ‘~G’.

I only use cursive to sign my name or to write the dollars-and-cents on a check, and both of those are pretty nonsensical.

Yes, I admit to feelings of guilt and embarrassment over this.

18

My penmanship hit a low point with lots of D’s for penmanship in elementary school, and it hasn’t gotten a lick better in 20yrs. The worst part is trying to read my own writing a few days later, and not being able to… I’m always embarassed when writing out stuff on a group birthday card at work, because everyone has to look at my ugly scrawl. I don’t even think I could write in cursive anymore, since I only use it for my signature.

Oh well, something has to be on the bottom of my to do list, and improving my handwriting must be it.

19

I also print as well. Being left-handed, I’m not cut out for cursive. I can print faster than a lot of people can write cursive, so I have no problem with speed. I could care less what font you use as long as it is legible. I have a very nice but very slow cursive hand as well.

20

I spent a sizable portion of Saturday morning forcing myself to write legibly–the “bounty contract” props I was writing out were actually enforced later in the game, so the Gamemasters had to be able to read them. Generally speaking, my writing is small and unaesthetic, but readable. My print is a little better, but still a far cry from “elegant”. I’ve never seen sufficient reason to put in the incredible amount of practice it would take to improve it significantly–the content matters far more to me than the presentation.