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The slow death of handwriting

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donquixotenz
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« on: February 27, 2009, 03:57:45 pm »

The slow death of handwriting 

 

Christmas cards, shopping lists and what else? The occasions in which we write by hand are fewer and fewer, says Neil Hallows. So is the ancient art form of handwriting dying out?

A century from now, our handwriting may only be legible to experts.

For some, that is already the case. But writer Kitty Burns Florey says the art of handwriting is declining so fast that ordinary, joined-up script may become as hard to read as a medieval manuscript.

"When your great-great-grandchildren find that letter of yours in the attic, they'll have to take it to a specialist, an old guy at the library who would decipher the strange symbols for them," says Ms Florey, author of the newly-published Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting.

FAMOUS HANDWRITING
 
King Henry VIII wrote this love letter to Anne Boleyn (pic: British Library)
 
Jane Austen completed her last novel, Persuasion, in 1816
 
In 1864, Lewis Carroll wrote his most famous work for Alice Liddell.
 
Aged 16, Winston Churchill wrote to his mother Lady Randolph Churchill
 
Jimi Hendrix's lyrics for Machine Gun were written in 1969
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She argues that children - if not this generation then one soon to come - may grow up using only a crude form of printing for the rare occasions in life they need to communicate by pen.

The way handwriting is taught has undoubtedly changed. At Ms Florey's school in 1950s America, a nun beat time with a stick as the class copied letters from the blackboard. It was not a place for individuals. There was a right way to form letters and very many wrong ways.

For much of the last century British schools ran in a similar way. At my primary school in the 1970s, whole classes were devoted to work being "written up for best" and I remember a story coming back unmarked because I had crossed out a single word. I wonder what my teachers would have made of a James Joyce manuscript.

Crossing 7s

Many found the experience tedious, but for left-handers it could be torture. Often they were forced to write with their right, while their "bad" hand was tied down.

More than a century of children turning out letters by the yard produced a great conformity. In the 1940s Ealing drama, Went The Day Well?, a contingent of German soldiers sets up camp in the English countryside, disguised as Royal Engineers. One reason they get rumbled is that a soldier writes a "7" with a line through it. "Why should they form their figures in a continental way?" a villager asks.   If everything we do still had to be done by hand, there would not be enough hours in the day

Registrar Ruth Hodson


Send us your handwriting

These days, the shape of a child's ovals, loops and slants matters less than what they write. "Content is everything," says Mark Brown, head teacher of St Mary's Catholic Primary School in Axminster, Devon. "The emphasis is much more on having a go, and expressing yourself, and getting the ideas down."

He says letter formation is still taught in the early years of primary school, but the appearance of handwriting takes less of a priority as children get older, provided it remains legible.

Some parents expect handwriting to be drilled in the same way as they experienced themselves, but Mr Brown argues the content of children's writing has significantly improved as a result of the change in emphasis, and that they write far more at school than they will as adults.

Scrawling

So once we leave school, does it really matter? Apart from the odd shopping list, do people still need to use a pen?

Some do. Registrars of births, deaths and marriages have been recording life's significant events in their usually impeccable writing since 1837. 
Writer's hand: Not a word crossed out in this instance of Neil Hallows' writing

"All registrars are conscious that they follow a long and noble tradition," says Ruth Hodson, interim registration manager for Peterborough City Council.

But even their fountain pens will soon barely be heard scratching on the registers. Under a modernisation programme, an increasing amount of the information is being entered directly on to a computer.

Ms Hodson is unsentimental. "If everything we do still had to be done by hand, there would not be enough hours in the day."

But perhaps handwriting gains its greatest importance when it is least legible. The reputation of doctors for scrawling was enhanced by a study in the British Medical Journal which found medics' writing was considerably worse than other healthcare workers or administrative staff. Poor writing has often been blamed for medication errors.

Gwyn Williams, a junior doctor in Carmarthen, says that despite technological advances, a great deal of clinical communication is still handwritten. 
Remember this?

