Penmanship, Handwriting is a vanishing skill

Found this article by Josh Freed in our Montreal Saturday Gazette, and just had to post it. I could have just linked to it, but I fear in a few months time, or even earlier, it may be removed from the Gazette site. So here it is, in its entirety.  Here too is a copy of the original.

Not only did it make me laugh, it also brought me tears of relief. If you’re a parent with a child who’s struggling with penmanship, or if you yourself have always struggled, or if your penmanship has gone downhill ever since you earned that degree, or became a physician, then you’ll enjoy.

Penmanship is a vanishing skill – and not a moment too soon, either 
JOSH FREED, Freelance
Published: Saturday, January 06, 2007

https://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=9925fb4d-071a-4b67-b118-a0cd272299b5&k=76176&p=1

It’s time to write off another ancient human skill being sent to its death by technology.

Say goodbye to the handwritten signature, which experts say is about to go the way of TV rabbit ears.

Our personal signatures reportedly will be replaced by bank-style PIN codes, which are more secure and difficult to forge. This will mean the death of a small human touch that goes back at least several centuries.

Hurray! Nothing could make me happier. The sooner they burn all the pens and pencils the better.

My signature has given me grief ever since I first learned to spell my name. I stopped using traveller’s cheques decades ago because I could never duplicate the same scrawl that I’d signed at the bank. Each cheque I signed was a unique piece of work – which didn’t go over well with most shopkeepers and hotel clerks who refused to accept them.

It’s still the same when I occas-ionally autograph books for people. Once I’m finished, they look at me as though I’ve vandalized their copy. I’m tempted to just sign with an X, but most people would think it’s a Y.

The only reason I can still use a Visa card is that no one seems to care if you sign your own name or Queen Elizabeth’s.

My pathetic signature is just part of my poisoned penmanship. I’ve been handwriting-handicapped since I was old enough to smudge ink. My words look like they were written by a squirrel that dipped his feet in ink and then ran across the page.

Throughout public school, I was teased mercilessly by kids with classy calligraphy, who insisted I was writing in hieroglyphics. I still have old report cards in which teachers’ comments were always the same.

“Josh’s handwriting is illegible,” said my Grade 2 teacher. “If he does not correct this fault now, he will never succeed at anything.”

“I am afraid I must again mention Josh’s illegible handwriting,” my Grade 3 teacher warned. “He must correct this problem – before it is too late!”

It already was. Things had been bad enough when we used large printed letters. But then we switched to “real” writing, where all the letters were supposed to connect fluidly. Mine always looked superimposed instead.

Technically, this new style was called cursive writing but I called it “cursed writing,” because that’s what it was for me. I spent weeks hunched over my desk as intently as a jeweller, trying to form letters someone else could read.

I took tutorials like “remedial writing” and “handwriting helper.” I tried fountain pens and felt pens, mechanical pencils, crayons and even a quill. I was once given a fancy pen called the Diplomat – a replica of one used to sign the Treaty of Versailles or something.

But if U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s signature had looked like mine, the First World War would never have officially ended.

One high school teacher was so determined to reform my writing he made me switch hands for six months. I was the only person in the history of Western education forced to write with his left hand. But it didn’t work either – no one could unscramble my scribble.

This could have been a terrible liability for a writer – like a chef with no taste buds, or a painter who’s colour blind. But when I became a student journalist, I actually discovered one advantage: no one could read my notes – though neither could I, unfortunately.

Eventually I was saved by the typewriter, when my one-finger pecking skills gradually freed the scribe beneath my scrawl. Since then, I type practically everything, apart from fridge notes. When I must write by hand, I use old-fashioned print – fat, block letters that look like they belong on Sesame Street. I am an adult trapped in the handwriting of a 4-year-old.

At least I’m no longer alone. According to recent studies, the majority of North Americans now print rather than write. Handwriting is a vanishing skill, as most people use computers, or just talk on the phone.

Penmanship is going the way of the written letter. Our collective handwriting has become so bad the U.S. Postal Service recently developed a new computer that reputedly can decipher a letter writer’s worst chicken scratches.

Supposedly, it can even differentiate between a letterhead that says “1320 Brontosaurus Ave., #637” and another that says: “Congratulations! You have just won $1,000,000!”

For me, the last handwriting hassle is my signature, which still plagues me when I have to sign cheques. But soon I should be able to sign by machine instead, one of the rare times I’ll be happy to be pushing buttons.

So laugh at my writing while you can, all you fancypants penmeisters with signatures like John Hancock, because longhand won’t be around much longer. The writing is on the wall for handwriting.

Yours truly,

 

josh_freed@hotmail.com