(Bonus points to anyone who knows the origin of this idiom…without the help of a Google search!)
I was sitting in church taking notes a few weeks ago – *hint* – and I got to thinking about handwriting.
- Cursive. I use a mash-up of printing and cursive that I find more efficient than exclusive cursive, but I am so, so thankful I grew up in an generation where everyone had to learn cursive in school. It’s so much faster (for me at least) than printing.
- Legibility. I tend to write quite quickly, but generally have neat(ish) and legible handwriting.
- Forensics. Isn’t it bonkers that people can determine some aspects of human personality based on the characteristics of their handwriting? (Bonus points for anyone – who without consulting Google! – can tell me the official name for this admittedly imperfect assessment tool.) I analyzed my personality using a few online handwriting assessments and it was rather startling how much it got right! (Here’s a good overview from Reader’s Digest.)
- Shorthand. I wish I knew more shorthand, but I do quite frequently use a closed triangle “Δ” for change, a three-dotted triangle “∴” for therefore, “c̅” or “w/” for with, and shapes like hearts and stars along with up and down arrows to denote increases and decreases.
Your turn.
- What does your handwriting say about you?
- What are your go-to shorthand tricks?
- Do you print? Write in cursive?
- Is your signature messy or legible?
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mbmom11
The abbreviations that you listed are math and science oriented. Bonus points!
My handwriting, a mix of print and cursive, is a mess. Grad school ruined any hope of my writing being neat. I use writing mostly for personal notes and lists, so the mess doesn’t matter too much.
And I think that’s what my writing says about me- I’m a mess, in a rush, and chose the expedient way rather than being careful. Pity my udents who havecto read my writing on the wall (aka the whiteboard).
The story of Daniel in the Bible for the idiom – can I have my bonus point? And graphology! I love extra credit.
mbmom11
Students! And have to! Even my typing is bad.
Elisabeth
Yup. Can you tell science is my background?
You get so many bonus points!! Yes, it’s the story of Belshazzar’s feast. And yes, it’s graphology.
When I take the time I can be very neat but, like you, if I’m in a rush, my handwriting really suffers. Generally it’s only for me to read and I’m good at deciphering when my writing turns messy.
I typed notes in grad school, wrote them on paper in my undergrad. I loved taking class notes, but I remember getting some pretty bad hand cramps!
Coree
I have gorgeous, elegant cursive… and have discovered the wonder of fountain pens. To my horror, my students can’t read it. I’ve always got a blockpad in my office and write things down that students need to look up, consider, etc, (b/c they are so annoyingly bad at taking notes) and someone finally said “Erm… I can’t read this?” My printed handwriting is bubbly and clear (someone says it’s primary school teacher handwriting) but definitely takes more effort, and I’ve got arthritis in my hands.
I use the delta for change, ups and downs.
I tend to write when I’m brainstorming, and always have a paper daily to do list on a bit of scrap paper, etc.
Elisabeth
I want to see your cursive!!
I love writing things by hand. There is something so…comforting (?) to me about having a pen and paper and being able to make some sense out of all the things bouncing around in my head.
Jan Coates
Horrible handwriting! Getting worse as arthritis moves in. I taught shorthand at Acadia in the 1980s and could take dictation accurately at over 100 wpm🙂 Now I encourage young writers to learn touch-typing ASAP!
Elisabeth
Oh goodness, that is such fast typing. No wonder you ended up being an author.
I am frustrated the school system doesn’t really emphasize touch-typing. I didn’t have it and am fairly fast, but not nearly as efficient as I would be if I had learned all the proper techniques. But my kids aren’t great and I really should enforce them spending more time practicing but…I think it’s the principle of it where I feel like this is something they should be learning at school.
Jenny
I did learn cursive in school, but somewhere along the way I stopped using it, and now I always print… very messily. I can attest to the fact that your handwriting is beautiful and neat, Elisabeth!
Reading Coree’s comment bove- it’s sad but true, kids can’t read cursive anymore.
Elisabeth
Aww. Thanks for your kind words.
Yup. A lot of people can’t understand cursive. I guess to some extent it’s not a huge deal since almost everything is written on a keyboard but it still feels like…a loss. I love being able to write in cursive and read it and it’s yet another thing that’s becoming a lost art?!
Jacquie
My handwriting is abysmal – both cursive and printing! This is due to several things – years of taking class notes from instructors who spoke way too fast, from taking a speed writing class in order to take meeting minutes, and years of keyboarding in my jobs. My husband had to stop using cursive at work because the younger employees couldn’t read it!! Times change 🙂
I prefer typing over printing, but still do both for personal lists. No one else has to see my messy writing and I can read it.
