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Penmanship

jaredgorski.org

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Re: Penmanship

#71

Post by toast0 »

IceMetalPunk wrote: post #3

Fun (or maybe not-so-fun) fact: my 15-year-old nephew recently had to sign a document for some volunteer work, and he didn't know how. Apparently, schools no longer teach cursive, not even enough for kids to learn how to sign their own names for legal documents. The secretary was just like, "Yeah, we get that a lot; he can just print his name instead, that's fine." I've always had shitty handwriting, and when I was i…

> I've always had shitty handwriting, and when I was in first grade, my teacher told my mom, "Don't worry about it; when he grows up, he'll probably be typing everything anyway." Turns out that was far more accurate and generalizable than we knew.

My third grade teacher told my mom not to worry about my (awful) handwriting, "he'll have a secretary." Which probably makes me a bit older than you. I retroactively blame my 1st grade teacher who forbid me from writing my name in cursive; it was a 1/2/3 combo class, and she said she had a hard time figuring out if work was mine or the other person with my first name who was in second or third grade and expected to write in cursive. It might have been better for me to just write my last initial or full last name. Oh well.

Re: Penmanship

#72

Post by mgas »

Here's my take:

The author was born in the 90s, and was in elementary and middle school in the 2000s, when keyboarding was already seen as a primary skill. His take that "nobody writes cursive anymore" is true, given that for him, "everyone" is under the age of 30. Those of us who grew up prior to personal computers and phone touchscreens being ubiquitous can scream all we want "I learned cursive and I still write it!", but it doesn't change all that much. Some of us learned and it and can't do it any longer. Some of learned it and still do it, for whatever personal or professional reason.

Here's the hotter take:

Skills like handwriting are (hold on to your hankerchiefs graphologists!) pseudo-sciences. They are vestiges of elitist education systems, whereby a bunch of rich, but likely average-intelligence, students who paid for elite education, hired private instructors to help them become members of the "learned class". It doesn't take any special intelligence to teach or to learn, and can be used as a signal to others that you "belong" to the upper class.

Fast forward to the 90s, in rural North Carolina, to a grossly underfunded school system that can't afford specialized training for teachers or students. What do we get? Over insistence on out-dated markers of education: cursive, Cotillion, woodshop for boys and home ec for girls. What don't we get? Computer science, math beyond algebra and geometry, science beyond basic earth science, and US history that stops at WWII! 1600 students with excellent penmanship, who know how to waltz, but none of us is even aware that computers can be programmed or that people get paid money to do it.

And to the commenters claiming graphology is a thing or that it is in any way useful in sorting candidates for job opportunities (I'm looking at you France), you are just as wrong as the author who claims "I don't use cursive, so nobody uses it either".

NB: This is not an attack on the hobbyists, or on the aesthetics of cursive in general. Well-written cursive is marvelous. I just think we had too much emphasis on it it school, and likely it was due to our schools not having the wherewithall to teach us anything else of value.

Re: Penmanship

#73

Post by ryanianian »

This focuses on writing that will be legible to others. More often I want notes that I can read without ambiguity and in a form that I can write about as fast as I can type.

Not mentioned in the convo so far is shorthand commonly used by legal secretaries and journalists. Mastering this is akin to switching from Qwerty to Colemak rather than just trying to improve your qwerty.

For anyone who's considering investing more in hand-written notes, look into various shorthand notations. I like Pitman but there are others depending on handedness, pen preferences, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitman_shorthand

I'm still learning, but I now use it interspersed with my cursive script and find I can read my shorthand more easily than my cursive.

(Either way: invent your own symbols for words/phrases you write a lot. Text shorthand, foreign languages, and math symbols all find their way into my notes. U for you, y for and, o for or, ∀ for all/each, etc.)

Re: Penmanship

#74

Post by trey-jones »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #19
trey-jones wrote: post #6

Covid 19 is going to have introduced a generation with the worst handwriting we've seen so far. By worst I mean both incorrect and illegible, and I'm basing this observations of my daughters who were in 1st and 4th grade during the first lockdown. Admittedly, they already had what I would call "poor" handwriting. I have no problem with the idea that legible is the primary criterium for handwriting. Correctness as I a…

> Correctness as I and my parents and grandparents learned is really just a matter of self-respect, I think. Fucking weird angle on that imo. It's a skill with broad application but low impact for most people. The actual techniques for good handwriting aren't taught in school anymore, so people will have to decide to value it, seek it out, and practice it themselves. You might think they should, but if they disagree…

If I indicated that I value penmanship especially or expressed some disdain for those who don't, that was not my intention. We are on the same page.

