(no subject)

[which_chick]

A different sort of post...





For the people who still can't read it (due to issues with the contrast or my shitty handwriting or whatever), it says...

I've been thinking about handwriting here lately, what with the new, improved, aspirational cookbook of which I am not worthy. I have, to be blunt, shit-tastic handwriting. It's ugly. It's a bastard crossbreed of printing and script and I don't seem to be able to shift all the way into one or the other anymore -- even with significant effort, the minute I stop concentrating, my handwriting drifts back into this shit.

I got terrible grades in handwriting in school. (Do they still teach handwriting to kids?) I don't do large stretches of handwriting anymore, not like I used to do in college. These days, so much as a thank-you letter has the muscles in my hand screaming that this is all a bit too much and I should just type. Tell me about your handwriting. (Better, y'know, to SHOW me your handwriting, but shit, that sets the bar pretty high for reader participation, donnit?)

I've shown you mine. Show me yours.

Comments

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

I was gonna cheap out and just use my tablet, but my hands are not in good shape today and I was having trouble writing well. So sorry, this is worse than my "writing for other people" handwriting because my hands are a mess today.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

It doesn't take me long to do what I do. It's alarmingly fast, faster (for me) than either printing or proper cursive. It just looks like shit, is all.

I never mastered bubbly girl printing, though I admired that hand when I was in high school. I never had the patience for it and my own printing is way too pointy for bubbly girl font.

My proper cursive, at this point, looks childish and unskilled because I haven't used it in like forever. My preferred hand has been the halfbreed thing (see above) since the educational gatekeepers of my world started grading only *what* I wrote instead of twinking around being all concerned with *how* I wrote. I have never been seriously convinced that anything beyond "legible" and "fast" was worth worrying about on the handwriting front.

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

I love to see well-cultivated cursive handwriting with character. I've always really been into letters... it falls into the whole patterns and markmaking and languages thing that I can't get enough of.

I started printing in all caps for my 9th grade biology teacher, before that my printing was ugly and childish. I hated learning cursive, but I like writing it.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

So here are samples of mine...

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/which_chick/3081463094/)
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/which_chick/3081463096/)

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

For those who can't read it (and I couldn't blame you):

I have what I call "insane grandmother" handwriting. It seems to get worse on days when I am more stressed. When I am happy, it becomes rounder and, perhaps, easier to read.

My father, a doctor, has terrible handwriting, and I had to tell him, in college, to print all his letters to me. I believe it's from taking notes in med school.

I can trace the deterioration of my handwriting to my days at a daily newspaper, for which I developed a rough shorthand. Sometimes I couldn't use a direct quote because I couldn't read it!

[ladyivy.livejournal.com]

My handwriting is truly horrible. I can't read my own handwriting half the time.

I do find it interesting that according to the 9 teachers/teacher coaches I have class with this semester that schools apparently do not teach cursive writing any more.

I remember days and weeks of torture trying to learn that sh*t and it is considered not worth teaching any more.

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

As far as I'm concerned, cursive handwriting is an exercise in deliberate noncommunication. It's harder to read, slower to read, and self-indulgently effortful. I don't want to see your work, I'm not your teacher. I want to understand what it is you have to say. Cursive handwriting is a salesman's trick - display crowding out content.

Of course, this bitter little sentiment may just be a result of my execrable handwriting, which would put a second-grader to shame in the corner, dunce-cap, stool, and all.

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't think it's slower to read if you're used to reading it. If everyone wrote cursive, it wouldn't be difficult to read. But since only a few people still do it takes more effort. (NB I routinely write notes to myself and others in non-Roman scripts, so, this might not be true for everyone.)

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

I've never seen yours, but I have seen (and have samples of, as it happens) LadyIvy's handwriting and it is exactly as horrible as she says it is.

[cousinsue.livejournal.com]

They still teach it. Second and third grade according to the state standards.

Mine is somewhat childish, but legible thanks to my second grade teacher Miss Snyder.

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

Okay, here we go:


(http://www.flickr.com/photos/28664324@N00/3081341078/)


My handwriting (http://www.flickr.com/photos/28664324@N00/3081341078/)