Handwriting

[jwolfer]

I've always associated these letter forms with Catholicism, probably because I saw them in Catholic school materials and other Catholic publications, while the public elementary school I attended taught D'Nealian handwriting (with the little tails) and otherwise generally used more traditional typography. 

You mean someone out there handwrites "a"?

I do... and yes it was imitating signs ( you know you're a roadgeek if...) same with "9".  I remember starting out making a upside down "6" t get the curve right when I was in 3rd grade.  I wanted it to look like the I-95 or US9 signs.  If I write quickly the "a" comes out like a "z"

[exit322]

My handwriting is generally on the "chicken scratch" side of the ledger.

[signalman]

I always write in small caps and make my capitalized letters larger.  My I's also have top and bottom bars to be distinguished from my 1's which are vertical strokes.  I too make my 5's with one stroke, staring at the top right.  My 4's are also closed and the tails on my 9's curved.  My 2's are always flat on the bottom; no loop in the lower left corner.  I also make flat top 3's, anyone else?

[vtk]

I do flat top 3s, but only when filling out forms like my tax returns.

[pianocello]

My 2's and z's looked identical before I started putting a line through my z. Now it's just habit.

At one time, I wrote the lowercase l, the capital I, and the number 1 all with a vertical line. Now they all look different, similar to what is used in this forum.

I never write in cursive (although I connect letters to speed up the writing process, especially with the letter t) except when using the imaginary unit (i) in calculus. That's also the only time I add a "tail" to my letters, even though I was originally taught D'Nealian handwriting

[Scott5114]

I bounce back and forth on 3s. Currently I use a rounded 3, but I have done flat-top 3s as recently as a few months ago.

[andrewkbrown]

What about writing the letter "s"? Do you begin from the top and move down, or begin from the bottom and go up? I've always written "s" from the bottom up, but have seen many who do the opposite.

To me, it makes sense to write "s" from the bottom up, as the pen stroke moves from lower left to upper right, and the pen is now to the right of the finished letter, rather than having the pen stroke move from upper right to lower left, where you then have to lift the pen up and over the now finished letter "s", in order to continue the writing sequence.

[signalman]

I start at the top right, just like my 5's.  Only difference is the 5 has a right angle at the top, the s is curved.

[vtk]

To me, it makes sense to write "s" from the bottom up, as the pen stroke moves from lower left to upper right, and the pen is now to the right of the finished letter, rather than having the pen stroke move from upper right to lower left, where you then have to lift the pen up and over the now finished letter "s", in order to continue the writing sequence.

Doing it from top down, yes the pen starts and ends on the "wrong" side of the letter, but that only has the occasional side effect of some extra loops / swashes / flourishes as byproducts, which can look nice.

[Duke87]

My handwriting is a bit odd because I taught myself how to write when I was 3 years old based on copying printed text. This means there are methods I use for forming some characters which are downright odd, and some characters I render in ways which are weird for handwriting but somewhat typical for printed fonts.

For example, my lowercase as, bs, ds, and ps are all drawn as a circle plus a vertical line, with the line tangent to the circle and extending both above and below its tangent point. I form my lowercase es starting at the point on the left where the lines meet, drawing the curve up top, going straight across the middle, and then drawing the tail. I have never met anyone else who writes es this way and everyone I've shown it to has looked at me funny.

For years I would write 1s with both bottom and top bar, driving teachers and professors mad because when I wrote them quickly they looked very similar to my 2s, which I write the exact way this font renders them. When I started working I retrained myself to write 1s as simply a vertical line in order to solve this legibility problem. But my 5s still look like Ss and my 2s still look like Zs unless I write nice and slowly.


The most amusing thing that came out of all this though, was when I was in kindergarten and they were teaching us how to write. I, being my self-centered autistic self, assumed that since I already knew how to write, everyone else in the class did as well, and that all our assignments were merely intended as practice. So when the teacher saw some of the weird ways I was forming letters and tried to correct me, I got all stubborn and defensive, thinking she was being mean and obnoxious by demanding I write the letters her way rather than just letting me do it my way.

[Pete from Boston]

My handwriting is a bit odd because I taught myself how to write when I was 3 years old based on copying printed text. This means there are methods I use for forming some characters which are downright odd, and some characters I render in ways which are weird for handwriting but somewhat typical for printed fonts.

I drew print letters (all caps) long before being taught to write.  I still do my Es and some others different than taught because of this.

[Zeffy]

My handwriting has been sucky ever since 3rd grade.  Sometimes it was so bad, my teachers asked me to redo my assignments so they could read it.

Oh yeah, and my cursive is pretty much unreadable. But in this day and age, handwriting is becoming extinct, so I'm not too worried. 

[empirestate]

I used to get terrible grades in handwriting; as a lefty, the cursive method I was taught didn't really lend itself to legibility. I switched to printing early on, and I'd draw the ire of my teachers on one hand for not using the required cursive, and on the other for illegibility. At the time I was frustrated that they couldn't see the obvious paradox in what they were asking for, but looking back now as an adult with academic experience, they most certainly did, but had to do it anyway.

I continue to print exclusively, following my usual philosophy that whichever method gives the desired result is the correct one.

[corco]

Yeah, mine is bad. I'm right-handed, but I hold the pencil funny so I get the same splotchiness that lefties do- my pinky knuckle drags on the above line on the paper.

