My New Obsession
November 17th, 2005I have the handwriting of a mildly hyperactive 10-year-old. So do you. In fact everyone of my generation, when they put pen to paper, ends up printing letters that are indistinguishable from those of a competent middle-schooler.
It wasn’t always the case that adults wrote like pre-pubescent loonies; when I look at parents handwriting it seems strangely even and regular. Their penmanship looks quaintly old-fashioned. I like it.
I feel like a gigantic sissy talking about penmanship but a gotta speak truth to power…
Anyway, this all leads to my latest obsession: improving my penmanship. After trolling the internet, I found a website that teaches the modern italic handwriting…
which I’ve been practicing for the past two weeks. I’ve been practicing a lot. Again, I’m obsessed.
You should be obsessed too. Italic looks much cooler than the bullshit, wanky cursive that I learned in third grade. It’s what all the kids are taught in Iceland and I think that they’re beginning to teach it instead of cursive in the U.S.
And once again, sorry for the sissy-ness…
November 19th, 2005 at 11:08 am
This is very strange–I don’t think you were around when I had this conversation, but just recently I was commiserating with someone about our abysmal penmanship (maybe it was Alex?). We decided it would be nice to start some sort of penmanship-improvement club. We’d meet once a week or so and come armed with those nice lined pads (the ones with the dashed line in the middle of each line) and number 2 pencils. Of course, we only discussed it, we haven’t really started a group. Occasionally when I am taking notes in an art history class I will make a conscientious effort to use proper penmanship. It never lasts long, especially if I attempt to write in cursive. I never remember how to write any of the capital letters. (This reminds me that Trevor, who has great handwriting, was in on this conversation too…)
Also, penmanship reminds me of kindergarten, and the fact that the “cool” thing to do in those days was to have a pencil whose led was so dark the writing looked like pen (they must have all been no. 2s though, so I don’t know how there could have been much variation). We weren’t allowed to use pens in kindergarten.
November 19th, 2005 at 7:54 pm
i can testify that all that practice pays off. i got a letter in the mail today and the italic handwriting was just flawless.
that letter was from an icelandic schoolchild. i also did get a letter from mitch, but THAT handwriting looked like the work of a drunken baboon.
November 19th, 2005 at 7:58 pm
ok, that was a lie. the awesome italic-handwriting letter was from mitch. he does it like a pro. and may i add that reading a letter in italic handwriting doesnt seem weirdly old timey, as i had anticipated– like too declaration-of-independency, or too book-of-kells- -it seems, in fact, modern, but clear and graceful and classical.
i give it a thumbs up.
good work, mitchell.
November 20th, 2005 at 8:50 pm
Mitch, would you please scan and post a sample?
November 21st, 2005 at 9:47 pm
First of all, let me thank the Dixcy for her kind words concerning my penmanship. Let me also return the favor by saying that hers is pretty darn good as well.
In any event, while I do agree that one’s handwriting should be clear, be legible, and not resemble that of a 3rd grader, I feel there is a gap in logic with moving towards modern italic handwriting. Mitch, you say that cursive is “wanky”, but does not this new brand of handwriting you practice have a significant element of wankitude? Your consistent mention of the “sissyness” surrounding this newfound style of penmanship is a testament to the inherent underlying wank factor, I think.
What handwriting needs is a simplification, a move towards clarity. It is the 21st-century after all, and we are all accustomed to reading the characaters of perfectly generated computerized text. We should not sacrifice time, however, in the search for this clarity. I fear writing with modern italic handwriting is an unduly slow and painstaking process unfit for the era in which we live. In that sense, “modern” is almost a misnomer for this style, as anything modern these days implies efficiency, straight-forwardness, and most of all, speed. If one day you plan to scale back to a slimmed down version of italic handwriting, this foray into penmanship being an exercise towards an end and not an end in itself, then I am all for it. Hopefully, you will eventually balance the crispness of the technique with a practical quickness of writing.
Finally, Mitch, allow me to also offer that some people believe handwriting is a window into the personality of the writer. My father is a strong adherent to handwriting analysis, also known as graphology. So I must ask you, Mitch, if you have considered that to truly change your handwriting, you may first have to engender a true change in yourself. Perhaps the change you seek in your penmanship is actually a metaphor for something more fundamental. Of course, my father is a big kookenstein, so anything he believes in is probably all kooked up. His handwriting *is* rather insane looking, though….
November 21st, 2005 at 11:20 pm
pseudo-scientific proclamations notwithstanding, I think you’re off the mark, Trev, in your assessment of modern italic handwriting.
Firstly, I’m finding italic much quicker than traditional cursive—with its endless curlicues—and nearly as quick as my traditional slapdash jumble of guck.
Secondly, if you really take a look at the italic letterforms, they’re much simpler than traditional cursive. Gone is the strange double-humped z, gone are the endless loops of the l j g y q, etc. Most importantly, gone entirely are the weird capitals, an obvious improvement.
In terms of the sissy-ness factor—I was refering to the situation of a grown man talking about penmanship, not the letterforms themselves (I still hold to this—me writing about penmanship is super-gay). On the contrary, I find the italic to look much more massculine (and yes, more modern) than cursive, which always struck me as very feminine-looking. Maybe your initial assessment of the italic’s “wankyness” is ’cause you’re not used to it.
