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Penmanship

jaredgorski.org

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Re: Penmanship

#21

Post by dwringer »

NoGravitas wrote: post #17

> In penmanship class, we learned a standard cursive font. I think it’s the standard cursive font, in fact. He's wrong that there's a standard cursive. Different countries and different centuries have used a variety of different cursives. Most Americans who were taught cursive in school learned either Zaner-Bloser or D'Nealian, which both derive from Palmer. Both of them are terrible . They have indistinct letter sha…

A few years ago I made a conscious effort to improve my handwriting and got a few fountain pens, to me transitioning from D'Nealian to a Spencerian variant was pretty easy and I think the latter is faster, more legible, and more comfortable to write. Although the differences are more significant IMHO if using a fountain pen.

Re: Penmanship

#22

Post by dfxm12 »

Penmanship and calligraphy, I think, are important to develop manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination & give you a way to express your individuality. The author talks about the standard font in cursive, but I learned many ways to make the letters F, X, M and more, that I felt made my writing unique among others.

I also don't think we've totally moved away from wet signatures, so they do have practical use as well.

Most non-architectural hand-writers write the letter “P” with a single stroke: draw a small loop and extend the side downward to form the stem.

I've got no architectural training, but I make my p's in two strokes (and my n's, for that matter, too).

Re: Penmanship

#23

Post by lvl102 »

I have a theory that our brain is tied to hand muscles. Handwriting is one way to exercise them. Playing an instrument is another.

Re: Penmanship

#24

Post by foobarian »

Couple of my favorite handwriting activities are writing in architectural font letters, and some bastard "gothic" I made up. With architectural fonts, the shapes slant diagonally a bit, so letter like P the half-circle points about 20 degrees up which makes it easer to separate it from the next letter and hence more legible.

The gothic font (along the lines what you get image searching "fraktur" or "gothic font") is good for some cards or signs or something, it's a bit slow to write, but because of the corners being so discontinuous it has a very distinct look to it. It doesn't really need a calligraphy pen either.

Re: Penmanship

#25

Post by mrpotato »

Vladimof wrote: post #2

> Practicing penmanship unlocks neat handwriting. Practicing speed-writing unlocks fast handwriting....

I've never really looked into speed-writing before now and after a quick google, it looks like you have to learn a whole new alphabet!

I wonder how long it takes to learn and be productive with one of the systems.

Re: Penmanship

#26

Post by gizajob »

"I never write cursive these days. Nobody writes it anymore. Nobody can read it, anyway. And I honestly couldn’t write it neatly anymore even if I tried. Cursive is obsolete."

This is a rediculous inference - I don't do it, therefore nobody does it and it's obsolete.

I for one, write in cursive every day, taking notes in a notebook/journal, and carry a fountain pen to do so. It's just such a nicer experience than writing in biro, which I refuse to do except when it's utterly unavoidable. I can appreciate I might be an outlier, but handwriting in fountain pen is a superior experience to even using an iPad, and this way I don't have to "print" my notes, they already exist in hard copy, and are resistant to bit-rot (save a deluge). I think writing by hand also engages a different part of me to the one that is engaged by typing on a computer. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Re: Penmanship

#27

Post by traceroute66 »

usrn wrote: post #20
traceroute66 wrote: post #18

One of the most spectacular examples of penmanship I ever saw was sitting in a meeting with a lady who could effortlessly write phrases and paragraphs in italics... cursive italics ! It was perfect in every possible measurement. (And no this wasn't decades ago, this is 21st century). But I digress! I did also want to state that I disagree with the author's statement "Nobody writes it anymore" . Clearly the author has…

They taught millennials to write in cursive. I only stopped because some of my teachers couldn't read it. It took work to write in print as effortlessly.

> I only stopped because some of my teachers couldn't read it.

Unlikely you'd get away with that in a European school, irrespective of how bad your writing is !

Here's a French newspaper article from 2012 bemoaning the fact that Calefornians are barely taught cursive. ;-) [1]

https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2012/11/28/01003-20121...

Re: Penmanship

#28

Post by giraffe_lady »

gilleain wrote: post #7

Oddly enough I used to write my '0' like an 'O', until I started writing down a lot of chemical structures with numbered atoms. I had to distinguish between the 0 label and the 'O' of an oxygen. I've now adopted the 0 as the way to do it :) edit: Ok, so HN font as displayed does not show the bar across the 0, even though the editor does ...

I picked up the wild ass french numeral 1 from living there in my youth. I still think it's more ambiguous than the english variants but I had so much trouble with people misinterpreting mine I switched and have never been able to shake it.

If you look up examples online they seem fairly reasonable. But in actual daily handwriting they are very extreme. It looks more like a stylized capital A than a number honestly.

Re: Penmanship

#29

Post by jrootabega »

I was taught cursive when all kids were still being taught it, and I also switched back to block letters when we all stopped using paper. The act of writing cursive is so fluid, like written parkour, that I think when we finally master it, it bonds with the flow of our thoughts. When I write in block letters I get impatient and frustrated; my thinking writing energy is scraped out in chunks. It's like violence against the wrists. I never feel like I'm writing down my thoughts, and I can almost sense my train of thought disappearing while I'm still capturing the earlies pieces of it. Cursive lets that energy flow continuously, guided into shapes rather than forced.

Re: Penmanship

#30

Post by SwanandK »

I have always written cursive (in Indian schools in the 70's, teachers yelled at you if you wrote block), and with a fountain pen, no less. One of my English teachers threw away my favorite ballpoint pen and gave me her fountain pen to write notes that day in school. My grandfather, who was a school teacher, insisted that we write copy of at least 1 page everyday in a 4-line ruled handwriting practice notebook.

I still write all my notes in cursive with a fountain pen. According to graphology, handwriting is brain-writing and improves as you write more.

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