"We have to write so much, on so many occasions, with the clock ticking. The end result is so difficult to interpret that even I have to concentrate on occasions to work out what [I have written].

"There doesn't seem to be any other logical way of doing it. Typing clinical notes on a computer seems so cumbersome in the limited time available that I can't see how it would work."

In many jobs though, a person can go for months, even years, writing only the odd phone message in their own script.

Nevertheless, some employers still ask for a handwritten application, or a sample of writing, although the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development warns employers they need to be clear about the reason for that, to avoid accusations of discrimination.

10-page letters

There are those who see handwriting's slip in educational priority and increasingly eccentric role in the workplace as evidence that, in the West at least, we are forgetting an ancient art form.

A panic, perhaps, and one witnessed every time the dominant style of writing changed or a new form of technology seemed to threaten it. An early typewriter led the Scientific American in 1867 to marvel that "the weary process of learning penmanship in schools will be reduced to [writing] one's own signature and playing on the literary piano".   Maybe a couple of times a week [pupils] could produce something handwritten that is judged partly on its legibility, or even its beauty

Kitty Burns Florey

But look at the decline in letter writing. The students I knew two decades ago who knocked out 10-page letters during a morning in bed have probably not yet written 10 pages of handwritten prose of any kind this year.

For Ms Florey, the answer should start in the classroom. Not a return to the nuns with sticks, but for children to value handwriting by learning a simple, legible, attractive script from the start - in her view a form of italic - and then keep reinforcing it beyond the early years.

"Maybe a couple of times a week [pupils] could produce something handwritten that is judged partly on its legibility, or even its beauty."

Adults too can improve their writing, in a matter of weeks with a textbook and expert advice. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has said that if he had not taken a calligraphy course at college, he would not have thought of putting multiple typefaces on the Mac.

Perhaps the best argument for keeping our pens is that otherwise, in a society that is recorded in more detail than any which came before it, we will leave plenty of data but very little of our personalities behind.

Our descendants may struggle to read our letters, but they'll never even see most of our texts and e-mails.
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7907888.stm
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guest49
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« Reply #1 on: February 27, 2009, 04:20:20 pm »

I once worked with a girl who's handwriting was so perfect, it was practically impossible to read.
Every letter was exactly inclined at 30°.  Each was exactly the same width and height, the curves leading into and leaving them were absolutely identical, one from the next.
After you had read a couple of words [or lines] your eyes took on a life of their own and started to wander all over the page! Sad
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Lovelee
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« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2009, 04:26:36 pm »

My handwriting is terrible.  Dad once said to me (and his was simply awful) that mine was like a spider had crawled across the page.  Grin
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Laughter is the best medicine, unless you've got a really nasty case of syphilis, in which case penicillin is your best bet.
donquixotenz
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« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2009, 04:27:15 pm »

probably taught by nun's.
Mother carmel was a stickler and if it was not perfect she made us do it over and over and breaking the nib only earned the blackboard ruler.
Got my own back on her though emptied an inkwell off the first floor on her a red blue and white nun was a sight to see.
the red was her face when she came up and whole floor was kept in and most of us decamped as soon as she turned her back it was weeks before she settled down as evryone giggled at her all the time which made her worse. hehehe.
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Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body.

But rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming...

WOW, What a Ride!"

Please note: IMHO and e&oe apply to all my posts.
Ferney
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« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2009, 07:13:45 pm »

I don't write anymore.  I had to print invoices and bookkeeping for 20 years and its natural for me now.    My school reports used to always say that my writing was neat 'in spite of her lefthandedness'.....as if it was some sort of disability.   

