My new co-worker was having some trouble deciphering our boss's handwriting this afternoon -- we told her welcome to the club, but it will get better. It's an art of interpretation.
He writes in a unique melee of blunt cursive and printing that only his wife is an expert at reading.
Why is it, I wondered, that a male's handwriting tends to be more sharp than a female's? It's certainly true for my parents -- my mother's hand is an elegant cursive; my father writes in rigid, blocky capitals.
And whatever happened to cursive?
I remember begging my mom to teach me cursive when I was five or so. She told me to wait until I'd fully mastered the print letters. (I think I had a good case, though, and she taught me some -- it's hard to read her handwriting, always cursive, unless I know some.)
When we had cursive handwriting lessons every day or every other day in elementary school, they urged us to practice, practice, practice, because our middle school teachers wouldn't allow us to print.
And they were right, they wouldn't let us print. Or, rather, we had to print -- from the computer.
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Ariel,
I meant to comment on this earlier. I thought this was very interesting.
One day I was talking with Peter, which happens often and actually just happened a few moments ago again. Anyway, on that one day he was talking about handwriting. Apparently there was a time long ago when it was the men who wrote in gaudy, elegant swirls and the women who wrote with primitive blocks. The men wrote that way because they were the educated and thought themselves the elite. Apparently there is a mystery-ish novel written during that period in which a woman disguises her handwriting as a man's by writing with elegant swirls and flourishes...
There's my imprecise trivia for the day.
Peace out.
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