
Is Handwriting History? - diodorus
http://www.publicbooks.org/is-handwriting-history/
======
ylere
I always carry a pocket sized notebook and a pen with me wherever I go. It's
still the fastest method to write something down, it always works and it's
socially acceptable to use in all situations. Most people whom I meet, even in
private, will see me take out my notebook at the beging of the meeting, taking
notes occasionally while we interact. I don't think you could do that with a
computer or phone and it allows me to remember important details and action
points that I (and the person I'm talking to) would forget otherwise. At work
I have larger, A4-sized notebooks that I use similarly.

One of the features that I appreciate most is that everything I write down is
in chronological order and can be accessed very quickly. In seconds, I can go
through last weeks notes and check if I forgot to do something, or even go
back a year or more to revisit my thoughts on something that happened back
then. Using a pen is also much more expressive, allowing me to
highlight/format certain points as a discussion/meeting is ongoing and add
illustrations, arrows etc. on the fly.

I've seen and tried some of the new epaper notepads and they're definitely
getting closer, but for now they're still to slow, clumsy & fragile to replace
paper for me.

~~~
andrepd
>Using a pen is also much more expressive, allowing me to highlight/format
certain points as a discussion/meeting is ongoing and add illustrations,
arrows etc. on the fly.

I think this is the killer advantage of handwriting over typing text in a
computer/phone/similar. You have much more expressiveness: you can underline,
highlight, cross out, circle, draw, make arrows, organize in lists, different
indentation levels, different sizes and fonts lay things out along the page as
best represents your mental pictures. And it's all simple and frictionless.
I'm very very skeptical any computer program can ever be as natural as jotting
stuff down with pen and paper.

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toomanybeersies
I find that the more time I spend around computers, the more I actually want
to hand write things. I've recently gotten into the habit of keeping notebooks
for various things, I even wrote a letter by hand to someone (something I
haven't done since I was a child).

There's something so permanent about handwriting, compared to an ephemeral
computer file. There's also the fact that notebooks don't run out of battery,
or need signal.

As far as actual penmanship goes though, I have pretty terrible handwriting,
it's getting better. For some reason, buying a fountain pen has markedly
improved my handwriting.

~~~
WalterBright
I've spent many hours attempting to transcribe my grandparents' handwritten
letters. It's very difficult to decipher. Ironically, even the letters they'd
mash out on a typewriter are difficult to decipher, but it's a lot easier than
the handwriting.

It's not just my grandparents. Their relatives also all had wretched
handwriting. I've shown them to many people, and they can hardly make it out,
either.

I don't think good penmanship was commonplace :-)

~~~
sseagull
This isn't the first time I've said this, but I believe doing serious
genealogy will 'cure' most people of their love of cursive, and maybe writing
things by hand in general.

You get better at reading it, but there is much more bad handwriting out there
than good.

~~~
NoGravitas
I harp on and on about this, but the looped cursive of the 19th and 20th
centuries is horrible for legibility. Many of the common letterforms blur
together, especially when written quickly. There were reasons for adopting it
at the time, but it really shouldn't be taught anymore. Today we should be
teaching cursive italic, for several reasons (legibility, ease of teaching).

~~~
KateGladstone
I think as you do on this matter. I wish I knew how to get in touch with you.
Meanwhile, there’s always the Society for Italic Handwriting, to shic( I
belong: italic-handwriting.org

Kate Gladstone CEO, HandwritingThatWorks.com DIRECTOR, the World Handwriting
Contest handwritingrepair@gmail.com

------
MajorSauce
If only... I recently had to take a standardized business knowledge test and I
had to write a disclaimer (eg: "I hereby certify that...") in CURSIVE.

When I asked if we really had to write in 19th century writing, she replied
that this was the "writing of the business world".

No words.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Historically, block letters were taught to young children first because they
were seen as less difficult to form, and therefore writing by someone with
little fine motor control would be somewhat legible. Cursive was how adults
wrote. In that sense, she was correct.

That said, "the writing of the business world" today is Times New Roman (or
maybe Helvetica Neue). It replaced the Palmer Method of Business Writing[1],
which is quite distinct from the the cursive that is taught in schools today
(Zaner-Bloser[2] or D'Nealian[3]).

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Method)

2:
[http://content.yudu.com/web/y5b2/0A3vbrb/16Grade6Student/htm...](http://content.yudu.com/web/y5b2/0A3vbrb/16Grade6Student/html/index.html?page=4)

3:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Nealian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Nealian)

