Show Us Your Handwriting - Vintage Penmanship!

[Nick D]

I print and always use a fountain pen. I can still write cursive if I want to, but usually don't. There are a lot of ligatures in my printing, though, especially to and from 'e'. I also incorporate some features from 15th century secretary hands.

 

[HungaryTom]

[QUOTE="Skeet" McD]Drágán MagyarTamás! (Hope I'm close with that....)

I wonder whether you ever write with the older cursive (assuming there was one in Hungary, like Sütterlinschrift in Germany, or some of the Slavic languages that used roman letters, like Czech and Polish)?

I have tried, in my way (usually with pencil, because of the problem of wet ink mentioned in my last post) to use the typical scripts of the various periods I have reenacted. As you are interested in the "Golden Age," I wonder if you do the same?[/QUOTE]

Dear Skeet,

The translation machine seems to be good but it’s not perfect – like my English.
In post WW2 Hungary the education of scripture was quite coherent; I had the chance to see my dad’s elementary school notebooks (it was a revelation and fun at the same time) the fonts he wrote in 1948 were pretty much the same what I did 30 years later and what I linked for you right now (another 30 years later):
http://s206.photobucket.com/albums/bb98/HungaryTom/?action=view&current=cursive0001.jpg.

The fonts you were referring to were typical pre WW2 where the written documents had to be nice (typewriters were expensive and not omnipresent) and handwritings were much more calligraphic. Unfortunately it is today’s septuagenarians and octogenarians who can still write like that, and what I observed they write long, long letters to friends and relatives, like my late granddad and grandmother did. When I tried to explain internet to my grandpa he did not seem to grab it any more. People from another era. My grandmothers old-time girlfriend in the US uses MSN and I read out her e-mails to my other grandmother...

I can relate to Baron Kurtz’ experience, poor professors deciphering tons of stenography. When making notes at the uni I learned to structure the pages and handwriting in a way that fellow students could also use my notes if necessary but I am really not much of a calligrapher.

Interesting article:
http://digg.com/arts_culture/The_Slow_Death_of_Handwriting

 

[Spitfire]

As most other art dirctors I know, my handwriting is a strange mixture of print - slightly cursive.
I guesse it goes back to the days before the Mac, where layouts were done by hand, and you had to sketch headlines in a hurry.
I can write cursive - but very seldom do it.
The "AD type" is much faster and easier. What a mess!!!:eusa_doh:

 

[LaMedicine]

As someone who graded undergraduate exam papers in Indiana, i would urge all young people to print. Your cursive is illegible. (points are lost for this on the exams).

bk

When I was in school in the US (Jr-Sr High, more than 40 years ago, I admit) we would LOSE a few points on exams and reports just for writing in print, not cursive, unless the reports were typed. English teachers were especially strict about this.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

I am very surprised to read how few people write in cursive. I thought everyone did and I thought everyone did it neater and with more style than I do!

I keep a journal and write letters and I do these things in cursive. I have always wished to have a consistently expressive style of script like I have seen in the collection of letters of notable figures from the last century. Alas, I think Mr. Palmer has ruined me when Mr. Spencer could have been so much help.

 

[CherryKrissy]

I'm another lefty, and I always print. My cursive is terrible, and I find I smudge it with my hand while I'm writing. I wish I could write in cursive! My printing is nothing spectacular, but at least it's legible.

 

[Flivver]

I wrote in cursive until college (engineering) and since then, I usually print.

In grammar school, we were taught to print in grades 1 and 2 (with those big fat "learner" pencils) then were taught cursive in grade 3. In grammar school, at least, it was considered "babyish" to print after you had learned to write (cursive).

Guess I'm regressing!

 

[Delthayre]

Inveterate regressive

I never ceased using cursive after I learned it and I was surprised to notice in high school that most of the other students wrote in block letters. My script isn't terribly smooth or consistent unless I am very careful, but it is tolerably legible for most purposes and if I ever have the time, I might study some form of calligraphy. For now I will have to settle for the few eccentric, stylized letter forms, chiefly majuscules, that I have developed. I usually use block letters only for emphasis or clarity as I find them far more onerous to write.

I write letters occasionally, although not as often as I'd like given that they require a fair length of time for me to write, and I keep a journal, so I have things to keep my script in practice. My chief limitations are firstly that my hand tends to suffer cramps and, for want of a better term, to 'seize up' after a time being used to write by hand and secondly that I need a good position to write, which is often not available.

