4 ms·

Shout out to everybody who, unlike the author, has mostly illegible handwriting and wouldn’t want it immortalised in this way.

• ksaj 6y ago
  Hah, that's actually why I want this. I'm a lefty, and that pretty much guarantees sloppy handwriting. I like how using fonts makes it look so much cleaner. The only problem I had before reading this was that the results were too clean.
  • gwright 6y ago
    > I'm a lefty, and that pretty much guarantees sloppy handwriting. Is that true? Why would being lefty mean sloppier handwriting? Smudgier maybe because of left-to-right writing system, but sloppier?
    • burke 6y ago
      Pushing the pen is a little trickier than pulling it.
      • mathieuh 6y ago
        Not sure that’s true, I used to work with a right-handed Pakistani person who was fully bilingual in Urdu and English and they claimed their handwriting was neater in Urdu than English. I couldn’t tell because I can’t read Perso-Arabic. Although it’s also possible that RTL writing systems like Perso-Arabic are designed in such a way that it’s ergonomic for the right-handed majority of the population to write in. It’s an interesting topic, wonder if there are any papers on it
        • ksaj 6y ago
          I think it is easier because the length of unbroken long lines isn't as long as in cursive Western writing. So they aren't push-hop-push-hop their way through long unbroken lines like we are. Lefties often prefer printing for exactly that reason. It's slower, but at least they can read it after.
    • bbarnett 6y ago
      Pushing instead of pulling the pen, at least that seems part of it in my case. I've seen people write 'top down', but... Regardless, 'how people write' has typically been designed by righties. Fascists. Oh how they mock us.
      • mehrdadn 6y ago
        Do you actually push instead of pulling for English as a leftie? I ask because you definitely don't need to "push instead of pull" for RTL languages if you're right-handed (though I'm not suggesting nobody does; I'm sure some fraction of people do), so it's hard for me to see why that would be true for left-handed folks in English.
        • ksaj 6y ago
          Look at the angle of the pen/pencil when a right handed and a left handed person is writing. The lefty is indeed pushing the point into the paper. Right handed people drag it. The lefties who try not to push it curl their wrists into that weird lefty-pose. That way does allow them to drag it. I don't do that, thankfully. It looks pretty bizarre, because writing shouldn't require such acrobatics.
          • mehrdadn 6y ago
            I think I miscommunicated my thoughts, but I was neither trying to say there aren't left-handed folks who push, nor that there aren't ones who pull with a weird pose. Rather, I was wondering if these are actually needed, or if one could do it differently (yet comfortably). Because I believe for LTR and RTL languages, people comfortably write with their right hands holding the pen at basically the same angle regardless of the text direction. Compare [1] with [2] for instance. In both cases the pen tip points to the "north northwest" (so to speak), yet the languages go in opposite directions. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG-i9yA_OHs&t=3m59s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG-i9yA_OHs&t=3m59s [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwUkseFmqb4&t=1m19s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwUkseFmqb4&t=1m19s
            • 6y ago
  • chrismorgan 6y ago
    I refute your claim that being left-handed pretty much guarantees sloppy handwriting. My parents are both left handed. Mum’s handwriting is very classically neat according to a standard form with fairly wide letters. Dad’s is not classically neat, favouring taller letters and shapes more angular than rounded, but it’s definitely tidy and very legible. Another of the neatest writers that I know is left-handed. (And female. I have observed a moderately strong correlation—though by no means uniform—between classically neat handwriting and being female.) I can think of several other left-handed people that I know, but I don’t know their handwriting. My left-handed grandmother’s handwriting is neat in the fairly illegible cursive style of the era, but she does it with her right hand since they beat left-handedness out of you (in handwriting at least) in those days. (Fun fact: I and my seven siblings are all “failures”. Consensus seems to be something like 20% chance of a child of two lefties being left handed, so the probability of all eight of us being right handed was somewhere around 17%.)
    • tsomctl 6y ago
      Women have better hand-eye coordination. And that also makes them better welders. At least, that's what the grizzled old guy that taught me how to weld said.
• ant6n 6y ago
  It’s a lot of work and effort. Imagine writing at 0,1x speed. And then there’s those who give feedback on drafts who keep pushing for even more effort on the penmanship.
  • ant6n 6y ago
    (I mean, that`s why one would want to create a font - to make it less work)
• wdb 6y ago
  Maybe you want to try a fountain pen? For me my handwriting legibility differs greatly between using it compared to a ballpoint. I don't like the scratching or more pressure needed when using ballpoints.