~~~
xoroshiro
As someone who was forced to learn Palmer style in school, I must say I always
hated the capital Q. I don't know if I just couldn't get it right, or I never
really saw it as legible, but it annoyed me that it looked too much like a 2.
I went back to block letters in college and never thought much of penmanship.

Until college, when I learned a bit of LaTeX and became fascinated with fonts.
Still hate that Q though. Thank goodness for computers.

------
tnecniv
I always carry a pen.

I prefer handwriting to taking electronic notes and have never found a touch
device I'd rather write on than paper.

Aside: Teaching kids cursive also still has value in teaching fine motor
skills.

~~~
jrimbault
> Aside: Teaching kids cursive also still has value in teaching fine motor
> skills.

IMO, it's the most important thing, we have to teach fine motor skills very
early to little humans if we want them to be full humans.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _if we want them to be full humans_

This is a circular argument. You just punted the discussion to "what does it
mean to be a full human and why is handwriting a necessary part of that." I
ride horses, as people have for millennia; I would never claim nonriders are
less than human.

~~~
kurtisc
It's not a circular argument because it wasn't an argument at all. It was a
fairly conservative opinion.

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nine_k
It's history the way Fortran is history. Most people in most situations do not
use it. Specific people in specific situations still use it, and it's still
the best tool for that job.

------
sametmax
Taking note is still faster in with a pen and paper. Thinking as well. And I'm
on the very upper scale of computer skills.

Lately I even removed some part of my project management tooling to replace it
with paper. Very short term actionable data is more productive on paper for
me.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You must be a very slow typist :). I can write on a keyboard _much_ faster
than on paper, and I'll bet I can outpace any regular person in this way. One
could try and compete by employing some stenography shenanigans, but at that
point I'll just enable abbrev mode in my Emacs and beat them again.

Where typing fails me, though, is anything other than writing regular, linear
text. The moment I expect needing to write a lot of math formulas, or drawing
any kind of diagram, I get my paper and pens. Writing by hand is amazingly
flexible.

~~~
cooper12
> Writing by hand is amazingly flexible

Once, as an exercise I attempted to transcribe my Statistics notes into LaTeX.
I was perfectly capable of inserting the proper math notation, but I never
realized how versatile layouts can be so easily made on paper. Things like
alternating writing sizes (doable in digital, but usually ends up looking
horrible), varying levels of indentation and line height, margin notes,
asides, ease of diagrams (again, doable digitally, but time-consuming),
notation (crossing things out, circling, arrows, etc), and so many other
things. Typesetting for print or digital requires a complete change of layout
and even approaches to presentation. You don't realize how much freedom the
blank paper gives you until you try translating it to the digital document.

~~~
trentmb
> but I never realized how versatile layouts can be so easily made on paper.

Until you need to change them.

