Handwriting

[Tangled Metal]

I've made a conscious effort recently to write more using paper and pens / pencils. Part of a revision of my habits.

A recent house clearing exercise highlighted something I had known about but never really considered. Your handwriting changes with time. I found this out by finding my old university files. Basically notes taken down in lecture theatres 20+ years ago. That's before universities put notes online so students don't need to make notes.

Anyway these notes written at speed in lectures were very neat. I didn't recognise the writing at first. Bear in mind my current writing is at my leisure but it's a real scrawl. You'd think the university notes were someone else's.

Has anyone else noticed significant changes to your adult handwriting? This would need you to still, significantly write by hand. That might not be the case.

This is a random thread spawned from my haphazard mind. Please ignore or respond as you wish. I guess it's a call to all traditionalists to give their views on writing by hand onto paper. Freeflow ideas or tips as you want. Not that you need my permission.

[yakdiver]

My hand writing is the same as it was in school -
“has a spider just got out of the inkwell and walked across your text book”

[Tangled Metal]

That's my writing too. Back at uni when under pressure to write the notes my writing was almost neat. That's not right surely?

I'm wondering if straight out of school into uni you've had a long time writing a lot. Now we're in a more modern world of computers and smartphones where writing is a rare requirement. We're losing the skill to write quickly, legibly and neatly.

Well for my part I'm rebelling. I am moving into a type of jourmaling. So I have to write by hand, and use the brilliant pens available now. New gadgets if a kind!

[Psamathe]

I don't write that much these days and as a result (for me) my handwriting is pretty terrible. But I've been not writing much for many many years (working with computers and you don't/I didn't write that much). I should also start making an effort to write more.

Ian

[gbnz]

Your handwriting changes with time.

Have to admit I only write by hand when applying my signature.

The issue there being that years in a commercial management role signing my name every other minute, resulted in said signature being a scrawl. And then on serving in a legal enforcement role in the civil service my signature was rejected by the Director General,with the result that I ended up with a second signature

Causes endless problems when having to sign my name, as I can never remember which I used and they are completely different.

[Tangled Metal]

I have to sign stuff at work and used to miss a bit off my usual signature. Then I got lazy and initial things instead. It's not really critical.

In other situations I have a full signature for bank and official paperwork. For unimportant cases requiring a signature I cut it short and try to make it more illegible. Those cases are such as shop returns where you have to sign a receipt for the shop.

My real signature is basically my handwriting. I really can't do those flowing signatures others seem to do. Mine is like my writing, small and scratchy.

[Cyril Haearn]

One could use a pseudonym for security

I kept handwritten diaries for many years, thinking of throwing them away, not sure I need to know what I did on 23 February 2003. Besides they are written in an abbreviated style I might not understand now
Should I discard them and concentrate on the future?

[iandriver]

Sore point. Junior school, mandatory to write in italics. Senior school, no writing in italics.

For someone like me who always had little artistic ability when it came to drawing (I swear this makes a difference when it comes nice handwriting), it really was a challenge.

[Tangled Metal]

Not artistic neither (not the same as not being creative). Not the biggest issue with my writing. I write a bit too small, so I've been told all my life.

I once had a gift of a fat schaeffer fountain pen. The person giving it to me said that it mint help to write a bit bigger. Barbed comment but I liked the pen. I just couldn't get on with writing with it. Nib was too coarse and the pen was too fat for my liking. My writing with it just became pools of ink for the loops. I need a fine nib but not one that's scratchy.

That leads to stationery. Since taking up writing again I've paid more attention to this. I've been buying notebooks (for me but also for presents to people I know like them) and pens. A good notebook with decent weight of paper and well bound is a nice thing to use. Stitched is my preference.

Pens have come on a lot over the years. Gel ink was one good improvement but now there's fast drying ink too. Some pens write nicely and use real ink but unlike fountain pens you don't get the smudges due I long drying time for the ink.

[drossall]

My handwriting has never been great. I like to think it's something to do with being left-handed.

Anyway, taking notes at university it was just straight lines with the occasional tick upwards or down. I've no idea how I could decipher it afterwards.

My first job involved completing forms by hand - we were compiling a technical database and these were the indexing forms etc. So, I had to be neater than before, and also make some style adjustments - e.g. crossing sevens and zeroes to avoid confusion. I've never given those up. I don't write much now though - same as others have said - and my writing is worse than ever. Even my signature has got worse...

[Tangled Metal]

Do you think a good pen and paper make any difference to your handwriting?

[Oldjohnw]

Do you think a good pen and paper make any difference to your handwriting?

A fountain pen slows you down.

[Mick F]

My handwriting has always been poor, but as I've become older and older, it's quite terrible.

We have ALL the letters Mrs Mick and me exchanged from when we were courting in 1972 right through to the 1990s. Boxes of them!
Also, all my course notes from my apprenticeship 1970 to 1974. May still have a few books from school too. I must go in the loft soon and check on my handwriting!

My dad's handwriting was bad too. He did the huge majority of his letter writing on a typewriter - at which he was very proficient.

[Tangled Metal]

My dad's writing is as bad as mine. My mum's is a lot better at is my sisters.

What I find interesting is how my sister and I have similar style just one's neater and the other is not. We went to the same primary school but different first teachers. However they both seemed to teach handwriting in the same way. So we both got taught ti write in a certain style within the limitations of our coordination which created the level of neatness. I find that curious as to how a style got taught into us.

[Cyril Haearn]

Whatabout kiddies, is TM junior learning to scribe by hand? Some children use keyboards mostly
Whatabout left-handers?