Elisabeth
Times certainly do change!
Belle had a teacher in elementary who taught the kids cursive so she has a bit of knowledge (and can read it reasonably well), but it is not something the next generation will use/understand.
I write a lot by hand – I prefer to do all my planning on paper and always hand-write notes if I send something in the mail. There’s a personal touch that comes from writing something by hand, but it is not always the most efficient (or legible)!
Elinoora
On cursive writing: my youngest is learning print only at school, and now she complains we have secret writing. She thinks it’s very unfair that she can’t read what we write, even when it’s just groceries.
My shorthand is mostly in Dutch 🤔 but it would be useful to have more available in English.
Elisabeth
Ha – “secret” writing. She’s not too far off from the truth, I guess, now that cursive is no longer taught.
Diane
Oh it GUTS me that my kids aren’t learning cursive in school. I tried to teach my oldest during the pandemic, and she looked on it as some kind of party trick. (It also really bothers me that they hand the kids chromebooks in kindergarten but NO ONE teaches them how to type, so they all just hunt and peck. GAH!!!)
I tend to use a combination of cursive and printing, but in spirit it’s more like cursive. I’m just looking back at all the things I write, and my journal entries all all in cursive. My to lists are sometimes in cursive, sometimes printed. When I take staging notes in my music scores for work, I have a whole shorthand for how I notate what people are doing onstage. It involves a lot of arrows.
The title is from the Bible, isn’t it? I vividly remember having an illustrated Bible as a child and there is a story in the Old Testament that was illustrated by a wall and a giant golden hand pointing at some words on a wall.
Elisabeth
I laughed at the “party trick” comment. I agree that it’s a shame, though. But maybe I’m just sentimental because my mom was such a letterwriter?
And YES. MY KIDS HUNT AND PECK. Why??!!! Why are they teaching them all sorts of relatively useless things but not teaching them how to boil potatoes, type properly, and manage a budget. Okay, maybe only the typing thing is relevant for kindergarten.
I am 100% like you. I’d say my writing is 85% cursive, but the printing I use interspersed is just because I find certain letters or letter/word combos to be more efficient if I do a mash-up of both styles.
Yes. It is from the Bible (in the book of Daniel).
Birchie
I love this post! My handwriting is pretty bad, but when I was in my early 20s I did something about it and got a book on how to improve my legibility by using an italic script (hybrid cursive/printing). It was before the internet was everywhere, so people did stuff like that back then;-)
A few years ago I noticed that my handwriting had gotten bad again and that it was actually difficult to write, which made sense because I very rarely write…so I’ve started practicing again. I noticed that it got easier after a few sessions. It seems like a good thing to keep that skill as long as I can.
Elisabeth
I am so curious about this italic script?! What’s the book. I wonder if it’s what I naturally do? Inquiring minds want to know more!
Maria
I’m back to commenting after a crazy week and a half!
My handwriting is… ok? It’s not incredible but it’s also not terrible. Usually I write in cursive. It’s actually hard when the four year old asks me to show her how something is written to remember to print not use cursive. Recently though I heard that there are benefits to starting with teaching cursive over print so it’s something to look into in terms of what we do for homeschool kindergarten next year.
Writing in the wall – it is from the Old Testament if memory serves but I’m struggling to remember the details. Or I’m horrifically wrong LOL
Elisabeth
I hope the crazy was just “crazy” crazy and not “everyone in the family is throwing up and we had a car accident” crazy 😐
I think it would be very hard to learn cursive after the fact – I don’t think either of my kids will become proficient at this point. Though Belle has the basics down pat.
Yes, it is from the Old Testament 😉
Gigi
My handwriting has gotten worse; is that an age thing? I should work on that. Generally, my writing is a mix of cursive and print too. Back in the day, I knew shorthand so well I went to a regional competition; but never really needed it in the “real” world so I’ve forgotten most of it and have made up my own brand of shorthand that I use today.
Elisabeth
Isn’t it CRAZY there used to be competitions for short-hand and now shorthand consists of brb and ttyl?!
I should take the time to come up with some more personalized shorthand because I still do write so much by hand. I bet Google would have all sorts of suggestions!
Michelle G.
How interesting that kids aren’t learning cursive – I didn’t realize that. Do they learn how to write their signatures anymore? I’m a long way out from knowing what kids learn in school these days!
My handwriting is a mix of cursive and printing, and it’s sure gotten worse with age, especially if I’m in a hurry.
I never had an opportunity to learn shorthand, and I’ve always thought it would be a helpful skill.
