What's your opinion of your own penmanship?

[Slivovitz]

I've noticed here and on FPN that many people seem to be sensitive about their handwriting, automatically apologizing for it if attaching a photograph with a sample, or just telling us how bad it is.


Thus, another poll. What is your own opinion of your everyday handwriting? Are you proud of how good it is? So embarrassed by it that you use it only for notes to yourself? Somewhere in between? Feel free to show a sample, or not. I'm not interested in judging anybody else, just curious about how people feel about this.


My opinion of my own writing? I think it's adequate to pretty good. It's a far cry from the neat rounded hand that I was taught in elementary school in the 1960s, but it has evolved to something that I think is pretty typical for men of my generation. Folks within shouting distance my own age, if they haven't gotten out of the habit of using cursive entirely, seem to find it readable. Really young people look at it as if it were were Old Church Slavonic; but I try to tell myself that it's because they haven't learned cursive. My purpose in writing is to communicate. If I think that someone is likely to have trouble with my script for whatever reason, then I'll print, or send them an Email.


If enough people here ask me what the writing below says, I'll know that I'm too easy on myself. At this point, though, it's not likely that I'll put any serious effort into improvement.

 

[oc_in_fw]

I would say fair. It has improved vastly since when I started (it was atrocious). I always printed and all caps, and even that could be sloppy. When I have a FP in hand, I make a conscious effort to slow down and write in cursive.

 

[Jimmy James]

My print is good enough (and has been complimented a lot, which is more a commentary on how bad everybody else's writing is not how good mine is).

My cursive is fair though a lot of that is rust because I never trot it out. I even printed when taking the bar exam (and finished each three hour segment an hour early, but that's mostly my hatred of outlining).

 

[Dave258]

I would consider my penmanship fair. My cursive is much better than my print. If I am not rushing, I can write pretty neat. I would attach a pic but I don't have one right now.

EDIT: I just found pics of when I was testing out my Stub nib that I got from Brian Gray. These were note that I took for a class using my Edison Hudson and 1.0mm stub on a Mead 3 subject notebook.

 

[nemo]

I think mine is excellent, although not wonderful. I paid attention in elementary school and did all the drills, we had compulsory cursive work about 20 minutes each day (Palmer). I laughed at another thread here, since I was told that my writing during high school "looked like a girl's". I did a lot of printing and architectural lettering as a draftsman many years ago but never stopped using a cursive hand and although it got cramped a bit at times my writing is still good.

Someday I may even post a sample.

 

[Patman27]

Poor script. My print is okay. I had decent cursive until I learned Russian in college. I got used to writing cyrillic in cursive and roman in print. It took me much longer to be able to sign my name again than it did to forget all the Russian I learned. Funny how muscle memory works. Even now, some of my letters have strange kinks in them.
На здоровье!

 

[Mr5x5]

I think mine is excellent, although not wonderful. I paid attention in elementary school and did all the drills, we had compulsory cursive work about 20 minutes each day (Palmer). I laughed at another thread here, since I was told that my writing during high school "looked like a girl's". I did a lot of printing and architectural lettering as a draftsman many years ago but never stopped using a cursive hand and although it got cramped a bit at times my writing is still good.

Someday I may even post a sample.

I've seen it and I would agree with you. Well done, Sir.

 

[cb91710]

Mine is so bad that I don't even attempt cursive, out of respect for people who must actually be able to understand what I have written (and in the traffic signal industry, it can literally be a public safety issue if something is not clear).
I print.

Worse than that.

I print in all upper case. My capitals are simply larger.

But no matter how sloppy it is, it can be read and there is never a mistake about what was written.

 

[craig87c]

Mine is atrocious. Calling my handwriting chicken scratch is an insult to chickens everywhere.

 

[jwhite]

I think mine is excellent, although not wonderful. I paid attention in elementary school and did all the drills, we had compulsory cursive work about 20 minutes each day (Palmer). I laughed at another thread here, since I was told that my writing during high school "looked like a girl's". I did a lot of printing and architectural lettering as a draftsman many years ago but never stopped using a cursive hand and although it got cramped a bit at times my writing is still good.

Someday I may even post a sample.

I did those too, my father was a teacher and would bring home spelling and writing drills in addition to the assigned work. I would spend hours and hours sitting at a table or desk doing drills.


.....my writing was, and is still, god awful.

 

[Etoyoc_Rebmos]

drills and reprimands made me hate writing as a kid. I just didn't have the coordination to do it well at that age. Maybe if they started pushing a year or so later I would have OK. But as it was, I hated writing in cursive and didn't care to try. Now I try, but years of bad practice have made it hard to take time to make letters even close to proper.

 

[Legion]

I think mine is poor, although it is better than it used to be. A couple of years ago I downloaded a Palmer book, and retrained myself to hold the pen correctly. That helped.

I think my hand writing is a bit more interesting now, where as before it was just messy.

Writing at quick, note-taking, grocery list making speed.

 

[strop]

I would say mine is good to excellent, though not completely classic. I'm often complimented for my writing.

 

[maxman]

Poor. I can't read a lot of what I write. Neither can anyone else.
Want something encrypted?
ask me to write it down. Then have fun trying to decipher it.

Key not provided. Maybe NASA can help.

 

[oc_in_fw]

I would say mine is good to excellent, though not completely classic. I'm often complimented for my writing.

I would say you are underselling yourself.

 

[DougieB]

I worked a few years in health care as a "Data Analyst". Decision Support would be a more descriptive title. Microsoft Access and Excel power user at the time.
It destroyed my already poor handwriting skills.

 

[the_edski]

It was poor before I found "The Nib", now I say it is fair with daily improvement. My new found love of italic nibs is definitely helping!

 

[cb91710]

Poor. I can't read a lot of what I write. Neither can anyone else.
Want something encrypted?
ask me to write it down. Then have fun trying to decipher it.

Key not provided. Maybe NASA can help.

LOL!

In college, classmates would ask me for copies of my notes for lectures they missed.
I always told them:

"You do not want my notes, for several reasons
A - I and only I can read my writing
B - I take only sufficient notes to jog my memory... if you did not listen to/remain awake during the lecture, my notes will be of no use to you."

 

[Jack Straw]

This is really the best I can do, except on rare occasions when the stars are in perfect alignment. I tend to write very fast.

I would say that I like my handwriting, but I wouldn't call it neat or graceful.

 

[Go West Young Man]

I print in all upper case. My capitals are simply larger.
.

+1