I've got 19th century documents with names I can't decipher.   Wish some of them had printed back then.   
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« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2009, 07:17:56 pm »

I just love reading old handwritten documents. In many cases the handwriting is so beautiful. Ok you get some that take some deciphering but even then it is fun working out the context.
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Ferney
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« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2009, 07:39:33 pm »

I prefer handwriting or in my case handprinting to typing.   I would prefer to do all my books by hand but the accountant wants it off the computer.   
Working out those old documents is fun, even though some I have were difficult as had no clues to a name or place.  I would compare all the styles I had so work out some of the letters.  Even with some words I knew, the writer did the same letter differently on the same document.    There is still a 2nd christian name I'm not sure of.   It looks like January. 
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k1w14ever
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« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2009, 08:26:35 pm »

my hand writing is fantasic it is my spelling which courses the problem
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« Reply #8 on: February 28, 2009, 05:48:46 am »

No kidding Kiwi? I hadnt noticed  Roll Eyes
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Laughter is the best medicine, unless you've got a really nasty case of syphilis, in which case penicillin is your best bet.
dragontamer
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« Reply #9 on: February 28, 2009, 08:12:24 am »

I work with people who have degrees upon degrees.  Masters, Honours, you name it, they have it.  4 of them having handwriting that cannot be read by mortals which makes editing their work fun.

The boss (she who has more degrees than anyone) kept writing "Anal" on my reports (on the page numbers).  For the life of me I couldn't work out why she was being so anal about writing anal on my reports.  I had to ask in the end.  She was writing Arial as the page numbering was using Times New Roman.

My writing is average, my printing is neater.  The woman who has the most beautiful script has no degrees or certificates at all.  She's probably the sanest too.
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robman
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« Reply #10 on: February 28, 2009, 08:30:48 am »

I prefer Times New Roman, Arial has no soul..
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« Reply #11 on: February 28, 2009, 09:53:58 am »

I prefer Times New Roman, Arial has no soul..

Hey Robman.  I saw a young version of you running up Queen St last evening.  He must have been a tad shyer than you as he has a bright pink body suit underneath his lime green jock harness.

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« Reply #12 on: February 28, 2009, 10:01:41 am »

I know my handwriting has deteriated, badly. It was always a halfway house between printing and "double writing" but still reasonable neat (for a lefty). Now days it is an awful scrawl.

Mr sp used to be so neat and small that he rivaled a typewriter. Not anymore.
Now days I have been known to buy the wrong thing when shopping from a list he wrote.
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robman
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« Reply #13 on: February 28, 2009, 10:32:49 am »

I'll let you in on a secret Justic, that's not really me in the pic.... Wink
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #14 on: February 28, 2009, 10:47:43 am »





No shit??
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #15 on: February 28, 2009, 11:54:59 am »

A familiar face?  Grin

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Lovelee
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« Reply #16 on: February 28, 2009, 02:46:57 pm »

familiar FACEGrin
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Laughter is the best medicine, unless you've got a really nasty case of syphilis, in which case penicillin is your best bet.
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« Reply #17 on: February 28, 2009, 06:22:23 pm »

My ol' Dad has the most amazing copper-plate handwriting. he was taught it as a child at school and has been (obviously) proud of it since. When he was laid off twice between 1982 - 1989, he did the "old male blues thing" and declined rapidly. Mum suggested to him that calligraphy was something that people might enjoy. He started night classes and approached the local schools (and found close to full time employment between both of them). He made extra writing signs for businesses around town - my siblings and I would laugh about how we'd go into a shop and see Dad's script there.

But with the advent of the 'puter he has become redundant again, the same shops we went to before have A4 paper with compter generated writing on them. I know it's the way it goes, but it's sad that all we know now is stuff that's generated on a computer.




I still get awesome birthday cards though
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Lovelee
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« Reply #18 on: February 28, 2009, 06:26:21 pm »

I still get awesome birthday cards though


Shef - that would have been great for him to be handing on knowledge such as that.

My Dad bought software programs to make cards!!! - I tried to show him the free online ones but he wanted his own!
He would spend hours making our cards - the computer brought him something ele to do instead of sitting in his chair staring at the box and waiting ...
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« Reply #19 on: February 28, 2009, 06:33:09 pm »

L'Lee - the one thing that 'saved' my dad was Christmas - he started in August to make cards for the family (granted it's an extended family of about 150 ppl  Grin) But he was so busy he forgot about being "unemployable"  (I still have that card)
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