Elisabeth
Both my kids know how to sign their names in cursive. Belle was taught some cursive in school not because of curriculum but because she had a teacher that thought it was an important skill.
I feel like Indy asked us to teach him and he practiced it quite a bit. But I think his name might literally be the only cursive he knows?
Joy
Book of Daniel 🙂
I write mostly in cursive with a bit of print for weird letters like Q and Z.
I use a few symbols: same one as you for therefore or sometimes an arrow from one point to the next. ~ for about; w/ for with
I have legible handwriting and signature but have no idea what it says about me.
Elisabeth
Oh yes, I use the approximate symbol regularly, too! I forgot about that one.
I never ever write a capital Q in cursive.
NGS
When I lived in Minneapolis, I volunteered for an organization that monitored cases of domestic violence and sexual assault and I was sitting in on a DV case where the defendant had been accused of check fraud, too, and they had a handwriting expert on the stand I was so fascinated. What a career! And then later on I learned it was all junk science and I was horrified at how easily I was led to believe it was real. That’s the end of my story.
Elisabeth
Yes, I know it has largely been debunked as having any relevance, though for NON criminal things, I do find some of the insights interesting and maybe they hold up?
Kyria @ Travel Spot
I use some of the symbols you use, due to a science background, but there are people who don’t know that the triangle equals delta which equals change. I actually don’t handwrite stuff that often anymore, sadly, but when I was working, I kept copious notes, and my handwriting varies depending on how busy I am, how much of a rush I am in, and the pen I am using. I also like a certain kind of notebook. However, I have not written in cursive since the dark ages, and I never got good grades in that kind of handwriting.
I know that shorthand has its place, but I am still not really a fan of the ttyl, c u later, where r u kinds of text messages. I know it “saves time” but are we all really THAT busy? I don’t think so.
Elisabeth
I only use shorthand for myself – never if I’m writing something for someone else. I should ask my mom, as she used a lot of short hand, much of it because she was a nurse and they were taught to use it to save time and improve efficiency.
I HATE texts with short things like that. I almost never use that (though John and I did text Kk to each other regularly). I also find the short things like ttyl take me MORE time because I have to think about them. Maybe if I used them regularly they would come to my mind more spontaneously?
coco
I wouldn’t love to had neat hand writing, either style, but I don’t. I tend to rush into writing, to catch up my thoughts, and then don’t like to read it because it’s not neat. Maybe I should start relearning how to write!?
Elisabeth
I definitely tend to get messy when I’m in a rush to capture an idea. If I need to, I can make my cursive quite neat, but often “don’t feel like it”.
Lisa’s Yarns
My handwriting is a print/cursive hybrid and it is terribly hard for others to read. I joke that studying for the CFA ruined my handwriting because I took so many notes!! I used the triangle to represent change but that is my only shorthand!!
Elisabeth
I think my handwriting got worse in university as well. I was writing for speed and efficiency, not neatness!
San
Interesting! I print. I learned cursive in school but always gravitated towards printing. Not sure what it says about me and not sure if the Reader Digest analysis is so spot on… I have a pretty large handwriting but it says that people with large handwriting like to be the center of attention (which is definitely not true).
Elisabeth
I think the “science” of graphology has been ripped to shreds, but mine had a lot of overlap with what the article mentioned. Maybe just coincidence??
Stephany
What a fun subject! I learned cursive in school and even had a teacher who taught us how to use calligraphy! (I thought it was so useless when he taught us, but now I think about that time fondly.) I mostly print although I will sometimes use cursive when I want to write fast.
Elisabeth
I’m definitely faster when I use cursive.
I have an aunt that is very talented at calligraphy. I think it’s beautiful…but definitely don’t have the patience for it!
Tobia | craftaliciousme
I’d say my handwriting is solid. Not too messy but could be prettier. But compared to my sister I am an artist.
I also use cursive and print. However my cursive (German/european cursive) is different from what I have come to see from North American cursive. interesting. It resembles more as my grandma wrote.
Elisabeth
Ha! I’d love to see your sister’s writing 🙂
Hmmm. I didn’t know there was a difference between NA and European cursive, but of course that makes sense. Now I’m curious about the differences.
Suz
Shorthand! You know of some shorthand and that blows my mind.
My handwriting USED to be so nice. What has happened? I’m not sure, but I start out with great, legible cursive and the more that I write, I start adding in print and things start to go haywire.
My mother had the most atrocious handwriting and only a select few could read it. HA. I’m giggling just thinking about it.
Elisabeth
I definitely write too quickly. What’s my rush?
My mother has lovely handwriting and I love seeing things from her. I have a friend who occasionally sends me things in the mail and I can understand…half of what she writes?