Handwriting

[amuse]

okay, so we all have different handwriting depending on our mood; if we're in a tearing hurry, feeling soft & warm, or paying taxes, etc.

that aside, what is yours like?

mine is generally horrifyingly sloppy, like my hand's too big for the paper. i start out so well-intentioned nearly every time, but then the words overcome the paper, and it's not girly at all, just a forward-running sprawl. sometimes it looks halfway decent, but always with big lower loops, and is only contained if i tense my whole arm.
when it's pretty, i'm probably formal/phony/gaga re: the bf.

[emily655321]

I hate my handwriting. It's never been those nice neat curly-Q's or big bubbly letters other girls always wrote with. I've remedied it by printing in all-caps, but when I'm taking notes it turns into long, slanty half-printing/half-cursive things.

[imthefoolonthehill]

Mine is so bad, I have to type what others normally handwrite.

[Sancho]

Mine is only legible if I print in block letters; otherwise it’s hieroglyphics (by design).

[ajoe]

I both handwrite and print... both are roundish and look neat as long as the pen I'm using is good...

[simon]

Being one of those grade school students who decided that cursive was a waste of time and only learning it for the sake of popcorn rewards, I quickly forgot all and cannot write a letter of cursive, thus doomed to write in a sloppy frantic print that laughs in the face of lines tending to go the opposite way of the grain when taking notes looping round holes and cramping smaller and smaller until it is unreadable, hence my handwritting is very small and neat or moderatly small and sloppy.

[fayefaye]

Mine is completely illegible: and I'm proud of it that way. I'm renowned for my mess. People have to decipher my writing like it's some sort of secret code. But it always annoyed me how teachers would try to make you learn to write not neatly, but beautifully: I want my words to be judged on their content, not their appearance. Ironically, and tragically, I often get marked down because the examiner can't read my writing. Or so they say.

[Koa]

Well faye, that happens to a lot of people...There were 2 people in my class at school whose works always needed interpretation to be read...

Wow, handwriting is one of my favourite topics! Mine is very big, I write in 2 lines what other people write in 1! (might have something to do with being short-sighted, methinks). And it used to be a bit of a childish one, but now with age it seems to be getting worse and worse... When I take notes I write very quickly and sometimes it's undreadable, even to me... The guy I have a crush on stopped asking notes to me cos he says they're too messy... :(
I think my handwriting is looking more and more 'male': I think there's often a difference between male and female handwritings, in general... Of course there are exceptions, like this guy's (the crush) handwriting looks so female!!!
Also, I think there's a difference between countries, like the shape of some letters, or just some general feature...for example British handwritings are quite recognisable and rather different from Italian ones.

[emily655321]

That's interesting. I've never seen anyone's handwriting from a non-English-speaking country, so I don't know. But I agree about the male/female thing. Girls tend to write larger and more loopy, and guys always seem to write really tiny.

[Koa]

Yep, smaller and much more messy...(while this guy i was talking about writes in such a neat way that I find it irritating...and he looks horrified at the mess I'm making of my notes! :mad:) I want to post a sample of handwriting (I did that before in another forum), but that means scanning it first, and I don't have a good relationship with the scanner (it does work, but it bores me to death...). So I need to find the mood. Maybe later :D

[kilted exile]

My writing is terrible. The letters are too large & I have a tendency to curve my writing along the edge of the page if I run out of space on the paper.

[faith]

emily, koa! I do too think there is a differsnce between male and female wrighting, but emliys saying males have the smaller writhing. As far as I know that completely wrong. In my school al the girls have very tiny handwritings, whereas boys always have to use several papers to get down the same thing. The usual diffence is that its harder to understand what the boys are writing. As well known gils are tidyer!

And my handwriting? Well untill 6th grade I wrote in an uglt cursive, because my teacher forced me. Now I cant write in cursive anymore. Thou my mum thiks Im always writing in cursive, but Im not. I just bibd some print letter together, and to some people it looks like cursive. A couple of years ago my friend conciderd my handwriting pretty, but I always envyed the other girls with even prettier handwrithings. Well, by now my handwriting has got worse. Especially when I take notes fast. Sometimes even I cant read what Ive written. But I can defineitely write in a completely readable handwriting if I take my time.

[emily655321]

I was never made to write in cursive at school; once we had learned it they just said, "you can use cursive if you want to, but it's only required on final drafts of essays." My elementary school was kind of the "free-thinking" type; they thought it was more important to teach kids to use their imagination than grammar and penmanship. But the Jr. and Sr. High school is made up of 5 towns (we're small towns), so when the kids from my school got there we didn't know the basics everyone else did. I never had to practice my cursive correctly, even though I usually chose to use it, so when I try to write very neatly now the lines look kind of wiggly and pained, like a little kid's. :(

[Koa]

Oh? Once at primary school I wrote in capitals just for a change, and the teacher looked like :confused: cos she couldnt understand why I did that.

