8 ms·

Apropos of nothing, looking at the inscription on the outside of the package, I'm struck by how beautiful handwriting was in 1912. I'd like to get that back so

Apropos of nothing, looking at the inscription on the outside of the package, I'm struck by how beautiful handwriting was in 1912. I'd like to get that back somehow.

repiret 14y ago
I don't remember the full context, but once my uncle said: "It must be an old person, because the handwriting is so pretty." To which my grandfather replied: "you had to write like that with a fountain pen" I've never used a fountain pen, but I gather you have to maintain a fairly constant speed as the pen moves along the paper. If you want that handwriting back, I think you have to get rid of ball-point pens and pencils. Although while pretty handwriting is nice, I'm not convinced its worth the time to learn. (Which isn't to say legible handwriting isn't worth learning)
- ams6110 14y ago
  There's something about a fountain pen. I have a few, and without fail I write more neatly, and make fewer mistakes, than when using pencil or ball-point. I think it's that they demand slightly more concentration on mechanics to make them work, and that's enough to make a big difference in the writing quality.
  - fusiongyro 14y ago
    Eh… I have one I use daily (a Pilot/Namiki retractable nib) and it certainly hasn't made my handwriting any better. It is nicer than a regular pen though.
  - shmerl 14y ago
    That's simple. Dip and fountain pens allow you to create lines of different thickness, which can result in interesting calligraphy. It's simply impossible with ball pens which produce constant thickness lines.
- ciupicri 14y ago
  I used both fountain pens and pencils when I was in school and I had similar results, regardless of the tool. Though my writing wasn't exactly beautiful, but it was pretty readable. Regarding the ball-point pen, when I switched to it, I had to write fast, so the writing might have deteriorated from both the speed and the tool.
  - duaneb 14y ago
    A fountain pen is generally more expressive, but it takes a lot of time to control and you can't rush it.
- robin_reala 14y ago
  I was required to use a fountain pen at school (late 80s UK). Needless to say as a left handed person my enforced writing style one word, blot, one word, blot was anything but fluid.
  - troels 14y ago
    At least you weren't forced to write with your right hand. I have been told that was fairly common a generation further back (At least, my dad claims so).
    - sdoering 14y ago
      I have been lucky, not being punished for writing with my left hand. My mother was forced to write with her right hand. But even in the 1980s pupils in Germany were forced to write with the right (in both meanings) hand. We now know a lot more, about what this does to a child's brain, but then, teachers just believed to be right.
      - btilly 14y ago
        I knew a left-handed math prof who had had that treatment growing up in Holland. But he'd developed a party trick. One day he told us about this. And said that the result was that he could write with both hands. Different things. He demonstrated. Wrote with both hands at once, different things, on 2 neighboring boards. Kept on writing. Got to the bottom of the boards. Then turned around, began lecturing from the first board, reached the bottom, and continued the lecture from the second. He had laid out the boards perfectly to do this. It was a very impressive party trick.
        eru 14y ago
        We had a slightly less impressive professor, who erased with the right and wrote with the left. Also at the same time.
      - slurgfest 14y ago
        It doesn't do anything to a child's brain, it's just gratuitously cruel. That is reason enough. But many people the world over learn to eat or whatever with a certain hand and it does not hurt their brain.
- josephcooney 14y ago
  I think even if your handwriting is crap a fountain pen just looks better, or at least more auspicious. Horrible for lefties of course, but very nice to use if you're right-handed.
  - fractallyte 14y ago
    If you're left-handed, handwriting proceeds best by mirroring what the right hand would do (ie. write 'backwards'). It's far more natural. Alright, so others will need a mirror to read it - but that ought to be society's problem, not yours! ("Equal rights for the Sinisterous!") In a gradual shift toward ambidexterity, I've found that questioning society's insistence on 'right-ness' can be enlightening...
    - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
      Presumably script that proceeds right to left (and even upwards) was originated by left handed scribes edit spellchecker : left handed scribes became left handed scones. The history of heavy baked goods in the development of human civilisation has been scandalously neglected by a blinkered academic community.
      - ithkuil 14y ago