 

[SamMarlowPI]

spitfire, you and i have a very similar style...i think...

i'll have to post a picture at some point...

 

["Skeet" McD]

Good news or bad news?

Dear Skeet, The translation machine seems to be good but it’s not perfect – like my English.

Well, the translation machine resides between my ears....not good news, I think!

Thanks for the copybook stuff. It's interesting for an American with an interest in handwriting to look at handwritten stuff from Europe...in countries with a unified, government-run educational system, EVERYBODY learns the same handwriting. It used to be a good game to try to parse out whether the writer was french, german, italian etc. Now that so few people write their own addresses anymore....another lost pleasure, however small!

Now, folks who incorporate secretary hand! Just as long as it's not Court of Common Pleas Hand! Aiiiieee!

 

[Viola]

I don't know what the other branches of service do but the Navy teaches "recruit writing" and heaven help you if you slide into cursive or any other style of font but that while in Boot or forget to slash your zeroes.

I use it for addressing envelopes and stuff like that. It's neither as fast nor as pretty as normal handwriting but it is a very clear block print.

 

[Bourbon Guy]

Subquestion

And for all of you who write cursive and live a vintage lifestyle, the question is:

How do you write your lower case T's and R's? I assume you don't have crossed T's.

 

[scotrace]

Housekeeping Note

Three handwriting threads are now one.

 

[scotrace]

And for all of you who write cursive and live a vintage lifestyle, the question is:

How do you write your lower case T's and R's? I assume you don't have crossed T's.

Why would one not cross t's?

 

[Nick D]

Why would one not cross t's?

My Grandma always wrote cursive, and never crossed a 't' at the end of a word. Small 't's within or starting a word she crossed.

 

[Nick D]

[QUOTE="Skeet" McD]
Now, folks who incorporate secretary hand! Just as long as it's not Court of Common Pleas Hand! Aiiiieee![/QUOTE]

Well, you don't need a manuscript studies course to read my handwriting, but my 'd's have a long ascender which hooks to the left (usually not long, but it touches the 'a' in 'and'), I use the long 's', and my 'g's and 'f's have been getting more like they're from a charter.

 

[Lady Day]

[QUOTE="Skeet" McD]Besides being very talented (I've looked at your work in the appropriate thread)....am I wrong in believing that the Asian brush scripts are written with the hand well above the writing surface? (And, I expect, you also have the leisure to write in any direction, rather than our left-to-right requirement. Although Leonardo could get away with the obvious solution. In private....)

"Skeet"[/QUOTE]


Thanks

The brush writing is done with your arm and brush at a 90 degree angle from the paper, and there are specific strokes that are made in a specific order, but the art form, as my teacher taught me, is a right handed art form.

I just love breakin' the rules

LD

 

[John in Covina]

The Brush relation to Copperplate and Spencerian?

Thanks The brush writing is done with your arm and brush at a 90 degree angle from the paper, and there are specific strokes that are made in a specific order, but the art form, as my teacher taught me, is a right handed art form.LD

*************
That sounds similar to Spencerian and Copperplate handwriting styles. Whole arm movement gives the control to use more pressure on down strokes to get the flexible nib to spread and create a wider line. Prior to about 1900, these styles were more commonly used, it's why some letters or jounla entries or even hand written cookbooks and such look more like Stock certificates than ordinary writing.

 

[John in Covina]

The Art of Caligraphy

This place has a tremendous selection of books and suppllies for the caligrapher. The catalog is in Adobe if you click on it.

http://www.johnnealbooks.com/

 

[Bourbon Guy]

Why would one not cross t's?

Where I grew up, you could tell the old timers who learned penmanship in grammar school in the 20's by the way they formed their lower case T's and R's. The T's had, in effect, a built in cross and were not crossed afterwards, and the lower case R's were much closer to printed R's. You can see in the links below the alternate T's and R's. The old timers used the alternates.

http://www.iampeth.com/books/palmer_method_1935/palmerMethod_1935_page29.html

http://www.iampeth.com/books/palmer_method_1935/palmerMethod_1935_page44.html

http://www.iampeth.com/books/palmer_method_1935/palmerMethod_1935_page53.html