If You Can Read This, My Handwriting Has Improved

When I was in Grade 2, we were only allowed to write in pencil. But, if you could prove that your handwriting was neat enough, you could earn a "Pen Licence", which authorized you to write in pen. Should your handwriting lapse into illegibility, your Pen Licence could be revoked.

Although at the time I probably wasn't the first to earn a Pen Licence, I clearly recall being presented with one. If I was in Grade 2 right now, I think I'd have a hard time earning one. Although she might be delighted that I can type over 50 words per minute with high accuracy, I doubt that Mrs L. would be impressed by the quality of my penmanship.

My Grade 6 teacher also taught us penmanship. But he cheated because he used to comment on our work by stapling notes to our worksheets - notes typed on an electric typwriter in cursive font (red ink, of course). I always suspected that his handwriting was no good.

I recently decided to take a look on the internet to see if there are any websites that provide excercises to help me improve my handwriting. I found quite a few. The one I liked the best had you re-write the following paragraph over and over again:

Writing is a form of expression, and neat handwriting is important when writing anything that will be read by someone else. We are often judged by the quality of our handwriting, and when our penmanship is poor we appear to be lazy or incompetent. Good handwriting involves forming letters properly and spacing the letters carefully within words. Letters should not be squeezed together, but they should not be spread far apart, either. It’s also important to form letters the correct height. Capital letters should be larger than lower-case letters. Words need to be separated so they don’t run together. When a person develops good handwriting, he or she can be proud of creating quality work.

This is good because not only does it give you a practice paragraph to copy out (sort of like 'writing lines' in school), but it also brainwashes you along the way. I like that.

The root cause of my bad handwriting is probably that it takes too much time and I can't be bothered. But I really should be bothered and I think I should take the effort to improve my handwriting skills.

Which leads me to the next point. I mentioned to someone that I was thinking of tackling this issue and he asked a very interesting question: what happens to handwriting analysis if you change your style of handwriting? For example, if now I slope my lower-case "l" to the right, but then re-learn how to write and do not slope the "l" at all, then does that impact on an analysis of my handwriting? For the answer to this question, see: Graphology / Handwriting Analysis FAQ.

FAQ number 8 reads:

My handwriting changed drastically because of a conscious effort to make my illegible handwriting legible; is it possible ?

A conscious effort to make handwriting more legible is a sign of wanting to communicate. Legibility is about making sure people can read your writing . And you would be viewed as willing to make clear communication. People who communicate clearly would probably be honest. That's a positive side. On the other hand, the change for better legibility might be intepreted as a 'conforming' act. The society might encourage communication or nice looking, neat handwriting. There is nothing bad about conforming. But sometime it could be viewed as a loss of originality. The person who asked this question actually agrees that the change has resulted in better clarity in his communication

I'm not sure that the question itself makes any sense, but perhaps it was submitted in handwriting and the webmaster couldn't read it properly...or maybe the webmaster is illiterate?

But in any case, according to the answer, if you want to improve the quality of your handwriting, be prepared to be branded an 'honest conformist' - you are trustworthy but want to be just like everyone else. So I ask, what if society is corrupt and you want to be just like them? Do you write only every second letter neatly?

Not necessarily following on from the honesty question, but doctors are notorious for bad handwriting. One joke goes as follows:

The doctor gave a prescription to a patient. The patient looked at it, but could not recognise a single letter. When he brought the prescription to the pharmacist, the pharmacist took a look and went straight away to bring the required medicine. As the pharmacist was busy ringing up the total on the cash-register, the puzzled customer asks, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but how can you possibly read that prescription?"

"Oh," replies the pharmacist, "it's easy. They all say the same thing"

"What's that?"

"All prescriptions say 'I've got my money, now you get yours!'"

Actually, according to this article in the Columbia News Service of April 25, 2006: "Florida, Idaho, Maryland, Montana, Tennessee and Washington all have passed “safe script” laws in recent years. In October, Montana adopted a law under which doctors can be fined up to $500 if their handwriting is reported by a pharmacist to be illegible".

Maybe its about time the government starts issuing Pen Licences. I'll give Mrs L. a call.