        I remember I read somewhere about the fact that right-to-left script was preferred when carving script on stone. as right hand people supposedly prefer to hold the hammer on their right hand. I'm not sure if that's really the cause. Furthermore in many ancient scripts the direction was quite unimportant, in some cases even reverting in each line (Boustrophedon). Interesting take on direction of writing: http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/292987.html http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/292987.html
  - dimitar 14y ago
    I don't get it. Why is it harder for lefties? Aren't the pens themselves ambidextrous?
    - 14y ago
kamaal 14y ago
Handwriting is an amazing thing. But please for heaven's sake do not consider great handwriting to be a sign of intelligence or greatness as a value in itself. This sort of thing destroys kids in their early days. During my days in school(In India). Good handwriting was considered a mandatory trait of good, brilliant and hard working students. Any body who didn't have good hand writing was automatically considered a bad student. The net result was kids with genuine brilliance, appetite for hard work but with a bad handwriting struggled. Some times forced to imitate their class mates in a bad way. I was a big victim of it. In fact the head mistress called my mom and told her, every thing was brilliant about me and if only I could have great handwriting I could score higher than everybody else. The worst part of it was I took it seriously, I had convinced myself no matter how hardworking or intelligent I was I didn't deserve to score well as I didn't have a good handwriting. It was not until a couple of years later. During my pre university days. My uncle cleared my mind of all this. He convinced me that good handwriting discipline is nothing great in itself. Although its good to have one. But greatness lies in what you write and not how you write it. Later I developed how to write in script with separate letters without joining them as in cursive writing. It greatly increased readability. But people around me used to find that strange and some even suicidal for a student. Its basically what Leo Tolstoy said: What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.
- tsieling 14y ago
  Beautiful Tolstoy quote. And I do see the irony in saying that. But still.
  - Tichy 14y ago
    It doesn't say that beautiful things are automatically bad. Just that they are not automatically good.
- zwischenzug 14y ago
  The same thing happened to me in a UK school in the 1980s. I was told off repeatedly - and my parents told - about my poor handwriting, my tendency to "rush" work, and even that I went to the toilet too often. Of course, the reality was that I was bored and the teacher was a vindictive fool. I remember saying to my mum at 8: "I'm worried about my 's'es", and she said "it's hardly likely you'll be sacked from a job because of your 's'es is it?".
soperj 14y ago
For what it's worth, I have (older)relatives in Sweden who still write like that, with a ballpoint pen. So i don't think it's necessarily that it was written with a fountain pen, although they may have learned with a fountain pen and just continued writing that way.
rsaarelm 14y ago
Nice calligraphy, sure, but hopefully not cursive. Careless cursive handwriting ends up illegible much, much faster than print handwriting, and relies way too much on context to let you figure out what individual words are for my liking. I've had to ask people who wrote cursive notes with just a couple of words instead of a full sentence what they actually wrote, since I couldn't make out the word without the priming of a full sentence of barely legible scribbles.
- huxley 14y ago
  My father used to do a lot of research using microfilmed 17th-19th century documents. Cursive handwriting (combined with often poor microfilm or fiche photography) was an occupational hazard, he got fairly good at interpreting some documents but it might take him the better part of an afternoon to transcribe 4 or 5 pages of journal entries from some documents.
epo 14y ago
Buy a good fountain pen, write slowly. Start by getting cheap pens, preferably those with interchangeable nibs to see which nib size you prefer using. When you know which size you like (for most people it will be medium) get a decent pen and nib and carry it with you. I have a vintage Parker 51 and some oldish German pens. Modern Japanese pens are quite good though nibs can be narrow for Western taste.
- ginko 14y ago
  I hate fountain pens. You get splotches everywhere and they often dry up for no apparent reason.
  - tjr 14y ago
    After trying several fountain pens and having less than pleasant experiences, I have for years now used felt-tip pens almost exclusively. It approximates the look and feel of a fountain pen close enough for my tastes, and requires much less wrist pressure than ballpoint pens.
antidoh 14y ago
Write Now. It works. I can write again. http://www.handwritingsuccess.com/write-now.php http://www.handwritingsuccess.com/write-now.php

