# How good is your handwriting?



## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

My family insists that my handwriting is atrocious. It's not Declaration-of-Independence-good, for sure, but it isn't the chicken scratch they seem to think it is either. No one apart from them has ever complained about it, not even teachers or professors. There are members of my immediate family whose penmanship is a lot worse than mine, though, and _they_ never seem to get picked on! 
I got to thinking about people I've known with really good AND really bad handwriting. My doctor, of course, has atrocious handwriting, and so has almost every doctor I've ever seen. Random lines and dots everywhere. I've had two history professors in college. The first had handwriting that was basically an indecipherable sanskrit. I couldn't read any marks he made on my papers and assignments and had to ask him. The second's writing was only marginally better; his letters were poorly formed and had this distinct arch that made you tilt your head to decipher it.
My older sister, however, has the most gorgeous and immaculate writing of anyone I know. Both her manuscript and Spencerian cursive are just perfect. Perhaps it's her standard that's the reason everyone picks on me for my handwriting! 
What about you?


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Indecipherable, even at primary(elementary) school. My long suffering class teacher sighed on the day I left and said, well, I didn't manage to improve your handwriting.

Two mitigating factors. 

1) I am a medical doctor!

2) I have neuropathies affecting my fingers and hands and I have arthritis in my hands and fingers.

Only my secretary (and I myself) can read my script of half formed letters nowadays but PCs having become more or less ubiquitous at work, she doesn't have to do this much. I might as well be writing in Sanskrit hieroglyphs as far as my wife and children are concerned.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

I print each letter separately. All of my consonants are capitals. I also capitalize the vowel "A;" the rest I lowercase. If you saw my handwriting...well, let's simply say that keying in posts creates a very useful illusion of intelligence and competence.


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## dillonp2020 (May 6, 2017)

I have dysgraphia, which means my handwriting is totally illegible. I can only read what I wrote by memory.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

I usually try to write pretty neatly, especially when I write out practice assignments for my piano students at each lesson. If I allow my writing to get too messy and sloppy, then the student will have a ready excuse to say "I didn't practice because I couldn't read what you wrote." :lol:


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

Public opinion and I don't agree on the answer. Public claims it's indecipherable, but in my honest opinion it is in the region 'ok-good', don't understand how they can't read it.. Though no one ever attempted to borrow my notes in any learning establishment, after seeing my handwriting. Maybe it's them and not my handwriting..


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

Totenfeier said:


> I print each letter separately. All of my consonants are capitals. I also capitalize the vowel "A;" the rest I lowercase. If you saw my handwriting...well, let's simply say that keying in posts creates a very useful illusion of intelligence and competence.


This sounds creative.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

Sorry if i'm over-posting.

After some deliberation I decided on an Ok. It's not self-delusion I hope.

Cons: people do complain about it, they look at something I wrote, and ask me to write it again in printed capitals. I write in printed capitals. They complain again. Teachers just loved complaining to my parents about my handwriting. I always said, they were grasping at straws, never had anything else to complain about.

Pros: My penpals during my teens never said a word of complaint, and seem to understand everything perfectly ok.

So my verdict is Ok.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Marinera said:


> This sounds creative.


Purely by accident, if so.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

_Pristine!_... is what mine is compared to a dog's.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

Totenfeier said:


> Purely by accident, if so.


just another way to be creative


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## Daniel Atkinson (Dec 31, 2016)

Very fine, I've been writing for over 50 years and many of my jobs in the past have required very precise handwriting for the paperwork :tiphat:


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

My cursive is bad, but my printing is indecipherable. I think I print small and half-coded so other people won't read my notes and think, "What an innane thing to make a note about."


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

My handwriting? Not so legible, which is why I'm typing all my posts.


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## Jacred (Jan 14, 2017)

Usually my writing is on the bad side but when I'm in the mood to, I get really OCD about forming all the characters perfectly. For example, when I write on envelopes.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

My handwriting (printing) has always been fairly neat. I would get complimented on it a lot in school, even by teachers. Here's a sample of some Latin homework from when I was in high school:










It can be messy when I'm not trying, but looking through many pages of notes over the past few years, they're all more or less like this, even the college ones. Sometimes it gets messier toward the bottom of the page, but my handwriting has looked like this for years.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

Legibility isn't my biggest problem. My problem is that I cannot write straight at all on unlined paper. I could start writing a line at the top of a sheet of paper. That same line will end up in the middle of the paper somewhere by the time I'm done writing that line!

