Topic: How's your handwriting?

[Glock32]

Didn't read further than the OP, but mine's not that great.

I've always wondered why. I'm very athletic, and I have the eye hand coordination of a brain surgeon. I am also very good with words, but put a pen in my hand and my brain and it just don't seem to gel like they ought to.

Well, your quandary must not be that uncommon, I mean, have you by chance seen the handwriting of an actual brain surgeon?   That's gotta be the first year of med school: "Fundamentals of Indecipherable Handwriting, Part I"

[ToddF]

I never could really "write" but my printing has gotten terrible also, over the last 20 years of non stop computer use.

[trapeze]

Just recently it was brought to my attention that I have been unnecessarily putting two spaces between sentences...a holdover from my typing education.

Out of curiosity, when was that brought to your attention?  I was also taught to put two spaces between sentences and always do so in formal writing.  I sometimes opt for one space if I am using a monospaced font, and also because some online submissions automatically condense the whitespace anyway.

I was taught to do so, as well, in typing class, and still do to this day.  It's automatic.

I'd like to know who taught you, trap, that it was unnecessary.

To answer both of you:

I always knew why I had originally been taught to put two spaces between sentences. I am the sort of person who asks a lot of questions (I admit that I don't ask as many as I used to but I assume that is an age issue). I want to know the "why" behind things. So when I was taking typing in school I asked around (the teacher didn't know) and I eventually found out that it had to do with the mechanical shortcomings of typewriters (Ever wonder why keyboards are laid out in the QWERTY arrangement? The answer is, again, rooted in typewriter mechanics).

Anyway, I read this article that someone linked to earlier this year. It is found in Slate and it reminded me of the old story (perhaps fable) that surrounds the phrase, "Hold your horses." That story is told to illustrate the silliness/futility of the "we've always done it that way" mindset. I knew immediately that I was doing something (double spacing between sentences) solely because I had been taught that way to overcome a mechanical issue with typewriters and that there was absolutely no reason to continue to do so. It has taken me about three or four months to unlearn it.

But that's just me. I wouldn't dream of making it an issue with anyone else any more than I would attack someone's typos, mis-spellings or grammar.

[Pandora]

Those pieces are very interesting, particularly the one about the "two spaces"; I didn't know about the monospace issue.

But that's just me. I wouldn't dream of making it an issue with anyone else any more than I would attack someone's typos, mis-spellings or grammar.

No, no; of course not. I didn't mean to imply you would by the way I asked my question.

Hmmmm ... it does take some effort to NOT space twice after a period.

Although I learned how to type quite well in high school, it wasn't until I began working for Western Union that I became equally facile with the number row. Teletype machines - Telex - had six number "addresses"; TWX had ten, and they were on every trouble-ticket or piece of information associated with it.

At Western Union was my first encounter working with computers as well. The company had its own in-house network with its hub located in New York.

[trapeze]

You were prescient with this piece, Pandora.

Here is Jazz Shaw at HotAir lamenting the disappearance of handwriting...

With one exception, I can not recall writing anything of any length in cursive script for decades. The sole exception, which probably still applies to many of us, is my signature. But even that has morphed a lot. When I was a student I actually had a very legible signature, but the decades since then have seen it evolve drastically. At this point, my John Hancock consists of what is almost certainly a “J” followed by a series of squiggles which may or may not be Egyptian hieroglyphs.

There are two pages of comments following his essay.

[rickl]

You were prescient with this piece, Pandora.

Here is Jazz Shaw at HotAir lamenting the disappearance of handwriting...

With one exception, I can not recall writing anything of any length in cursive script for decades. The sole exception, which probably still applies to many of us, is my signature. But even that has morphed a lot. When I was a student I actually had a very legible signature, but the decades since then have seen it evolve drastically. At this point, my John Hancock consists of what is almost certainly a “J” followed by a series of squiggles which may or may not be Egyptian hieroglyphs.

There are two pages of comments following his essay.

That was a good piece, and some good comments too.

Technological advances change things.  Cursive handwriting just isn't as important as it used to be, as it's easier to send e-mails.  Likewise, people nowadays don't write books using calligraphy. 

My pet peeve is spelling.  To wit:

To, two, too

There, their, they're

That sort of thing.  Really, it's not that complicated.

[Pandora]

You were prescient with this piece, Pandora.

Here is Jazz Shaw at HotAir lamenting the disappearance of handwriting...

With one exception, I can not recall writing anything of any length in cursive script for decades. The sole exception, which probably still applies to many of us, is my signature. But even that has morphed a lot. When I was a student I actually had a very legible signature, but the decades since then have seen it evolve drastically. At this point, my John Hancock consists of what is almost certainly a “J” followed by a series of squiggles which may or may not be Egyptian hieroglyphs.

There are two pages of comments following his essay.

That was a good piece, and some good comments too.

Technological advances change things.  Cursive handwriting just isn't as important as it used to be, as it's easier to send e-mails.  Likewise, people nowadays don't write books using calligraphy. 

My pet peeve is spelling.  To wit:

To, two, too

There, their, they're

That sort of thing.  Really, it's not that complicated.

I've seen a link to a study demonstrating the link between handwriting and brain function.  There's something positive there for learning how to connect letters via cursive and learning other things.

It's not just the positives included therein, it's the cultural implications in the loss of the skill.

[trapeze]

My pet peeve is spelling.  To wit:

To, two, too

There, their, they're

That sort of thing.  Really, it's not that complicated.

Are you sure it's spelling? That looks a bit more like misusage. Homophones are a bitch for some people.

And to that list I would add :

its, it's

The thing that's kind of crazy/stupid is that I see misused words all the time now in professional pieces written by supposed journalism grads.