Category: Writing & cursive

Bring Back the Yogh and the Thorn

Fonts & Layout / Language & Grammar / Typography / Words & etymology / Writing & cursive5 Comments

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Ye Olde Shoppe. We’ve all seen the signs like this. Ever wonder why it says “ye” instead of “the”? Me, too, at least way back then. I’ve known the answer a long time now from decades of reading about English, about typography, Chaucer, and about Middle English orthography. Spoiler alert: It was pronounced “the.” Not “ye.” Sorry to disappoint readers who have been saying “ye” all this time. The “ye” was actually spelled “(thorn)e” — thorn was a letter in the Old and Middle English alphabets that stood for “th.” It started out looking like a lowercase “p” as in … click below for more ↓

The magic of reading

Critical Thinking / Fonts & Layout / Language & Grammar / Typography / Words & etymology / Writing & cursiveOne Comment

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Can you make sense of those lines in the image to the right? Of course not. They’re deconstructed from the letters of a simple, one-syllable word and randomly re-arranged. It’s just four letters, but their component parts are not arranged in the proper order, so they seem like meaningless lines and squiggles. We’ve not been taught to assemble them into a structure that makes sense to our brains. Yet we’re quite capable of assigning meaning and context to abstract forms, if they’re assembled properly. The order that we prefer those lines and curves to be in is arbitrary – the … click below for more ↓

Hypergraphia

Behaviour & Psychology / Culture / Science & Technology / Writing & cursiveLeave a comment

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An article in the September, 2016, issue of Doctor’s Review looks at the curious, compelling affliction called hypergraphia: the obsessive need to write. I never knew before this that there was an actual illness of this sort. As someone who is often driven by a deep compulsion to write, I am both curious and a little afraid to learn more. And of course, I turned to the internet. Curious because I always want to learn, especially when it’s something that might touch me in some way. Afraid because I’ve always thought of my writing as a mere personality trait, a passion I’ve … click below for more ↓

The Death of Handwriting?

Books & Reviews / Culture / My Writing / Politics / Social Order & Disorder / Writing & cursive2 Comments

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I almost cried in pleasure when I watched this video; the handwriting is so beautiful. Apparently some viewers have, as Jesus Diaz writes. On Gizmodo he says that it’s: …a video that caused many to discover autonomous sensory meridian response, a perceptual phenomenon that gives a pleasing tingling sensation. Some said they got it watching people writing. Well, put your headphones on, because this is the mother of all calligraphy ASMR videos. Okay, maybe it is for me because I was raised with handwriting and still delight in it. Penmanship was taught in school at least for a few years when … click below for more ↓

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