Apropos of nothing, looking at the inscription on the outside of the package, I'm struck by how beautiful handwriting was in 1912. I'd like to get that back somehow.

repiret 14y ago

I don't remember the full context, but once my uncle said: "It must be an old person, because the handwriting is so pretty." To which my grandfather replied: "you had to write like that with a fountain pen" I've never used a fountain pen, but I gather you have to maintain a fairly constant speed as the pen moves along the paper. If you want that handwriting back, I think you have to get rid of ball-point pens and pencils. Although while pretty handwriting is nice, I'm not convinced its worth the time to learn. (Which isn't to say legible handwriting isn't worth learning)

ams6110 14y ago
There's something about a fountain pen. I have a few, and without fail I write more neatly, and make fewer mistakes, than when using pencil or ball-point. I think it's that they demand slightly more concentration on mechanics to make them work, and that's enough to make a big difference in the writing quality.
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  Eh… I have one I use daily (a Pilot/Namiki retractable nib) and it certainly hasn't made my handwriting any better. It is nicer than a regular pen though.
- shmerl 14y ago
  That's simple. Dip and fountain pens allow you to create lines of different thickness, which can result in interesting calligraphy. It's simply impossible with ball pens which produce constant thickness lines.
ciupicri 14y ago
I used both fountain pens and pencils when I was in school and I had similar results, regardless of the tool. Though my writing wasn't exactly beautiful, but it was pretty readable. Regarding the ball-point pen, when I switched to it, I had to write fast, so the writing might have deteriorated from both the speed and the tool.
- duaneb 14y ago
  A fountain pen is generally more expressive, but it takes a lot of time to control and you can't rush it.
robin_reala 14y ago
I was required to use a fountain pen at school (late 80s UK). Needless to say as a left handed person my enforced writing style one word, blot, one word, blot was anything but fluid.
- troels 14y ago
  At least you weren't forced to write with your right hand. I have been told that was fairly common a generation further back (At least, my dad claims so).
  - sdoering 14y ago
    I have been lucky, not being punished for writing with my left hand. My mother was forced to write with her right hand. But even in the 1980s pupils in Germany were forced to write with the right (in both meanings) hand. We now know a lot more, about what this does to a child's brain, but then, teachers just believed to be right.
    - btilly 14y ago
      I knew a left-handed math prof who had had that treatment growing up in Holland. But he'd developed a party trick. One day he told us about this. And said that the result was that he could write with both hands. Different things. He demonstrated. Wrote with both hands at once, different things, on 2 neighboring boards. Kept on writing. Got to the bottom of the boards. Then turned around, began lecturing from the first board, reached the bottom, and continued the lecture from the second. He had laid out the boards perfectly to do this. It was a very impressive party trick.
      - eru 14y ago
        We had a slightly less impressive professor, who erased with the right and wrote with the left. Also at the same time.
    - slurgfest 14y ago
      It doesn't do anything to a child's brain, it's just gratuitously cruel. That is reason enough. But many people the world over learn to eat or whatever with a certain hand and it does not hurt their brain.
josephcooney 14y ago
I think even if your handwriting is crap a fountain pen just looks better, or at least more auspicious. Horrible for lefties of course, but very nice to use if you're right-handed.
- fractallyte 14y ago
  If you're left-handed, handwriting proceeds best by mirroring what the right hand would do (ie. write 'backwards'). It's far more natural. Alright, so others will need a mirror to read it - but that ought to be society's problem, not yours! ("Equal rights for the Sinisterous!") In a gradual shift toward ambidexterity, I've found that questioning society's insistence on 'right-ness' can be enlightening...
  - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
    Presumably script that proceeds right to left (and even upwards) was originated by left handed scribes edit spellchecker : left handed scribes became left handed scones. The history of heavy baked goods in the development of human civilisation has been scandalously neglected by a blinkered academic community.
    - ithkuil 14y ago
      I remember I read somewhere about the fact that right-to-left script was preferred when carving script on stone. as right hand people supposedly prefer to hold the hammer on their right hand. I'm not sure if that's really the cause. Furthermore in many ancient scripts the direction was quite unimportant, in some cases even reverting in each line (Boustrophedon). Interesting take on direction of writing: http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/292987.html http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/292987.html
- dimitar 14y ago
  I don't get it. Why is it harder for lefties? Aren't the pens themselves ambidextrous?
  - 14y ago

kamaal 14y ago

Handwriting is an amazing thing. But please for heaven's sake do not consider great handwriting to be a sign of intelligence or greatness as a value in itself. This sort of thing destroys kids in their early days. During my days in school(In India). Good handwriting was considered a mandatory trait of good, brilliant and hard working students. Any body who didn't have good hand writing was automatically considered a bad student. The net result was kids with genuine brilliance, appetite for hard work but with a bad handwriting struggled. Some times forced to imitate their class mates in a bad way. I was a big victim of it. In fact the head mistress called my mom and told her, every thing was brilliant about me and if only I could have great handwriting I could score higher than everybody else. The worst part of it was I took it seriously, I had convinced myself no matter how hardworking or intelligent I was I didn't deserve to score well as I didn't have a good handwriting. It was not until a couple of years later. During my pre university days. My uncle cleared my mind of all this. He convinced me that good handwriting discipline is nothing great in itself. Although its good to have one. But greatness lies in what you write and not how you write it. Later I developed how to write in script with separate letters without joining them as in cursive writing. It greatly increased readability. But people around me used to find that strange and some even suicidal for a student. Its basically what Leo Tolstoy said: What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.

tsieling 14y ago
Beautiful Tolstoy quote. And I do see the irony in saying that. But still.
- Tichy 14y ago
  It doesn't say that beautiful things are automatically bad. Just that they are not automatically good.
zwischenzug 14y ago
The same thing happened to me in a UK school in the 1980s. I was told off repeatedly - and my parents told - about my poor handwriting, my tendency to "rush" work, and even that I went to the toilet too often. Of course, the reality was that I was bored and the teacher was a vindictive fool. I remember saying to my mum at 8: "I'm worried about my 's'es", and she said "it's hardly likely you'll be sacked from a job because of your 's'es is it?".

soperj 14y ago

For what it's worth, I have (older)relatives in Sweden who still write like that, with a ballpoint pen. So i don't think it's necessarily that it was written with a fountain pen, although they may have learned with a fountain pen and just continued writing that way.

rsaarelm 14y ago

Nice calligraphy, sure, but hopefully not cursive. Careless cursive handwriting ends up illegible much, much faster than print handwriting, and relies way too much on context to let you figure out what individual words are for my liking. I've had to ask people who wrote cursive notes with just a couple of words instead of a full sentence what they actually wrote, since I couldn't make out the word without the priming of a full sentence of barely legible scribbles.

huxley 14y ago
My father used to do a lot of research using microfilmed 17th-19th century documents. Cursive handwriting (combined with often poor microfilm or fiche photography) was an occupational hazard, he got fairly good at interpreting some documents but it might take him the better part of an afternoon to transcribe 4 or 5 pages of journal entries from some documents.

epo 14y ago

Buy a good fountain pen, write slowly. Start by getting cheap pens, preferably those with interchangeable nibs to see which nib size you prefer using. When you know which size you like (for most people it will be medium) get a decent pen and nib and carry it with you. I have a vintage Parker 51 and some oldish German pens. Modern Japanese pens are quite good though nibs can be narrow for Western taste.

ginko 14y ago
I hate fountain pens. You get splotches everywhere and they often dry up for no apparent reason.
- tjr 14y ago
  After trying several fountain pens and having less than pleasant experiences, I have for years now used felt-tip pens almost exclusively. It approximates the look and feel of a fountain pen close enough for my tastes, and requires much less wrist pressure than ballpoint pens.

antidoh 14y ago

Write Now. It works. I can write again. http://www.handwritingsuccess.com/write-now.php http://www.handwritingsuccess.com/write-now.php