I once tried to persuade a local babe to come over to the Klassik Shack to listen to some 1812 Overture by writing a sweet letter to her. The second* thing she did after reading it was laugh and say that my handwriting was terrible. That's all she said about what I wrote! 

* = The first thing she did was sniff the ink on the paper to see if she approved of the pen I used.  I think I lucked out not getting her!


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I definitely don't write as much as I use to but this past semester I took notes in a course and got rid of the rust. My writing is pristine!


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

A bit better than my foot-writing, i.e. awful.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I wrote my PhD thesis in 1984 (before computers) in handwriting. It was typed out by a former secretary of the University's department, who has picked these type of jobs up for a living. She said it was the best handwriting she'd ever seen.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Really bad but I can read it - wife can't...............


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

By the by, if you don't already know about this, be sure to check out the Bic Crystal Ballpoint Pen reviews on Amazon.uk. Highly...informative!


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Mine is definitely good, but it's one of my goals in life to actually make it to pristine. Heck, it's the other goal, because I actually have two. The other one is to at least once sit on horseback, or maybe even ride a horse. (I'm not even afraid of horses, not the slightest.) And I'm not kidding you. These are my two goals in life. Ok, I have other goals as well, but they're more abstract. These two are the only non-abstract ones I have.


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## classicorbust (May 18, 2017)

pretty bad but my job involves computer work so its not really an issue


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Lets see some more bad ones................


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I think my handwriting is OK because most people can read it, though not exactly easily.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

To be honest my writing is like chicken scratch i need to write slower.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Always got C in penmanship in grammar school. Printed all schoolwork in middle school. Typed all papers from high school on (very fast four-finger typing). Bad fine motor skills. Mrs. W is grammar school teacher and perfectionist and doesn't understand it -- but it's not like I don't try. Neuropathy in old age is making even keyboarding problematic.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

My handwriting is so terrible that my classmates graduated in deciphering to be able to cheat in exams.
It's still an issue. Due to my work dynamics I came back to take notes handwritten. Pencil is one thing I should avoid.
I'm really proud of my signature though.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Lets see some more bad ones................


why would you want to see something like this?


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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)

When I'm writing slowly and not burdened with time limit or anything similar to that, it's good. On exams, it was bad, pretty bad, but readable for anyone.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

You tell me:

The fourth signature down the left side of the Declaration of Independence belongs to me.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Mine has always been awful - being left-handed was especially a pain at Middle School (ages 9-13) as I had to use a fountain pen and that meant dragging part of the writing hand through the still-wet ink on the paper unless I curved the hand uncomfortably over the top of what I was writing - that's what I did until High School when we were allowed to use biros but the damage had been done by then, and my handwriting never recovered.

Which brings a question to mind - is it an advantage to be left-handed when writing texts which read from right to left such as Hebrew or Arabic?


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## Crystal (Aug 8, 2017)

Mine is quite good, because I don't want other people ask me words by words.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I have good handwriting. When I worked in an education library, and had to hand-write book slips for someone to type up, she never had a problem with my handwriting, in contrast to the writing of some of my colleagues. I also had to teach handwriting when I taught younger children and made teaching materials for them to look at and copy. 

I mostly type things nowadays, like everyone else, but I still enjoy handwriting and copying out lists and poems as a form of self-expression: a lot of attention was paid to handwriting 'in my day'.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> I have good handwriting. When I worked in an education library, and had to hand-write book slips for someone to type up, she never had a problem with my handwriting, in contrast to the writing of some of my colleagues. I also had to teach handwriting when I taught younger children and made teaching materials for them to look at and copy.
> 
> I mostly type things nowadays, like everyone else, but I still enjoy handwriting and copying out lists and poems as a form of self-expression: a lot of attention was paid to handwriting 'in my day'.


Yes. I have no trouble reading any of your posts. Very neat. Almost like print.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Half-joined up and quite neat but with some particular letters that are really unorthodox that arose out of small habits building up over time. I write quickly and neatly, but strangely it depends on the pen. I hate using biros - they make it look shakey and childish.


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