Re: Penmanship

#75

Post by jaredgorski »

mgas wrote: post #72

Here's my take: The author was born in the 90s, and was in elementary and middle school in the 2000s, when keyboarding was already seen as a primary skill. His take that "nobody writes cursive anymore" is true, given that for him, "everyone" is under the age of 30. Those of us who grew up prior to personal computers and phone touchscreens being ubiquitous can scream all we want "I learned cursive and I still write it…

For clarity, this post was more creative writing exercise than technical treatise.

Re: Penmanship

#76

Post by jaredgorski »

gizajob wrote: post #26

"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 wri…

For clarity, this post was more creative writing exercise than technical treatise. Thanks for reading!

Re: Penmanship

#77

Post by jaredgorski »

mobiuscog wrote: post #53

> 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. An architectural hand-writer writes the letter “P” using two independent strokes: draw a small circle, lift the pen, and then draw a vertical line tangent to the left-side of that circle, extending downward. The resulting glyph is neat, deliberate, and replicable. What abou…

Oddly enough, I just realized I do both

Re: Penmanship

#78

Post by argiopetech »

ryanianian wrote: post #73

This focuses on writing that will be legible to others. More often I want notes that I can read without ambiguity and in a form that I can write about as fast as I can type. Not mentioned in the convo so far is shorthand commonly used by legal secretaries and journalists. Mastering this is akin to switching from Qwerty to Colemak rather than just trying to improve your qwerty. For anyone who's considering investing m…

Gregg shorthand is often contrasted with Pitman, an earlier system. The 1922 edition of Gregg's book is available on archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20131101115345/http://gregg.ange...

Re: Penmanship

#79

Post by srik »

throwanem wrote: post #58
srik wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good comment. I do have a contrary opinion however as I generally recommend a spencerian derivative over an italic one to new learners these days. One could say simple Spencerian derivatives are like Rust with a steep learning curve to inculcate the core shapes into muscle memory but have lesser overhead during runtime owing to their dependence on muscle memory. Italic derivatives otoh more like Go, easier…

What Spencerian derivative(s) can you recommend? Asking because I think I've got about as much benefit as I'm going to from having used a fountain pen exclusively for the last five or so years, so I'm looking at this point to learn a proper script. It sounds like you're considerably more familiar and may know some good places to start, and I'm hoping to get the benefit of your experience.

This is good. Good penmanship and the pursuit of it is a very enjoyable and rewarding practice. Since you mentioned you experience with fountain pens and a desire to learn a spencerian derivative, I want to give you a heads up that fountain pen experience doesn't necessarily translate but you still have an edge of course.

As far as recommendation goes, I think you should see if you would be content with learning something like the afore-mentioned D'Nealian method, which involves a lot of printing and shape reproduction, and stick to it. You can get far using a fountain with this.

However if you have the desire to reach for something more, I would recommend looking into a good "Business Writing" hand. There should a introductory book on a decent business hand produced by Ziller Inks on the Apple book store. I'd get that, it was pretty affordable last time I checked.

The business hand is a beginner friendly entry into the spencerian family and let's you carry your progress into more refined spencerian hands when you are ready for them later. Download a copy of the book "C.C.Canan - Collection of Penmanship" to see the kind of spencerian hands you could aspire towards.If you chose this path, it's a long journey so it depends on your personality like most hobbies.

Penmanship is a weird hobby, it looks both simple and intimidating at the same time. If you feel like you could use some personal advice, leave a comment and I'll reach out to contact info on your profile. I'm not an expert(I've seen what experts do and boy am I not one) but generally enjoy sharing penmanship learning advice so I don't mind a consultation or two.

Re: Penmanship

#80

Post by giraffe_lady »

gilleain wrote: post #68
giraffe_lady wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh I see, from looking at some examples it's the one without the bar on the bottom? I use the the more French/European '1' to distinguish from a lowercase 'l' (so that C1 does not look like Cl = chlorine).

Yeah the way I originally learned to do it is with no bottom bar and a short, 45º, straight serif. The french way has a lloooooong curving serif, at least as long as the downstroke. Or at least I think of it as french since that's where I ran into it. Maybe that's the norm in europe?
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