Writing Letters

[oggbashan]

Long ago I gave up on using my departmental secretary; it was easier to type/keyboard things myself than to prepare them in a form legible enough for her to transcribe without significant errors.

I had a secretary to myself, but once we had basic wordprocessing devices I could send her the raw text to copy into a formal letter/memo. For most correspondence I could ask her to draft and type the letter herself. All I had to do was sign it.

She was a great secretary. If I was away from my office she could do most of my routine work herself. I was left with reasonable time for personal contacts, the strategic issues and forward planning (and the finance!).

 

[SamScribble]

Now that I think about it, I realise that most of the letters that I write these days are to the surviving partners, spouses, brothers, and sisters of friends and extended family members who no longer walk among us.

Like Ogg, I tend to write with the aid of my trusty Toshiba. My trusty Waterman, filled with blue-black ink, is nearby, but my handwriting has become – and possibly always was – a tad idiosyncratic. I try to keep the tone of these life-celebrating missives light. But I have, thus far, resisted the temptation to illustrate my cheery notes with cuttings from the weekend newspapers. Perhaps it is something I should look into.

 

[JackLuis]

There is a move in education to eliminate cursive writing in primary education here in the US. tisk tisk

A few years ago I decided to write using pen and paper when my untrustworthy lap top refused to type an L. So I decided if I wanted to write on the patio I'd do so in note books. After filing seven notebooks my writing vastly improved, how ever not having a secretary to transcribe it, the note book novel is still on my shelf.

 

[FelicityJohns]

There is a move in education to eliminate cursive writing in primary education here in the US. tisk tisk

A few years ago I decided to write using pen and paper when my untrustworthy lap top refused to type an L. So I decided if I wanted to write on the patio I'd do so in note books. After filing seven notebooks my writing vastly improved, how ever not having a secretary to transcribe it, the note book novel is still on my shelf.

Tsk Tsk indeed! That is shameful.

When I write poetry, I can only write it longhand. It just doesn't flow any other way.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I always write my stories out in longhand first, on my writing slope. It's just so nice doing it that way. I recently bought a Cross fountain pen: one of their floral designs: Magnolia. It has a gold nib, which I also like as the softer metal shapes itself to your handwriting as you go along. I like a fine nib; it was quite hard to find one with a fine gold nib and when I finally spotted this one in a magnificent design that was clearly meant for Ladies writing florid (ho ho) romances, I had to have it. I think I hoped the pen would mean I wrote well automatically but it turns out that I do have to put some thought and work into the writing too.

I used to be a secretary and I was a very good one. When my boss arrived at 10 am, I would say: "Here are your letters, and here are your answers to them." He just had to sign the answers, I had written them all for him. He used to laugh and say: "Brain the size of a planet and you want me to type a letter." He was a really nice guy, so if some of the other bloke-y guys were in a meeting with him, I would come in with a cup of coffee in my hand and sway my hips as I walked up to him, then breathe: "Here's your coffee, Steve." That made us both laugh very much and the other bloke-y guys in the office more envious than that he never had to write work letters.

 

[Handley_Page]

Any letter hand written by me would be incomprehensible to the recipient. I can just about manage to address the envelope before my handwriting becomes a scrawl.

I still send letters but word process them, usually in 14 point or larger because most of the people I write to need large type.

Oh How True, Ogg.

My so-called handwriting has been the subject of much discussion in my life; and some pain. My parents thought little of the silly note I sent when I was recently in the RAF. Skip forward a year or three and I got a computer (Dragon 32) and soon acquired a writing programme.

Gosh!. Several pages of readable screed, all pent up from the previous years.

 

[le_kitty]

There is a move in education to eliminate cursive writing in primary education here in the US. tisk tisk

A few years ago I decided to write using pen and paper when my untrustworthy lap top refused to type an L. So I decided if I wanted to write on the patio I'd do so in note books. After filing seven notebooks my writing vastly improved, how ever not having a secretary to transcribe it, the note book novel is still on my shelf.

I read about that, sadly.

Jake Weidmann makes a good comeback for hand writing though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85bqT904VWA

 

[TxRad]

My handwriting is a mystery even to me after only a few minutes. The main reason i started writing stories so late in life. Why write what no person can read.

I can't remember the last letter i wrote. Sometime back in the late 60's would be close.

 

[NotWise]

I'm with TxRad on the handwriting thing. The older I get the worse my writing gets. I use cursive when I'm taking notes because it's fast, but then I have to act on the notes or transcribe them because a half-our later I won't know what they say. Otherwise I print if I have to write by hand and that is time consuming.

 

[Tigersman]

Handwritten

I love to sit down to pen an old fashion letter. Everyone including some secretaries have told me how good my cursive writing is. Even when I write fast, my writing is legible.

 

[legerdemer]

I love to sit down to pen an old fashion letter. Everyone including some secretaries have told me how good my cursive writing is. Even when I write fast, my writing is legible.

I am pretty sure my handwriting is unite legible, but my daughter claims she can't understand it. She got hardly any exposure to cursive in her school, and I'm the only person whose cursive she's seen. I find it sad - I love writing long hand, using a fountain pen, on good quality paper. Sadly, most good quality writing paper comes to the US from elsewhere.