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:55 am
Why yes, Mitch, modern italic seems simpler, easier to read, and perhaps even faster to write than cursive once one has practiced, but I was never arguing for cursive. I am arguing for a 21st-century penmanship, a penmanship that discards all that is unnecessary and lets the true self show through. Cursive is antiquated, but modern italic seems only like some half-way point between the arcane and what this new millenium demands. The “modern” in modern italic feels like some 1920′s or 1950′s version of modern. Where is the 2005 version of modern, Mitchee?
Also, I forgot to close my last post with the comment that I think it’s somehow sad to excise the 10-year old from your handwriting, because in a sense, you are trying to remove the 10-year old from your personality. That was the point of my graphology tangent. What have we gained when we have lost our youthful childish core? Nothing worth gaining, I would imagine.
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:10 pm
Trevor is wrong–I have terrible handwriting.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:04 pm
Well, Trev is right, in the sense that the writing should change, get faster, become simpler. I hope it does. But just like the 50-year old—whose penmanship was beaten into him by catholic school nuns—bares the trace of that earlier formality in their quicker, contemorary hand, I want to stick with this initial formality and get it right before I start messing with it.
I’m sorry; I’m on a mission.
December 13th, 2005 at 9:49 am
Well, I teach Italic handwriting for a living – to doctors whose hospitals neeed their illegible handwriting cured, to high-schoolers facing the SAT which now includes a timed handwritten essay, and sometimes to schools that call me in because their teachers and administrators have finally figured out that the conventional loopy cursive takes more time (and provides less legibility) than Italic.
And nobody has yet complained about it not looking properly modern.
Mitch and anyone else learning Italic should know that one of the USA’s oldest Italic-handwriting teachers – a ninety-something-year-old man living in the town of Bingham Farms, Michigan – provides on written request a “Certificate of Born-Again Handwriter Status” to any adult who has learned Italic and now uses it for all writing, including the signature. Write to: Bill Bostick, 23350 Old Orchard Trail, Bingham Farms, MI 48025-3437, USA. (Yes, I have his permission to give out this address.) Bill does expect a second, thank-you letter after you receive your “Born-Again Handwriter” certificate: perhaps use that second letter to ask Bill to send a certificate to some friend who writes Italic, because Bill will indeed flll free-certificate requests that come from a third party rather than from the Italic writer’s own self. (Bill trusts recommend anyone unqualified.)
Bill learned Italic ‘way back in December 1947 (from an article on it, “Our Handwriting,” in that issue of WOMAN’S DAY which his wife subscribes to) – since then he has taught it, written and self-published books on how to learn it, and (of course) gotten into this free-Italic-certificate endeeavor. (Your certificate will probably come to you – as did mine – from a one-man “organization” called TASFTDOUAIH: The American Society For The Diminution Of Ugly And Illegible Handwriting. Receiving your certificate makes you a member of this group which has no dues, no meetings, and no obligations except to write Italic and to encourage others to do the same in the interests of better penmanship. Those seeking a more formal Italic-handwriting advocacy-group – with a magazine, a contest, and local chapters – may wish to contact the international [UK-based] Society for Italic Handwriting c/o Nick Caulkin: nickthenibs@hotmail.co.uk and http://www.nickthenibs.co.uk/calligraphy.htm )
Also check out my web-page …
December 13th, 2005 at 12:48 pm
I forgot to give my website address – learn.to/handwrite or global2000.net/handwritingrepair
Send cheers, flames, or general _non_sequitur_ comments to handwritingrepair@gmail.com
December 13th, 2005 at 8:49 pm
Congratulations Mitch,
I have been teaching Italic for 40 years and many Primary Schools in the UK and other countries now teach it as a more modern and faster style, although, of course based on the original 16th C style from which all western hand writing developed. It just went very wrong during the 18th and 19th centuries when copper engravers took over from the pen!
The American Palmer and Zaner Bloser styles were from copybooks written by self taught penmen who did not know their history!
Well done and keep up the good work! You may like to consider joining the Uk based Society for Italic Handwriting
http://www.quilljar.btinternet.co.uk/sih.html
This will keep you in touch with all aspects of the subject
Yours sincerely
Christopher
December 14th, 2005 at 11:53 am
Thank-you, Kate and Christopher, for your nice comments and helpful info.
December 15th, 2005 at 4:09 am
Hi Mitch,
Great Blog. Would you care to join me here; http://tinyurl.com/cdfs9 You can start your own thread if you like.
Lim
December 20th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
How we educationally concerned cyber-savvy wanker-scribes can help research and practice in handwriting instruction:
http://www.educationnews.org/handwriting_educator.htm
March 23rd, 2006 at 9:54 pm
An article on Italic handwriting ran on Sunday, March 12, 2006, as the cover-story for the “Spotlight” Sunday magazine of the ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS.
You can see full text (no illustrations) of the article at
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/family/article/0,2792,DRMN_107_4536159,00.html
If you want to see the illustrations (which I thought added much), I recommend you ask the reporter, Lisa Ryckman at ryckmanl@rockymountainnews.com , how to get hard copy of the Italic handwriting story. The illustrations included some Italic handwriting by third-graders, a fourth-grader, and a fifth-grader, along with a doctor’s handwriting before and after Italic.
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August 30th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
I thought I wasnt going to like this blog but more I read the more I liked it.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Its just sometimes people seem to get themselves tied up in unnecessary knots over something that’s very simple.