Penmanship

Without cursive, how can anyone sign their name? Is it considered a legal signature to just print it?
 

People with poor writing used to joke that no one would be able to forge their signature on a cheque.

A forger laughed and said the hardest was the person with the really neat signature. He could do anyone who just used a scratchy mess.
 

I use a scratchy mess. I am sorry, my hand co-ordination is pretty bad. I think it is because of too much head trauma when I was a child. Mrs. Findley, my third grade teacher, picked up on it right away. She was an evil sadistic woman who should have never been allowed around children. My lousy writing skills gave her an excuse to clobber me even more, daily, during writing class. She would start at the desk on the other side of the room and tap each desk until she got to me. I could hear her coming. When she got to me, pow, right over the head with whatever stick she decided to use that day and yell at me for not trying to improve. Ah school was a disciplinarian's utopia back then wasn't it?
 
Judycat said:
I use a scratchy mess. I am sorry, my hand co-ordination is pretty bad. I think it is because of too much head trauma when I was a child. Mrs. Findley, my third grade teacher, picked up on it right away. She was an evil sadistic woman who should have never been allowed around children. My lousy writing skills gave her an excuse to clobber me even more, daily, during writing class. She would start at the desk on the other side of the room and tap each desk until she got to me. I could hear her coming. When she got to me, pow, right over the head with whatever stick she decided to use that day and yell at me for not trying to improve. Ah school was a disciplinarian's utopia back then wasn't it?
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I remember the days, as does my husband.

Looking back on it now, the male teachers that participated in physical measures were little men (literally) that (I'm 100% certain) suffered from "little man syndrome", and as for the one or two female teachers I remember that mirrored the same, they were just head-cases.
 
My granddaughter once came to me and asked, "Meemaw, will you teach me curtsy?"

So I showed her how to do a curtsy.

"Nooooo, I want to do CURTSY!!"

"Honey, that is how you do a curtsy."

"No, Meemaw, it's like letters but it's kinda ROUND!"

OH......cursive......

Boy Howdy, did she pick the wrong person to teach her cursive. I was the despair of every teacher who ever tried to teach me to write legibly.
 
My handwriting is awful and has been for a long, long time. I print everything.

I worked for an Admiral who had absolutely beautiful handwriting and would send us handwritten thank you notes when he was particularly happy about something we had accomplished. Most of us saved them and I still have mine in my mementos folder. Of course he was also a very well-liked Admiral.
 
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i always got good report cards when in elementary school. i remember one... at end of year... teacher comment was about my handwriting. so i ended up with a little bit of HOMEWORK during the summer!!:oops:
 
wcwbf said:
i always got good report cards when in elementary school. i remember one... at end of year... teacher comment was about my handwriting. so i ended up with a little bit of HOMEWORK during the summer!!:oops:
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I was relaxed when it came to my children's report cards. They did their best, and I was happy with that. Unless comments pertained to behaviour issues, I ignored teachers notes.

Placing WAY too much emphasis on report cards was the way back in the day, and it gained absolutely sweet nothing, other than placing undue stress and pressure on kids.
 
Aunt Marg said:
Nice part is, we have no one to impress other than ourselves. :)
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Actually, poor penmanship was why I never wanted to write thank you notes or letters. I always said I’d rather not have a present than have to write a thank you card.
 
Mr. Penmanship, here. I just did some investigative reporting. I wrote a few sentences in cursive and printing. There really wasn't that much time between cursive writing,, and printing. If I really rushed the cursive, it was so badly done that only I could figure it out. It was more like a suggestion. But even hurrying up printing, it was still readable. I thought cursive would be super fast, but in order to read it, cursive takes time. I know we were beaten down in school trying to make perfect cursive writing, but printing is almost as fast, and generally more readable. Never thought I'd say this, but maybe cursive isn't a necessary skill.
Try it yourself.
 
Aunt Marg said:
I remember the days, as does my husband.

Looking back on it now, the male teachers that participated in physical measures were little men (literally) that (I'm 100% certain) suffered from "little man syndrome", and as for the one or two female teachers I remember that mirrored the same, they were just head-cases.
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I wasn't the only one on her bad side back then so it was much like a Dickensonian rite of passage for some of us in that class. The woman did have crazy eyes.
 
Went to catholic school, taught cursive by the Palmer method, you started off drawing circles with the letter on the end, hard to visualize.
My hubby and son both write like serial killers or doctors...awful:)
My grandson is a lefty and grips a pencil oddly, the nuns would’ve changed that in my day.
 
Aunt Marg said:
While I never mastered cursive, I hold a pen and pencil the same way, all the time, in a rush, not in rush, the manner and style in which I hold a writing instrument never changes.

The example images shown (OP) looks juvenile and is juvenile.
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never mastered? as in not very good at or can't write cursive at all?
 
MarciKS said:
never mastered? as in not very good at or can't write cursive at all?
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I can execute fair cursive, and with focus, can still turnout really nice hand-writing, just that I'm no longer interested in putting any effort in.

Aside from my weekly shopping lists, the only other time throughout the year where I rely on hand-writing is at Christmastime, when signing cards.
 
Aunt Marg said:
I can execute fair cursive, and with focus, can still turnout really nice hand-writing, just that I'm no longer interested in putting any effort in.

Aside from my weekly shopping lists, the only other time throughout the year where I rely on hand-writing is at Christmastime, when signing cards.
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i only have to use cursive to sign checks or important paperwork. otherwise it's all printing for me now. most of my writing is in this rushed print now instead of me taking the time to make it nice. my hands get to trembling sometimes from my anxiety or old age or both and it makes it harder to make it nice so i figure if they can read it...good nuff. lol!
 
worked with special needs HS boy for several years. autistic. not topic... but IMO, disabled kids learn to "play". the OT (occupational therapy) section included learning how to write his name in cursive. he really didn't like doing this so the first try was always the best. after that the precision faded quickly. knowing how to write name in cursive didn't make sense to me (not involved in that decision) but he couldn't tie his own shoes?! no, he didn't want to tie them, so he wouldn't. he could read and comprehend on a decent level. i don't know that he'll ever have a "job", but imnsho... tying shoes would be a much better skill to have than signing his name.

have said this before... maybe here? when kids are little and we don't want them to know what adults are saying, we spell in front of them. when they start to develop phonics skills, ya might be able to write things for a while. when that starts to fail, have PERFECT cursive penmanship should confuse the hell out of them... especially capital letters like Q, S, E, F, G, L, T & Z which don't resemble the printed version very much.
 
MarciKS said:
i only have to use cursive to sign checks or important paperwork. otherwise it's all printing for me now. most of my writing is in this rushed print now instead of me taking the time to make it nice. my hands get to trembling sometimes from my anxiety or old age or both and it makes it harder to make it nice so i figure if they can read it...good nuff. lol!
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and on the rare occasion that you have to sign your name it doesn't have to be remotely legible, does it?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...nature.svg/1200px-Joe_Biden_signature.svg.png

https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploa...jpeg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1600&h=900&crop=1
 
MarciKS said:
maybe not for some but i wasn't raised to sign my name in a manner someone couldn't read. if they can't read it...how do they know you signed it? :)
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If the cheque doesn’t bounce, then they know it’s you. 😉

If it were a legal document, there’d be a witness.
 
Let’s put it this way, I was glad when we stopped having to write out citations and we could type in the information and let the printer handle the duties.
 

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