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Anyone think Dijkstra's handwriting looks like a 6th grade girl? I can't stand it. Give me something more stylish, for sure.

petecox 7y ago
When I was in the seventh grade, a curmudgeonly teacher insisted all his students learn copperplate. That made my handwriting worse - to the point that a couple of years later, at the same school, other teachers complained and I was sent to a remedial teacher to undo the damage inflicted by the earlier teacher who had wanted 'stylish'.
GuB-42 7y ago
Now that you mention it, girls tend to have better handwriting. I remember that at my school copies of notes taken by girls were particularly popular for that reason. For me it seemed so obvious that I never wondered why it is the case. Or if it really is the case for that matter.
- mkl 7y ago
  Girls definitely have better handwriting IME, and men and women differ stylistically too. When marking exams I can almost always correctly identify students as being male or female (or having learned to write in Chinese or Arabic, which each leave distinctive characteristics) before I see the name on the cover when I'm done.
  - MivLives 7y ago
    What are some of the identifying characteristics?
    - mkl 7y ago
      Chinese has particular stroke orders that often carry over into English (e.g. cross the t before drawing the vertical) which leads to all kinds of differences when writing quickly, as the lines from the pen not leaving the paper are in different places. There are often also quite distinctive curving diagonal lines. Arabic, being written right to left, requires quite a different hand position, which leads to very vertical strokes (not slanted to the right). Some other distinctive features I've noticed are that beautiful cursive is likely to be someone Indian, and very small, fine, and vertical, likely Indonesian. I'm sure handwriting experts can tell a lot more than me.
gowld 7y ago
Sexism is out of style.
microtherion 7y ago
What gave it away? The little hearts over the i's in "invariant"?

petecox 7y ago

When I was in the seventh grade, a curmudgeonly teacher insisted all his students learn copperplate. That made my handwriting worse - to the point that a couple of years later, at the same school, other teachers complained and I was sent to a remedial teacher to undo the damage inflicted by the earlier teacher who had wanted 'stylish'.

GuB-42 7y ago

Now that you mention it, girls tend to have better handwriting. I remember that at my school copies of notes taken by girls were particularly popular for that reason. For me it seemed so obvious that I never wondered why it is the case. Or if it really is the case for that matter.

mkl 7y ago
Girls definitely have better handwriting IME, and men and women differ stylistically too. When marking exams I can almost always correctly identify students as being male or female (or having learned to write in Chinese or Arabic, which each leave distinctive characteristics) before I see the name on the cover when I'm done.
- MivLives 7y ago
  What are some of the identifying characteristics?
  - mkl 7y ago
    Chinese has particular stroke orders that often carry over into English (e.g. cross the t before drawing the vertical) which leads to all kinds of differences when writing quickly, as the lines from the pen not leaving the paper are in different places. There are often also quite distinctive curving diagonal lines. Arabic, being written right to left, requires quite a different hand position, which leads to very vertical strokes (not slanted to the right). Some other distinctive features I've noticed are that beautiful cursive is likely to be someone Indian, and very small, fine, and vertical, likely Indonesian. I'm sure handwriting experts can tell a lot more than me.

gowld 7y ago

Sexism is out of style.

microtherion 7y ago

What gave it away? The little hearts over the i's in "invariant"?