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2014-02-11 02:20:07
Christmas cards, shopping lists and what else? The occasions in which we write
by hand are fewer and fewer, says Neil Hallows. So is the ancient art form of
handwriting dying out?
A century from now, our handwriting may only be legible to experts.
For some, that is already the case. But writer Kitty Burns Florey says the art
of handwriting is declining so fast that ordinary, joined-up script may become
as hard to read as a medieval manuscript.
"When your great-great-grandchildren find that letter of yours in the attic,
they'll have to take it to a specialist, an old guy at the library who would
decipher the strange symbols for them," says Ms Florey, author of the
newly-published Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting.
FAMOUS HANDWRITING
King Henry VIII's handwriting
King Henry VIII wrote this love letter to Anne Boleyn (pic: British Library)
Jane Austen's handwriting
Jane Austen completed her last novel, Persuasion, in 1816
Lewis Carroll's handwriting
In 1864, Lewis Carroll wrote his most famous work for Alice Liddell.
Winston Churchill's handwriting
Aged 16, Winston Churchill wrote to his mother Lady Randolph Churchill
Jimi Hendrix's handwriting
Jimi Hendrix's lyrics for Machine Gun were written in 1969
She argues that children - if not this generation then one soon to come - may
grow up using only a crude form of printing for the rare occasions in life they
need to communicate by pen.
The way handwriting is taught has undoubtedly changed. At Ms Florey's school in
1950s America, a nun beat time with a stick as the class copied letters from
the blackboard. It was not a place for individuals. There was a right way to
form letters and very many wrong ways.
For much of the last century British schools ran in a similar way. At my
primary school in the 1970s, whole classes were devoted to work being "written
up for best" and I remember a story coming back unmarked because I had crossed
out a single word. I wonder what my teachers would have made of a James Joyce
manuscript.
Crossing 7s
Many found the experience tedious, but for left-handers it could be torture.
Often they were forced to write with their right, while their "bad" hand was
tied down.
More than a century of children turning out letters by the yard produced a
great conformity. In the 1940s Ealing drama, Went The Day Well?, a contingent
of German soldiers sets up camp in the English countryside, disguised as Royal
Engineers. One reason they get rumbled is that a soldier writes a "7" with a
line through it. "Why should they form their figures in a continental way?" a
villager asks.
If everything we do still had to be done by hand, there would not be enough
hours in the day
Registrar Ruth Hodson
Send us your handwriting
These days, the shape of a child's ovals, loops and slants matters less than
what they write. "Content is everything," says Mark Brown, head teacher of St
Mary's Catholic Primary School in Axminster, Devon. "The emphasis is much more
on having a go, and expressing yourself, and getting the ideas down."
He says letter formation is still taught in the early years of primary school,
but the appearance of handwriting takes less of a priority as children get
older, provided it remains legible.
Some parents expect handwriting to be drilled in the same way as they
experienced themselves, but Mr Brown argues the content of children's writing
has significantly improved as a result of the change in emphasis, and that they
write far more at school than they will as adults.
Scrawling
So once we leave school, does it really matter? Apart from the odd shopping
list, do people still need to use a pen?
Some do. Registrars of births, deaths and marriages have been recording life's
significant events in their usually impeccable writing since 1837.
Neil Hallows' handwriting
Writer's hand: Not a word crossed out in this instance of Neil Hallows' writing
"All registrars are conscious that they follow a long and noble tradition,"
says Ruth Hodson, interim registration manager for Peterborough City Council.
But even their fountain pens will soon barely be heard scratching on the
registers. Under a modernisation programme, an increasing amount of the
information is being entered directly on to a computer.
Ms Hodson is unsentimental. "If everything we do still had to be done by hand,
there would not be enough hours in the day."
But perhaps handwriting gains its greatest importance when it is least legible.
The reputation of doctors for scrawling was enhanced by a study in the British
Medical Journal which found medics' writing was considerably worse than other
healthcare workers or administrative staff. Poor writing has often been blamed
for medication errors.