I'm on the side who thinks that male handwritings are smaller... all the guys I know (even the one with female looking handwriting) write in half line what I write in 2...

I tried to post a sample of handwriting, but it didnt work....
Cos Em said she never saw a non-english handwriting... Well for example my English guy was surprised cos I write N like he'd write M...but in Italy we mostly write N with 2 'legs' and M with 3...

[subterranean]

mine is depend on the person who's going to read it...
for friends mine are so messy, though they are still readable
for my boyfriend, mine are so neat and tidy...even he said they look like print out and not hand writing :D
to teachers, well sometimes messy sometimes neat..depend on the deadline

[Pensive]

My English handwriting is quite ok but my Urdu's handwriting is a disaster.

[Themis]

My handwriting really depends on what I'm writing.

When I was still in school, my mother used to complain that when I worte stories I wrote all neat and legible. When I wrote my homework, school exercises and such, my hand writing became real messy sometimes. Though that may have something to do with my doing my homework five minutes before the teacher's entrance lots of times in my last year.

Mostly my letters are small, the space between them varies as I don't use the same diction the whole time. I like using lots of twirls in certain letters. And I haven't got a real affinity towards left or right while writing, my letters tend to lean towards the right side of a page but that may change in the middle of a word. Not often though.

But I noticed I don't write as messy as I used to when trying to keep track with what the teacher says. Probably because I can now recognize the "keywords" my profs are so fond of. Or because I changed my writing style, who knows.

[beer good]

I once handed in a hand-written English paper that the teacher then proceeded to wave about in front of the class while shouting (in a very posh British accent)
Mr ****'s handwriting is appalling! It looks like drunken spiders crawling across the paper!

The scary thing is, he's right. Even I can't read what I've written most of the time. Thank god for computers.

[ClaesGefvenberg]

My handwriting is abysmal. It is legible, but that's about it. Fortunately, I have a good excuse: My joints are not the best around (If I'd been a horse, I probably would have wound up in the glue factory). Computers do have their advantages, though: Nowadays few people have to put up with my handwriting.

Besides, a good deal of the stuff I do produce (or draw) both by hand and digitally comes in the form of mindmaps. I opened a new thread (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=159226#post159226) on that subject to avoid derailing this one

/Claes

[IrishCanadian]

I never lend notes because no one can read them; i just lost one mark on a midterm for bad handwriting! ... I can read it fine, everything makes perfect sence to me ... its everyone else! Thier eyes are sloppy, not my penmanship!

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Mine is so bad I could have been a doctor - except I can't stand needles! :eek2:

[Scheherazade]

I could never become a doctor because my handwriting is pretty good and it is rather 'feminine' as well, I guess. I can write both cursive and non-cursive with ease but I usually use a personal mixture of both.

[chmpman]

I write in print that often tends to link itself together to become an almost cursive writing of my own, especially when I'm in a hurry. Also, my 's' always looks the same as a 'g', which I think may be a bit odd. But at least I can read my own handwriting.

[Petrarch's Love]

My handwriting leans strongly to the right and is highly illegible. I sometimes write backwards--just for the heck of it--and a friend of mine who was reading my backwards writing using a mirror said it was easier to read than my normal writing. It must be pretty bad when it's easier to read backward than forward. :lol:

[MissJaneEyre19]

My handwriting leans strongly to the right and is highly illegible. I sometimes write backwards--just for the heck of it--and a friend of mine who was reading my backwards writing using a mirror said it was easier to read than my normal writing. It must be pretty bad when it's easier to read backward than forward. :lol:



thats hilarious. does it take you a really long time to write backwards, or does it go quickly?

[Virgil]

My handwriting leans strongly to the right and is highly illegible. I sometimes write backwards--just for the heck of it--and a friend of mine who was reading my backwards writing using a mirror said it was easier to read than my normal writing. It must be pretty bad when it's easier to read backward than forward. :lol:
Isn't that what Leonardo Da Vinci used to do? Instead of the Da Vinci code, we'll have the Petrarch code.

My handwriting is terrible. My teachers in school would condem it. I think it's gotten a little better over the years because they made me so self conscious about it. And who says teachers have no impact?

[Petrarch's Love]

thats hilarious. does it take you a really long time to write backwards, or does it go quickly?

I can write at just about the same speed forward and backwards. If I really need to get something down fast though I have to do it forward (but I can't guarantee anyone will be able to read it ;) ).


Isn't that what Leonardo Da Vinci used to do? Instead of the Da Vinci code, we'll have the Petrarch code.


