I have crummy handwriting. It isn’t particularly illegible, it just lacks character. I’ve not written in cursive [apart from my signature] since 3rd grade, when we stopped getting graded on it. I’ve printed ever since, and to this day there is still something rather juvenile about the way my words appear on paper.
I think graphology is pseudoscience for the most part, but I do feel that some information can be gleaned from the examination of handwriting. So while graphology is bunk, forensic document examination I’ll buy.
I think the limits of forensic document examination only permit people to determine whether or not something was written by a particular person. My writing is all over the place, thankfully not as bad as Charlie Brown, my letters don’t have a particular slant right or left, the space between letters and words varies, the size of letters varies, nothing is very consistent. So in order for someone to forge something pretending to be me, they’d probably have to practice quite a bit.
Graphologically speaking [quack quack]:
1) In general interprtation of writing it may be said that the left direction is interpreted as the direction towards the mother as well as the past. Left slant writing is seen more often in women than in men. We often see left slant in people who have a disturbed balance in the parantel equilibrium. Writers with left slant are generally much closer to their mothers. The upright slant is found in people who are very independant in life. They tend to have no inclination to either the mother or father. Wholly upright hands are very rare. In fact this may only be achieved by a show of discipline. The right slant is the most common and and most natural slant. The right slant is found in people in a hurry, impatient people and the active writer.
2) Sometimes writers words are widely spaced and at other times narrowly spaced. We may say that this writer is unstable in both thinking and emotions. When most letters are unconnected it shows a person who is an egocentric. Lack of end strokes indicates a shy person. When the first letter stands apart it shows a cautious person.
3) The size of a letter is indicative of the writers self reliance. A letter may extend in four directions, up, down, right or left. A letter may also be tall and wide. Tall capitals are people who tower above the rest. Tall initials come from impressive people. Small capitals are people who are modest in nature. They concentrate on facts, not ideas. Wide letters are extroverted people. Narrow letters come from loners.
you have boy handwriting.
does it seem to everyeone else that women usually have better handwriting than men? Why is that?
With the use of e‑mail over actual letters, my writing, once commented as being “girl handwriting” (organized, tight and legible), has devolved in some sort of 3rd grade scrawl. I get embarassed when I have to write things out to people ’cause it looks like some little kid wrote it.
My cursive is even worse.
You haven’t seen bad handwriting until you see mine. I was told early on that I was going to be a Doctor. I learned how to type when I was in 4th grade because my handwriting was so bad. Bottom line is that I can read it. So now my handwriting is like coded messages to myself. Anytime I leave a handwritten note that I need somebody else to read, I take extra time to write it and it looks like a 3 year old wrote it, but at least you can read it. (sort of). My cursive quickly turns into lines on a page that even I can’t read. However, if I take my time and write slowly, my cursive is actually quite legible, I just have no use for it.
Cursive is nearly as dead as Latin these days. Who needs to use it for anything other than a signature these days? Print does a better job of looking a bit like text/type so why bother?
i like writing cursive still. it has more of a flow to it. i actually wrote most of my papers in college longhand b/c the writing flow was better, but now i can type much faster than i write.
there’s something about handwriting. it’s personal, even if it sucks. and there’s something about putting actual pen/pencil to paper.
I still write letters to a few people, gives me an excuse to use my fountain pen, and I know that I love receiving mail like that. A friend of mine who writes back often has tiny cursive handwriting that is almost impossible to read. I have to pick words out and then assemble meanings of the others through context. After two or three read throughs I can usually decipher it all.
I have terrible handwriting and always have…
I had a teacher in art school who insisted there was no difference between boys’ and girls’ handwriting, and that there was no way to tell whether something was written by a male or female. I think his larger point was that we decide ourselves what marks we make, and we really can “design” our own identities in that way regardless of gender… but his initial argument seems silly. I agree that you can’t conclusively tell gender based on handwriting, but there are certain traits that are more common to girls’ handwriting, and vice versa.