Gwyn Williams, a junior doctor in Carmarthen, says that despite technological
advances, a great deal of clinical communication is still handwritten.
Man writing
Remember this?
"We have to write so much, on so many occasions, with the clock ticking. The
end result is so difficult to interpret that even I have to concentrate on
occasions to work out what [I have written].
"There doesn't seem to be any other logical way of doing it. Typing clinical
notes on a computer seems so cumbersome in the limited time available that I
can't see how it would work."
In many jobs though, a person can go for months, even years, writing only the
odd phone message in their own script.
Nevertheless, some employers still ask for a handwritten application, or a
sample of writing, although the Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development warns employers they need to be clear about the reason for that, to
avoid accusations of discrimination.
10-page letters
There are those who see handwriting's slip in educational priority and
increasingly eccentric role in the workplace as evidence that, in the West at
least, we are forgetting an ancient art form.
A panic, perhaps, and one witnessed every time the dominant style of writing
changed or a new form of technology seemed to threaten it. An early typewriter
led the Scientific American in 1867 to marvel that "the weary process of
learning penmanship in schools will be reduced to [writing] one's own signature
and playing on the literary piano".
Maybe a couple of times a week [pupils] could produce something handwritten
that is judged partly on its legibility, or even its beauty
Kitty Burns Florey
But look at the decline in letter writing. The students I knew two decades ago
who knocked out 10-page letters during a morning in bed have probably not yet
written 10 pages of handwritten prose of any kind this year.
For Ms Florey, the answer should start in the classroom. Not a return to the
nuns with sticks, but for children to value handwriting by learning a simple,
legible, attractive script from the start - in her view a form of italic - and
then keep reinforcing it beyond the early years.
"Maybe a couple of times a week [pupils] could produce something handwritten
that is judged partly on its legibility, or even its beauty."
Adults too can improve their writing, in a matter of weeks with a textbook and
expert advice. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has said that if he had not taken a
calligraphy course at college, he would not have thought of putting multiple
typefaces on the Mac.
Perhaps the best argument for keeping our pens is that otherwise, in a society
that is recorded in more detail than any which came before it, we will leave
plenty of data but very little of our personalities behind.
Our descendants may struggle to read our letters, but they'll never even see
most of our texts and e-mails.
SHOW US YOUR HANDWRITING
Zebra pangram
1. Here are three examples of handwriting, courtesy of the Magazine team (in
ascending order of readability)
2. We've written the pangram: "How quickly daft jumping zebras vex" and
underneath our name and age
3. Now we want you to write the same sentence, with your name and age
underneath
4. E-mail a picture or scan of your handwriting to yourpics@bbc.co.uk with the
subject line "HANDWRITING", and we'll feature as many as possible next week
Below is a selection of your comments.
My handwriting deteriorated appallingly as I began to use computers almost
exclusively for communication. The PDA I use has a stylus and is supposed to be
able to learn and translate handwriting, but it, (quite understandably), fails
to translate anything I write. I experimented last year and found that it was
possible to write with a fountain pen if I concentrated exclusively upon
forming the letters and keeping on a straight line, and felt some pride at my
achievement. If modern life were not so frantic and noisy, I daresay I could
sit for an hour each day and write my journals in ink, but is it worth it?
Where's the cut and paste, where's the ability to search through months and
years of notes for a phrase? Nobody washes their clothes by hand anymore
either. Should that too be taught in schools?
Adrian Stapley, Semley, Wiltshire, UK
Kids in primary schools in Japan spend a lesson or two a week learning "the way
of writing", using thick calligraphy brushes to write kanji characters. It's an
art form and takes great skill. At the start of a new year, many kids gather in
the assembly hall and lay out long sheets of paper, prep their brushes and
write something, usually with four kanji, that means something to them
personally about how they'd like the next year to pan out. Writing here has
deep cultural roots.