I'm pretty sure I should have been left handed. The only things I do with my right hand are throw, swing a golf club/baseball bat, and write, which are taught behaviors. Everything that I naturally picked up I do left handed.

If I need to be legible, I print. Otherwise I write in a weird print/cursive hybrid that's pretty much only decipherable to me.

[1995hoo]

My handwriting has been sucky ever since 3rd grade.  Sometimes it was so bad, my teachers asked me to redo my assignments so they could read it.

Oh yeah, and my cursive is pretty much unreadable. But in this day and age, handwriting is becoming extinct, so I'm not too worried. 

When I took the bar exam I was paranoid about my answers being illegible, so I printed everything in all capital letters and used an erasable pen (this also because Virginia's bar examiners are known for disliking cross-outs because it allegedly shows you didn't think your answer through well enough). Must have worked since I passed on the first try.

[Duke87]

Wait, wait... you WRITE on a bar exam? I thought all certification tests like that were all multiple choice. The FE/PE and CEM exams are, at least.

[Roadgeek Adam]

Mine is a living nightmare if you ever want to imitate me.

Half the letters are in cursive, half the letters are in print, but despite that, I still connect the letters. My signature s's and my regular writing s's are significantly different. You can't even realize its an s at the end of my signature.

Numbers: I cross my 7s and like the 7s on the old clocks, bend the bottom upwards. I write my 1s exactly as this board writes them. I also have a habit of writing in bubble text for whatever reason.

[agentsteel53]

I do... and yes it was imitating signs ( you know you're a roadgeek if...) same with "9".

for me, it was the serial number on paper currency which made me realize that a 9 was the same as an upside-down 6.

[vtk]

exactly as this board writes them

Technically, you can't depend on the text of this forum displaying in a specific font on all devices.  I don't know what font I'm seeing right now on my smartphone, but there's a good chance it's not quite the same as on your computer screen.

[Alps]

Wait, wait... you WRITE on a bar exam? I thought all certification tests like that were all multiple choice. The FE/PE and CEM exams are, at least.

The NJ PE exam only went to all-multiple choice a couple of years ago, and had written portions before then.

[1995hoo]

Wait, wait... you WRITE on a bar exam? I thought all certification tests like that were all multiple choice. The FE/PE and CEM exams are, at least.

Two-day exam. In most states, day one is the state-specific portion and consists of essay and short-answer questions (in Virginia in 1998 when I took it there were nine essays and 20 short-answers). Day two is the Multistate Bar Exam, a 200-question multiple-choice exam on six topics, that's administered by an outside group. In some states, the MBE is day one and the state part is day two–New Jersey does that, I believe, because so many people take both the New York and New Jersey exams that New Jersey will let you take the New York exam on Tuesday and Wednesday, then take the NJ-specific state portion on Thursday and count the MBE score you got on the New York exam. Not all states permit that: Virginia won't accept an MBE score unless you got it at a Virginia bar exam sitting.

I think a couple of states have three-day bar exams, but I'm not motivated to find out which ones.

[Alps]

I think a couple of states have three-day bar exams, but I'm not motivated to find out which ones.

DE and CA.
source: someone who just took the NJ/PA combo in 3 days

[english si]

I used to get terrible grades in handwriting;

You got grades in that?

I'd draw the ire of my teachers on one hand for not using the required cursive, and on the other for illegibility.

As a righty who holds the pen nib too close and while writing clearly, it also is messy (people copying notes I wrote said that I was clearer than most 'neat' writers, with big and obvious letters - one friend of mine had a bit of work handed back with the message, "neat and beautiful writing, but I can't read it without a magnifying glass", but that it was messy with ink spots, and blotches, and crossings out and corrections).

At secondary school we were required to write with fountain pens, not roller-balls or similar (and certainly not biros). Oddly, despite not using one (used a rollerball), only one teacher complained. I explained that it would make my writing a total mess. "but it's the rules" "we're over halfway through the year and you are the first person to complain about what pen I use". Next lesson with her, I borrowed a fountain pen off a friend, and by the end of the third lesson, having tried to mark my homework, the teacher had decided not to enforce the rule - the bottom of my hand, fingertips, and the page, were a big splodge of ink. Even before I smudged/covered in ink the writing I had already done, it was very hard to read due to the thickness of the the line that such pens write with. No teacher ever complained about my not using a fountain pen during my 6 years there, other than that one time. They asked me to double-space, write in blue (ie not black), not use both sides of the paper if cheap paper and other complaints about messiness, but never that I needed to use a fountain pen.

I now just use pencils as much as possible, and computers to write essays and stuff.

[jeffandnicole]

I had a teacher in elementary school who I greatly disliked that wrote her J's not as the normal 'J' (with the bottom looking like a smile) but as a J with a frown on the bottom.  I always hated that.

I now write my J's like that too.

I also use all caps, small caps, and regular small letters, and generally I'll use one or the other without thinking about it.  Sometimes I'll switch mid-form.  Don't know why I do this. 

[codyg1985]

the only time I dot an "i" or "j" is when referring to the imaginary unit, and write those i's and j's in a cursive font.  I also happen to write "log" and "lim" in cursive, for whatever reason. 

"sin", "cos", etc, however - always printed.

I put the hat on i's, j's, and k's when referring to vectors.

I do my 4's with a closed top, and my 9's have the bottom curled like it is in this sentence.

I cross my z's but not my 7's.