 

[GoldenCojones]

Hmm, well I live in the US so any letter I would send would never be delivered. The US Post office has a strict policy of only delivering Junk mail and pre-approved credit card applications.

 

[redzinger]

I've never been one for letters. I blame it on being forced to write thank you letters after birthdays and Christmases. We never used to receive anything in return.

If I write anything nowadays, it's in block capitals, as that's the only way I'll be able to read it again. I learnt this valuable lesson after I kept losing marks in school for illegible handwriting.

 

[SamScribble]

If I write anything nowadays, it's in block capitals, as that's the only way I'll be able to read it again. I learnt this valuable lesson after I kept losing marks in school for illegible handwriting.

At school, we had one particular English teacher who marked more on style than content. If you had copybook handwriting, you had it made. But if, like me, you had handwriting that looked like a portion of a Jackson Pollock painting, you were at a disadvantage – regardless of your critical and compositional skills.

Jump forward a few years and I was on a book-signing tour when said English teacher presented herself at the author’s table.

‘I don’t know if you remember me,’ she said.

‘I do,’ I assured her.

And, in my decidedly non-standard handwriting, I inscribed her just-purchased copy of my book: See, you don’t need regulation handwriting to become a published author.

Did I feel mean? No. No I did not.

 

[Bramblethorn]

My partner has a penpal in prison. He doesn't get internet access, so handwritten letters are the order of the day.

Oh How True, Ogg.

My so-called handwriting has been the subject of much discussion in my life; and some pain. My parents thought little of the silly note I sent when I was recently in the RAF. Skip forward a year or three and I got a computer (Dragon 32) and soon acquired a writing programme.

Gosh!. Several pages of readable screed, all pent up from the previous years.

I have atrocious handwriting. One of my school teachers told us that no matter how technology changed, employers would ALWAYS expect job applications to be hand written...

Thanks to many years of piano lessons, I can touch-type very quickly. The bottleneck is deciding which words to type.

 

[redzinger]

...I can touch-type very quickly...

I've never been taught how to type, but I think foruming (!) has had a massive effect on my speed. Yes, every time I think about it, I slow down, but when I'm typing away subconsciously, the words really rattle out. In fact, I'm probably quicker now at typing than writing, all picked up through general internet surfing.

 

[ishtat]

lefty

I am left handed but when I first went to school my elderly but very kind teacher insisted I write with my right hand. I persisted and eventually learned this sole right handed skill quite well. It was sufficient to get me through 11+ school and Uni.

However as a teenager I suffered a minor injury to my right hand and found that I could write quite fluently left handed - provided I wrote from right to left. This however was fine for class and later Uni notes. Today almost all of my writing is like this. One oddity is that although I can get words on paper just as quickly with either hand, I feel more comfortable going backwards.

One task each Christmas is that I get the job of writing a short note to nieces and nephews - the younger ones. They seem to think it is a sort of magic to receive letter which requires a mirror to read - tho' in truth the kids cope better than their parents.

On one occasion I absentmindedly sent a card addressed the same way, and the Royal Mail delivered it with no problems at Bromley post office to an address in Keston Kent.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Back in elementary school, when we were first learning to write, my best friend couldn't see the purpose of stopping at the right edge of the paper and returning to the left margin to continue. Instead, he'd continue back towards the right on the next line, with letters reversed, of course. So it went, left to right, right to left, left to right... Our teacher, Sister Alice, would thwack him unmercifully with a wooden ruler in an effort to drive the evil practice from his poor, possessed hand. He felt himself quite justified when we got to high school, and he learned that Ancient Sumerian was written right to left and left to right.

 

[oggbashan]

I am left handed but when I first went to school my elderly but very kind teacher insisted I write with my right hand. I persisted and eventually learned this sole right handed skill quite well. It was sufficient to get me through 11+ school and Uni.

However as a teenager I suffered a minor injury to my right hand and found that I could write quite fluently left handed - provided I wrote from right to left. This however was fine for class and later Uni notes. Today almost all of my writing is like this. One oddity is that although I can get words on paper just as quickly with either hand, I feel more comfortable going backwards.

One task each Christmas is that I get the job of writing a short note to nieces and nephews - the younger ones. They seem to think it is a sort of magic to receive letter which requires a mirror to read - tho' in truth the kids cope better than their parents.

On one occasion I absentmindedly sent a card addressed the same way, and the Royal Mail delivered it with no problems at Bromley post office to an address in Keston Kent.

My parents were both left handed but in the 1920s were forced to write with their right hand only.

My sister was strongly left handed. She was allowed to continue to use her left hand.

My brother was ambidextrous. He could write and draw equally well with either hand and as a party trick would do two different but simultaneous sketches, one with each hand. When he broke his right arm while skiing, he used his left hand. He already had a left-handed signature recorded at his bank so could still sign checks.

I'm ambisinistrous - equally useless with both hands. I cannot write legibly with left or right, and as for drawing? Forget it!

My mother-in-law was another left-hander forced to write with her right hand. She knitted left-handed because that's how her left-handed mother taught her. My wife knits left-handed too.

Two of my three daughters are left-handed and one is ambidextrous. The ambidextrous one used to write with whichever hand was closest to the pencil/pen when she started to write. All three of them knit left-handed - taught by their maternal grandmother.