Dan in Japan, Japan
Fascinating article and something I have often thought about myself. I recently
noted at work that I haven't needed a pen in at least a year. As a left-handed
person who was forced to learn to write with my right I have always had dire
handwriting and for some years nothing but block capitals has been my standard,
personally I see little value in handwriting skills in the modern age and my
son's scrawl is of little concern to me compared to the actual learning he is
doing at school. Personally I am glad to hear of the change of emphasis from
appearance to content.
David Goldsworthy, Redditch
It is surprising easy to create your own typeface for your computer, maybe this
is answer. I dislike my own handwriting but as a graphic designer have created
some beautiful custom fonts for my work. There will be no need for people to
translate our scrawling just look at the Google digitalisation of our worlds
libraries to see we will simply upload it for a translation.
Phil, Devon
I am sure there were plenty of people who bemoaned the demise of cuneiform as a
writing technology. However, the idea of keeping our children chipping away at
muddy grey tablets seems as strange to me as wrestling with ink filled tubes.
Time to move on people.
Andy Bird, Lincoln
I hand-write as a matter of course, many comment "how nice to receive a written
letter". In France a handwritten letter is the expected form of formal
communication
Tom Davies, Faucigny ,Bonneville, France
Until the age of 11 writing was the only thing I received 10/10 for. I was
always last out of school finishing off my writing. In later years I became a
calligrapher but calligraphy is not a way to improve handwriting as the letters
are formed quite differently. However, copperplate writing the Victorians did
should be brought back into schools for its clarity and beauty. Writing is an
art. Although I type correctly and use a computer constantly I still send
handwritten letters to those I deem it important to do so - it shows I care.
Ann Hall, Bedford
I was invited to a gentlemen's dinner last night. I am about to write a "thank
you" letter to my host. I will be using a fountain pen. It is easy to bang out
an e-mail, but a hand written note on headed paper conveys real gratitude
Patrick Farrelly, Saunton
I realised, after the death of my parents, that I had kept very few of the
letters they had sent me. To me, writing is one of the most personal and
intimate parts of any individual. My mother wrote often as I was living in
France and I feel that I have too lightly discarded this part of my memories of
her. For this reason I started a handwritten journal for each of my three
children. I write of my thoughts and their actions and I hope they will read
them when I am gone and smile, laugh and even shed a few fond tears when
recalling the events of which I write.
David Harrison, Saint-Sulpice-de-Favieres, France
When I was at primary school, in the late forties, we had wooden pens with a
metal pen nib and our source of ink was an ink well. Being left handed was a
problem because the ink well was always sunk in to the top right hand corner of
the desk. This meant that frequently my exercise book pages became dog-eared
and sometimes there were dribbles of ink across the page. Punishments were
usually in the form of writing the same sentence 100 times, commonly called
lines. So we had plenty of practise at writing. Today I am frequently asked to
write addresses on envelopes, at work as well as at home because my handwriting
is legible. I have always maintained a legible signature. I encouraged both my
son and daughter to develop a reasonable, legible standard of hand writing. I
told them that an essay legibly and neatly written usually attracted extra
marks for presentation.
Tom Brockett, Manchester, England
I am surprised that your article did not mention the need for writing by hand
in exams. I only completed my Masters degree two years ago and there was no
hint of typing my exam answers. I needed to be ready to write solidly and
legibly for three hours and it is important that children and made ready for
this by some importance placed on handwriting.
Claire, Watford, UK
I have awful handwriting, it is poorly formed and not uniform- despite my best
efforts at school and now I just do not have neat (although it is legible)
handwriting. During my early years at school (in the 1980s)I was constanty
bullied by teachers a for my poor writing. One teacher even commented that I
would not get anywhere in life because of my handwriting. I am sure I am not
the only one. I applaud a change in the education system where a student can be
marked on the contents of their written expression, not just the appearance.
Little Miss Messy, Brisbane, Australia
I have often expressed my opinions on the decline of handwriting. I was taught
by nuns in my primary years and we were always helped and encouraged to produce
good handwriting. I also think we have lost an awful lot with electronically
produced birth, marriage & death certificates. It is a joy to read old
handwritten documents.
Mary T Lavelle, Leigh Lancs