Are handwriting styles generational?

[IDrinkFromTheirSkulls]

For example, mine is very similar to my sister's, despite us being taught in school by different people. Neither of our handwriting is like our mum's either.

My mums handwriting is like her siblings, but different to their parents'.

My grandparents handwriting is similar to each other, as is the handwriting of my nan's sisters.

AIBU in thinking it is a generational thing? Do people of similar age groups generally write the same way?

[insert saddo emoticon here]

I am transcribing old letters (family history). It's very noticeable the letters written with fountain pen, how different the writing looks from modern Biro-written letters, and the occasional pencil'd item. The tools themselves made a difference.

The other thing I love is the language: my American country side letters are full of "tarnation" type words and rampant mispellings, as well as transliterations of how they literally spoke (imagine old John Wayne movies). DH's posh English side letters, they use lots of conventions that you rarely see in British writing nowadays, but were obviously perfectly acceptable 80-100 years ago. Along with the occasional passage in Latin. For example, using "&" to mean "and", which persists in American English to this day.

Over a twelve-year period my handwriting changed to be very much like my old boss's, and still is that way .

'&' does mean 'and' ... What else do you use it for?!

I think it's interesting how fashions in writing come and go - we had 'Words and Pictures' when I was little and you'd sit on the mat in class in front of the TV tracing letters in the air and reciting solemnly 'round and up and down and flick' .... veerrry strange to think of now!

I was taught by a palaeographer who can look at really old handwriting and know instantly which quarter-century it's from: I find that amazing!

Yes, my handwriting resembles my friends'. My gran's looked like an older family friend of the same sort of age, and the parents & in-law's are relatively alike.

my hand writing is very similar to my parents, although it never used to be. There writing isnt similar to each other but when i write its a mix between the two.

intrestingly, when i write numbers my writing looks exactly like my dads but my signiture is very much like my mums.

My nana couldnt write english as she wasnt from here and her writing looked very childish when she did try

I think it's down to teaching definitely - as well as generational it is also national. I went to an international school and could pretty reliably identify english v. german, french and italian writing styles - they are quite distinctive. Mine is an unholy mix of learning to write in two different countries!

My Mum had lovely handwriting-looked nice & was easy to read.

My Dad´s writing looks nice but is hard to read.

Mine is neither legible or nice looking

Well it tends to start off OK, but deteriorates fairly quickly

Kreecher-was your husband never taught cursive?

Handwriting is generational because largely what was taught in schools evolves.

My grandparents have copperplate type writing - the quality of it is generally proportional to the time they spent in education (ie the Gran that missed a lot of school due to ill health has very poor writing and actually her literacy in general isn't great).

My parents both have quite distinctive handwriting. I'm not very sure what style they were taught to write in but Mum's is bascially "primary school teacher" clear (despite the fact she isn't a teacher) and Dad's is big and extrovert. It looks great but is actually quite difficult to read.

My sibs and I (with a 9 year age range) were all taught using the Nelson handwriting system. I'm the eldest and my writing is pretty legible especially if I've got time to write and a desk. I write best with a fine biro or a fine Uniball eye pen. Using a calligraphy nib fountain pen looks brilliant but takes ages in comparison to a biro.

My brother has dyspraxia and whilst he uses the same letter forms his writing is very small and a bit scribbly. He will almost always type documents, and uses the notes feature on his blackberry extensively. My sister ( the youngest) has bigger, more bubbly writing than me but uses similar letter shapes with the notable exception of a print form "a".

However, I have friends (many of whom were educated in the private sector) who were taught copperplate style writing. Legibility is often an issue presumably because we aren't trained to read it in the way that our grandparents were.

My grandmother writes in 'copperplate',she was schooled in the 40's.

SChool in 80's/early 90's here too.Mine's similar to the first example of handwriting

In my experience, British people rarely write &, they sometimes write +, but mostly they point & say "What's that?" if you use an ampersand. This is in handwritten and email correspondence (no matter how casual the context).

Americans use & an awful lot, including in fairly formal settings.

lljkk
That is bollocks. Virtually everyone I know uses the ampersand. For an idea of widespread its usage is look at shop names - M&S, Osborne & Little, Farrow & Ball.

In fact I'm just looking at the note I've left for my cleaner - it contains no fewer than 3 ampersands (bit of an epic note this morning).

Oh, that's odd - I have the opposite experience! How strange. I've also found Americans ask me what '&c' means when you see it in old books, because they don't use it as an alternative to 'etc'.

Cross-post: but that's true, lurker, hadn't thought of shop names.

I love the ampersand. And the word 'myriad'. I don't get out very much.

Nelson handwriting:
www.nelsonthornes.com/nelsonfamily/handwriting.html

Can I do trivia luna? You probably know it if you like the word.

Ampersand comes from little medieval children, who had to learn the common abbreviation symbols as part of the alphabet. So they'd sound it out: "a and b and c and ..." and get to the end where the & sign was, and they'd say "... and z and 'and', per se, and ..."

So 'ampersand' means '& spells 'and' by itself', 'and-per-se-and'.

I like that, but I'm keen on how people learn.

Thank you Lurker, for commenting so authoritatively on my personal experience.

LRD - I love trivia...have also installed the 'on this day in history' app on my teeny computer that occasionally makes a phone call mobile :)

That's weird, because my handwriting is very similar to my mum's and aunt (her sister's). We all write in a quite neat uniform stylised print - aunts is slightly more elaborate, mine is slightly more curvy, my mum uses slightly more straight lines - but family members struggle to differentiate. My brother's is similar to mine too, but messier.

Ampersands are very widely used in the UK... however I think we generally use it to imply that the two parts (X & Y) aren't really seperable in the thing we are describing, rather than to connect two things simply by speech. We wouldn't write 'I went the the shops & saw a friend', but might write 'I went to the shops and saw a friend who told me about her new job at Johnson & Johnson.'

Oh, I love 'on this day' - DH has it and reads them out to me.

(You and I sound like we should be sitting in the same nursing home with blankets on our laps, don't we? Exciting lives! )

LRD - crocheting feather boas and gin for breakfast, 30 cats apiece!!

Whilst training for CAB I was given old secretary journals for training and the handwriting in every book was immaculate

Sounds good luna.

dino - ouch! My mum's granny was left-handed and punished for it, and I have seen her writing - it is so, so, beautiful and regular but I bet she didn't have fun learning!

Yes, I've got a few books (Church services, ledgers) dating from around 1867, and the writing is absolutely stunning, both in style and execution.