It's significantly easier to change formatting on a typed document than
handwritten.

~~~
Pulcinella
Yes but I feel that changes when you have something like a diagram. For
example, drawing Organic Chemistry mechanisms. Yes you can do them on the
computer with ChemDraw and if you need to change something you can, but in
practice it feels so slow it's just quicker to cross out your mistake on paper
and try again.

------
nr152522
I'd say it's as much history as cooking food over a fire. Modern cooking
appliances make it easier/more practical but there's nothing quite like a good
BBQ...

:)

Have you got a BBQ? My answer to such a question, following some clumsy
digging in my kitchen and backyard, is increasingly no. Sometimes,
embarrassment giving way to defensiveness, I wonder why anyone bothers to ask.
For years a “fire” has sufficed for my cooking of food; it’s months since I
chargrilled some meat. Presented with a gas hob, more and more super markets
point me to ready meals to cook with my microwave. (I worry that the content
of my burger bears no resemblance to real ingredients, but on the flip
side—ha! flip!—I’ve begun losing all sense of what that indication of my
insides might look like.)

------
PeanutCurry
I recently got a tablet for use as a home entertainment controller and
newspaper and the first thing I wanted was a pen or a stylus with the tactile
feedback of a pen. My cursive is far from Declaration of Independence level
but as a personal project I've been practicing and it's remarkable how fast
writing anything becomes. I'd go so far as the argue children should be taught
cursive first and then learn to recognize block letters later. Watch your
waitress sometime if she takes notes on a pad and you'll see what I mean. I'd
love to see an app that can be trained on my own handwriting and used to fill
in fields and create custom gestures to execute complicated commands. I don't
know if I'd like to program on something like that, but as far as my day to
day living it would be incredibly convenient.

~~~
KateGladstone
Such an app exists, for the iPad and (as I recall) the iPhone; its called
WritePad Pro.

~~~
PeanutCurry
Thanks for the tip. I'm using Android, unfortunately, but I'm sure I can find
an equivalent with some google-fu and WritePad as a keyword.

------
taesis
Not sure if it bothered anyone else enough to look, but I tracked down the
missing source for the header image [1]. The U.S. Declaration of Independence
[2] is another nice example of handwriting, but unlike a random, faded (and
potential non-English?) recipe, it seems very legible and might not have
helped the author's argument.

[1]:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/5094055919/in/gallery...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/5094055919/in/gallery-
lorisrizzi-72157631900632635/)

[2]:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/United_S...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence.jpg)

edit: Phrasing

------
jtarb1
The Summer Institute of Linguistics site outside Tucson keeps many of the many
languages spoken in Mexico in a room with no vents. The fear is that if a fire
occurs, the documents with the writing kept within will be lost. I would
include those in history, but I am not a purist so much that I consider that
language doesn't evolve.

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
I carry a pen, and a neatly, uniformed folded piece of paper in my wallet.
Folded to open like a book, accordion like. When I'm done with it, I open it
up and file that sheet of paper for a while just In case I need it. My pen is
a G2 0.7 in a machined brass body.

~~~
arkitaip
The G2 is absolutely amazing as a product in that it's far superior to the
competition (for my needs at least) and still reasonably priced.

~~~
NoGravitas
I have had trouble with G2s clogging after a bit of use, so that they stop and
start unevenly. I've found the Uniball Signo 207 and Vision Elite to be much
better, depending on whether you want a gel or liquid ink.

~~~
qrbLPHiKpiux
I've gone between both - for a while. The G2 is more "scratchy" on paper - and
I like that.

------
Xoros
My brother (43yo) had to take a full day writing test for a new job last week.

He, as most people, have not wrote long text for years.

He told me that his hand was really painful at the end of the day. I can
understand that !

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proactivesvcs
Not until I stop writing out poetry drafts. I find a mix of writing, typing,
reading aloud and recording my verse helps take a rough draft into something
more coherent and whole.

Each of these methods must use varying parts of my brain as I find they often
find improvements that others miss, but I always start with pen and paper,
often getting a good 9/10s of it made that way.

------
KineticLensman
TL;DR: No

(personally, 'no' as well. I sometimes work places where electronic devices
aren't allowed)

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sasaf5
Is this headline the first exception to Betteridge's law of headlines?

~~~
adrianoconnor
No.

And if your comment was a headline, that wouldn't be either.

:)

~~~
sasaf5
:)

------
smegel
Mine is. I had better handwriting in primary school. It can be quite
embarrassing on the odd occasion where I need to fill out a paper form (which
itself is rarer these days).

~~~
proactivesvcs
I found that once I was writing frequent love letters and, more recently,
writing poetry, my handwriting improved quite quickly.

Being left-handed, my handwriting is now merely bad. :-)