:lol: The Petrarch code eh? I'd better start writing now so I can give Dan Brown a run for his money:). Yes, Leonardo wrote backwards too, but he was trying to conceal the ideas of a genius from prying eyes whereas I just had too much time on my hands as an undergrad. I have a bad habit of writing poetry in the middle of my class notes (sometimes related to the subject of the lecture, sometimes not) so I took to writing all poetry, side comments, questions, or critical remarks backwards to keep it seperate from the main part of my notes. Sometimes I'll start writing backwards when a lecturer goes off on a long tangent too, so I can easily pick out where the tangential remarks begin and end, and keep them seperate from the main argument. Of course it's also handy for penning anything I want to keep a secret. :brow:

[Virgil]

I can write at just about the same speed forward and backwards. If I really need to get something down fast though I have to do it forward (but I can't guarantee anyone will be able to read it ;) ).


:lol: The Petrarch code eh? I'd better start writing now so I can give Dan Brown a run for his money:). Yes, Leonardo wrote backwards too, but he was trying to conceal the ideas of a genius from prying eyes whereas I just had too much time on my hands as an undergrad. I have a bad habit of writing poetry in the middle of my class notes (sometimes related to the subject of the lecture, sometimes not) so I took to writing all poetry, side comments, questions, or critical remarks backwards to keep it seperate from the main part of my notes. Sometimes I'll start writing backwards when a lecturer goes off on a long tangent too, so I can easily pick out where the tangential remarks begin and end, and keep them seperate from the main argument. Of course it's also handy for penning anything I want to keep a secret. :brow:

Remarkable, and really cool. :cool:

[chef]

that is so cool, so like lets say you are taking notes, could you take them backwards?

[AimusSage]

My handwriting is incredible, it is so good, it is often compared to hieroglyphs. I'd give you an example, but I don't think you be able to make it out, it's that good!

As for writing backwards, that's a funny thing I do it naturaly with my offhand (right), but then it becomes somewhat messy, since I am a bit shakey with that hand. And it's so slooooooow. It's really cool you can do that petrarch.

[Petrarch's Love]

As for writing backwards, that's a funny thing I do it naturaly with my offhand (right), but then it becomes somewhat messy, since I am a bit shakey with that hand. And it's so slooooooow. It's really cool you can do that petrarch.

Yay, another mirror writer. I'm not alone in being backwards. ;) It's interesting that you can do it with your off hand. Can you write with both hands simultaneously going in opposite directions or anything? I can't write forward or backward very well with my left hand, even though I've tried. It would actually make more sense to write backward with the left I suppose (and this is what Leonardo did) because then your hand is positioned the right way so that it isn't in danger of smearing the ink (a problem lefties have to adapt to for writing left to right, but right handers run into going right to left).

[AimusSage]

Nothing so extreme as writing in different direction with both hands or anything, I am a lefty and have difficulty enough with using my right hand to write backward, while still leaving it readible, writing forward is very difficult for me with my right hand, because I usually write the word forward, but the individual letters are mirrored. It's not like I do it with ease.

As for Smudges, they where I huge problem when I was little, the teacher would always get mad at me for smudging my handwriting, but then again, she shouldn't have given me a pen that made smudges so easily, as I told her at one time. She didn't like that, and the punishment was, MORE writing, with the same pen, so it again came out smudgy, eventually she caved though, and the new pen was much better. No smudges.

[Petrarch's Love]

I usually write the word forward, but the individual letters are mirrored. It's not like I do it with ease.

Interesting, I've never tried just doing the letters backward but still left to right. Wouldn't that mean that the word looks backward when you look at it in a mirror? Or am I visualizing this wrong?

As for Smudges, they where I huge problem when I was little, the teacher would always get mad at me for smudging my handwriting, but then again, she shouldn't have given me a pen that made smudges so easily, as I told her at one time. She didn't like that, and the punishment was, MORE writing, with the same pen, so it again came out smudgy, eventually she caved though, and the new pen was much better. No smudges.
Glad you finally got your smudge proof pen. I've never understood the obsession certain elementary school penmanship teachers have with insisting on things that clearly aren't working. I remember when I was learning to write there was a kid in our class who was left handed, but the teacher kept insisting he use his right hand. Of course he just got behind and later had to teach himself left handedly. It didn't make sense to me at age five, and it makes even less sense now.

[rachel]

When I was little I went to a strict British school where discipline and perfectionism were gods.
Apart from the fact I still sucked my thumb(they tried everything to shame me and put atrocious tasting stuff on it, but I held fast!) and was left handed(one teacher insisted I write with my right hand, she thought I believe that I was demon possessed) I quite liked the school.
Writing, no the art of writing was huge and all my teachers had perfect caligraphy style penmanship which we were to emulate at all times(or our parents would find us permanently missing).
So that is how I write except when I am super tired or stressed then I write like a leftie whose hand just cramped the opposite direction.
Funnily enough to this day I love caligraphy and sometimes I could almost swear I hear the spirits of my dead teachers screaming at me in that ominous fashion only such a teacher could effect. And then I wake up in a sweat and start writing , making sure of course that all my letters are perfect.

[Petrarch's Love]

Hi Rachel. You're back early aren't you? Well, welcome back and hope everything's well with you. :wave:

Left handed calligraphy style penmanship eh? Your writing must be very lovely to see. :nod: