A handwriting question

[bakedpotatoforlunch]

Lighthearted question but one I've sometimes wondered about. Why is my handwriting often not very clear? I mean it's legible and okay - mostly - although I sometimes have trouble reading the odd item on my own shopping lists!

I do think I try to write clearly and fairly carefully. Yet compared to some people I know who can seemingly effortlessly write attractively and elegantly mine looks like a scrawl.

I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence or education. I recently received a card from a friend who is a GP and almost laughed out loud when I had to spend a little time deciphering what she had written!

Does anyone know why quality of handwriting is such a variable thing?

I think it's "how your brain works" you'll find that people who perhaps stronger in logic subjects like maths, computing etc have poorer handwriting, and the more arts leaning, neater?

My (fraternal) twin brother is a professional coder and has always had awful writing.ines always been in the middle, which sits with my theory...I'm good, but not great at maths/logic, and good but not great at arts...

Plus, it's a skill. Like with any skill, use it or lose it i suppose?

And I guess more practice the better you get, but I guess it's like learning the piano, only some have the ability to progress to certain levels? Not everyone will be a concert pianist, despite trying really hard..

Fine motor skills. Nothing to do with intelligence.

I have awful handwriting, my brother is the same. I guess it is poor fine motor skills, possibly partly inherited, partly through lack of practise. Oh and he is more maths-y and I'm more arty so I'm not sure it makes a difference. Luckily we don't need to use handwriting much nowadays, wish I could have told the primary teachers who would torture me with 'joined up' exercises.

Interesting question. I once worked with someone with an additional career as a calligrapher and she said part of neat handwriting is just down to writing more slowly and carefully. As you become more proficient you can speed up and still produce neat writing but it takes a lot of groundwork first.

I think you have to learn a style of writing in the first place and really drill yourself in it. Briefly learning joined up writing in a UK primary school isn't enough. I taught myself French cursive (lower case only) as an adult, so can produce a fairy elegant style of handwriting, although not up to French standards! France was known for requiring high standards of French cursive even into secondary school but I don't know if they still do.

Really it's like any skill - to be proficient you have to practice a lot. And then when you can do it, it seems effortless to other people.

I've always had terrible handwriting. In hindsight, I wonder if I have dyspraxia as a lot of my motor skills are poor.

These days , I rarely actually write , using a pen/ paper as everything is typed into my phone. So it's a skill that I have lost a bit .

I think that's an interesting question.

I was taught to write copperplate at school. I can write copperplate, but my normal handwriting is scruffy and difficult to read. But I can also do a variety of different handwritings good enough to fool people looking at the side by side that they were written by totally different people.
I can write in non-copperplate neatly enough to read, but it has to be a deliberate decision.

But, I look at my dc and wonder:

When dc1 went to school there was a huge push on handwriting. They did homework twice a week on forming letters, and a bit drive on beautiful handwriting. Dc1 has beautiful handwriting even in a hurry.
There was a backlash before dc2 went to school and they did almost nothing other than a quick "this is how to form the letters properly". Their handwriting looks like a spider ran over the page.
Dc3, they went for a middle approach. They did some handwriting practice, but nothing like as much as for dc1. Their handwriting is neat but not beautiful.

Now personality wise it doesn't surprise me that dc1's is the beautiful one, they've always liked anything they did to be well-presented. But I'd have expected dc3 by personality to have the unreadable one because they see no value in spending time on presentation, nor on using a pen/pencil on paper at all. Dc2 probably was the best at colouring in, and certainly the only one that thought beyond preschool years that that was a fun occupation.

I write a diary every day still, very quickly and very messy.
This suits me because it would be almost impossible for anyone to decipher it, should they be nosy enough 😂
Have had this confirmed from several sources on asking.

I've noticed since my eyesight has got worse my writing has too.

I think it's all down to how you were taught (or not) before writing became automatic, and whether you subsequently adapted what you were taught for speed/ease.

Nice handwriting is nice because it's regular - the curves and lines of the letterforms plus the spacing and ways of joining them, are all consistent and follow rules. If you were taught handwriting thoroughly, you would have been taught a method of forming letters into words that all works together. Once learned to the point it's automatic, it won't take conscious effort to write 'nicely'.

If you were able to develop your own ways of forming letters, or develop habits to make writing faster or more comfortable for you, then you're less likely to end up with good handwriting, because the actual way you make and join letters lacks a consistent method e.g.: your b and your h won't match each other because you start drawing your h from the top and your b from the bottom, or you form an i differently after a t compared to an a. It'll be messier and harder to decipher.

Absolutely this. I used to have beautiful handwriting but with the increase of computer use etc I barely write anymore and it's now more of a scrawl 😫