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Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

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Re: Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think even if your handwriting is crap a fountain pen just looks better, or at least more auspicious. Horrible for lefties of course, but very nice to use if you're right-handed.

If you're left-handed, handwriting proceeds best by mirroring what the right hand would do (ie. write 'backwards'). It's far more natural. Alright, so others will need a mirror to read it - but that ought to be society's problem, not yours! ("Equal rights for the Sinisterous!") In a gradual shift toward ambidexterity, I've found that questioning society's insistence on 'right-ness' can be enlightening...

Presumably script that proceeds right to left (and even upwards) was originated by left handed scribes

edit spellchecker : left handed scribes became left handed scones. The history of heavy baked goods in the development of human civilisation has been scandalously neglected by a blinkered academic community.

Re: Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

#52
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handwriting is an amazing thing. But please for heaven's sake do not consider great handwriting to be a sign of intelligence or greatness as a value in itself. This sort of thing destroys kids in their early days. During my days in school(In India). Good handwriting was considered a mandatory trait of good, brilliant and hard working students. Any body who didn't have good hand writing was automatically considered a…

"Bad handwriting is a sign of imperfect education." - Gandhi Ironically Gandhi's handwriting http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Gandhi_ha...

At the bottom of the letter, Gandhi writes "I see that I must reserve the right hand for N.J.". And the caption at the bottom says "Left hand."

Do you suppose that means that Gandhi deliberately wrote this letter with his left hand?

Re: Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

#53
post #14

My guess is that it is collection of letters by people about the historic value of the day. It must be something boring like that otherwise he would have kept it for himself.

Maybe Johan was a huge troll and it's nothing but turn of the century pornography.

Re: Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

#54
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handwriting is an amazing thing. But please for heaven's sake do not consider great handwriting to be a sign of intelligence or greatness as a value in itself. This sort of thing destroys kids in their early days. During my days in school(In India). Good handwriting was considered a mandatory trait of good, brilliant and hard working students. Any body who didn't have good hand writing was automatically considered a…

"Bad handwriting is a sign of imperfect education." - Gandhi Ironically Gandhi's handwriting http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Gandhi_ha...

This is exactly my point.

If Gandhi says 'Bad handwriting is a sign of imperfect education.' Evaluators correcting the exam papers may think anybody with a bad handwriting is a poor student discarding the content of what he has written.

Sometimes people just go by the trends. Times have changed a lot since Gandhi. These days non-violence is taken as a sign of cowardice, during Gandhi's time it was considered a sign of perseverance, patience and taking on the enemy with moral courage and ultimately defeating him by mere Kindness and courtesy.

Re: Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. One thing that's always jumped out at me over the years, for no particular reason, is the sometimes horrendous handwriting (and sometimes even spelling) of extremely skilled engineers. Sometimes their writing looks like they are holding the pencil vertically in their hand with 4 fingers wrapped around it.

It's because as a programmer you barely do write anything by hand any more these days. I notice it myself, I'm now faster at typing than (hand)writing, and I wrote shitloads during my times at the uni.

I do a lot of planning on my diary so I write quite a bit.

Also many programmers like working out problems on paper first before firing up the editor.

We do a lot of writing but of a different kind. We don't write essays, stories and records of historical events. But we definitely scribble a lot of symbol manipulation stuff.

Re: Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

#56
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be a pedant. It's distracting from the actual discussion.

How's this for the actual discussion: There have been cases of people dying because the pharmacist misread the doctor's scribbles and gave them the wrong prescription.

I think the discussion is not about readability but rather artistic value attached to handwriting.

Re: Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

#57
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, i got the same, the school went on and on about my handwriting and spent far too long trying to improve it, wasting my time and theres. Not exactly an issue as I sit here and type this is it? Mind you, the one thing i did do when i got a chance, was to do a typing course meant for secretarys as I knew i'd have to type.

Not to sound rude ... but your typing isn't that great either. theres instead of theirs, secretarys instead of secretaries and none of your I's are uppercase as they're supposed to be.

More incorrect than rude, typing is about hitting the letters you wanted to hit accurately, quickly, consistently and without strain or injury, spelling and grammar are something entirely different!

Re: Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

#58
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you've just lowercased the starting letter of a new sentence. If you're going to flag someone over something, make sure you double check what you've typed.

Yes I did and it was on purpose, because I was listing exact examples from his comment. Probably should have put them in quotes though, I'll give you that.

I did miss that part, but they should have been quoted as examples, quotes save lives.

Re: Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bad handwriting is a sign of imperfect education." - Gandhi Ironically Gandhi's handwriting http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Gandhi_ha...

At the bottom of the letter, Gandhi writes "I see that I must reserve the right hand for N.J." . And the caption at the bottom says "Left hand." Do you suppose that means that Gandhi deliberately wrote this letter with his left hand?

Yes. His right hand isn't any better, though, in fact: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gandhi_handwriting2.j...

Re: Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

#60
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handwriting is an amazing thing. But please for heaven's sake do not consider great handwriting to be a sign of intelligence or greatness as a value in itself. This sort of thing destroys kids in their early days. During my days in school(In India). Good handwriting was considered a mandatory trait of good, brilliant and hard working students. Any body who didn't have good hand writing was automatically considered a…

"Bad handwriting is a sign of imperfect education." - Gandhi Ironically Gandhi's handwriting http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Gandhi_ha...

No Irony. He admits his education was imperfect. The complete para is :

"But though I was none the worse for having neglected exercise, I am still paying the penalty of another neglect. I do not know whence I got the notion that good handwriting was not a necessary part of education, but I retained it until I went to England. When later, especially in South Africa, I saw the beautiful handwriting of lawyers and young men born and educated in South Africa, I was ashamed of myself and repented of my neglect. I saw that bad handwriting should be regarded as a sign of an imperfect education. I tried later to improve mine, but it was too late. I could never repair the neglect of my youth. Let every young man and woman be warned by my example, and understand that good handwriting is a necessary part of education. I am now of opinion that children should first be taught the art of drawing before learning how to write. Let the child learn his letters by observation as he does different objects, such as flowers, birds, etc., and let him learn handwriting only after he has learnt to draw objects. He will then write a beautifully formed hand."

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