We seem to see so much of what we call 'italic' writing, which I've never found particularly attractive.

I've been reading a book called "The History of Handwriting in America" along with a reissue of one of the Spencerian practice books.

Does anyone on this forum practice either classic Spencerian cursive or the later Palmer method? I have correspondence from long-dead relatives who were obviously trained in one or the other. True Spencerian cursive still impresses me as a real achievement, particularly in light of the pens available in the nineteenth century.

If you do a search (button on the upper right on my browser) on "Spencerian" you will find several posts on the styles you speak. And - That's just in the last month.

I didn't try 'Palmer' but I remember several discussions on that also.

Ron

I knew about the book "Handwriting In America: A Cultural History" (by Tamara Plakins Thornton) but not that other one ("A History of Handwriting In America") — who wrote that, and where can I find it?

Just out of curiosity, John — what do you find "not particularly attractive" about specimens of Italic handwriting? (Myself, I find Spencerian and Palmer less than attractive — the loops and some other details displease me.)

By the time I went to school (60s) it was neither, but I would say it was closest to Palmer.

My mom was trained in Palmer. (Which I only came to realize after joining this site)

-Bruce

Zaner - Blosser.

Child of the 60's too, Palmer forever. To me it seems so bland, and infinitely easy to forge. <_<

Kate asked what John found unattractive about italic writing. I find some italiic writing attractive but none of it appeals to me as much as well done Spencerian script.

I am one of those who really dislikes the look of printed letters. I quite glad that script was permitted as early as first grade when I was in school. I hated printing but I loved practicing the loops and flourishes of penmanship. I still do almost 50 years later.

Yes, Zaner-Blosser... Never seemed to work for me. As far as handwriting as art, I had a secretary some years ago who had practiced Spencerian to the point that I would ask her to write notes simply because they were so beautiful. Now, however, it seems that no one has the time to dedicate to such a hand. For this reason, I agree with Kate Gladstone that a well-done italic is both attractive and practical. Even when I was in school I could never make the loops right - C's and D's in "handwriting." Now that I'm trying to geet italic right, at least it's legible, if not artistic.

David

I'm a 50's product. I was taught the Palmer Method, but I didn't realize it then. Besides, handwriting instructions were not as strict then as they probably had been years before.
My handwriting was never that good, but it got worse during College and, particularly, at Medical School. There is no real, scientifically proven reason for physicians' poor handwriting; just carelessnes and speed, which accounts for poorly shaped letters and irregular slanting...
I've been trying to shape up my handwriting with, what else, Palmer's.
I like Peterson's style, too. It is easier to learn and practice than Palmer's.
Spencerian is very beautiful, but harder, at least for me, to practice.
All these styles, I've found, do not lend themselves to hurried writing. One has to take his time to write them. This is an advantge to me, since living in such a hurried pace as we do today, witing is a sort of therapy, that calms and soothes body, mind and spirit.

I love Spencerian and similar writing styles from the 19th century, but Palmer-ish script is all I'm hoping to achieve in my handwriting. I prefer cursive to printing, certainly.

Ringtop

I'm with you on that.

I feel that handwriten printing can never be as precise as typed one, so why bother?

I also thought that italic printing was a lost art only practiced by manuscript restorators until... James Pickering came in to the picture.

His contest showed that many people on this board are reviving pratical italic handwriting.

This is great!

On my part I find Italic rather difficult to read unless the letters are spread out. If the letters are spread out, I find printing to be more appealing.

My objection to Spencerian and similar ornemental scripts is that other than "invitation" type documents, I find them to be a waste of resources. Sure, its fun as a hobby but in the real world the ornamental scripts are harder for most people to read than good old Z-B, Plamer, or just plane printing.

I have noted that engineers who are very concerned with theri exact meaning being communicated tend to print a lot. I don't really undersand MDs etc. have the history for such bad script although it could be psychological.

One of the links on iampeth features the perils of inaccurately-executed handwriting:
http://www.iampeth.com/books/ames_guide/am...ide_page14.html

I am practicing Spencerian now, and even bought a grid notebook to help me, but my actual (I mean day-to-day) handwriting is suffering. My brain-hand coordination is becoming confused. Is this normal with people who practice different scripts?

That is a cool link.... It is latter than the period that I'm trying to learn how to write, but there is a lot of good information there....

Dear Leigh R.
I have the same experience with practicing more than one handwriting style, at a time - I have to stick to either italic or the "cursive types " or else both types will look bad and shaky.
Thanks for the tip about the E-motion - it still writes without problems - great pen.

greetings
Henrik

I was taught something incredibly close to Palmer...but it wasn't Palmer. I think my elementary school was a freak in that area [early-to-mid 1990s].

I've tried to learn italic handwriting but just can't get into it. Too many instances of grade school teachers reminding my classmates and me that true cursive is not "joined printing"...and that's all italic handwriting is to me*

*specifically, the kind of italic hand featured in instruction books like Write Now and my own attempts to learn it.

Palmer, to me, is just joined printing also - except that with Palmer the printing is intentionally malformed, forced to conform to arbitrary rules, and with goofy loops added, which all ends up making the letters not look like letters anymore. Examples: an "l" (lowercase ell) is the same as an "e", but taller. Lowercase "i" logically requires a loop in this system, but does not get one. Uppercase "I" does not resemble any letter, let alone the correct one. Same for "r" and "z".

Please note: I am not criticizing any one person's writing - rather, I am criticizing a tradition that arbitrarily declares malformed letters to be correct. (I have disliked this writing for these reasons since I was three years old, so please forgive my taking the opportunity to get this off my chest.)

I must rush to Palmer's defence:
It was invented as a fast and uniform buisness hand, and did very well as such. The "abitrary rules" are the way you move, when writing, not he letterforms Executed by the book, it gives no or less writing cramps and is uniform and consisten a "legato" script. - but I agree, that it is hard to read if you are not raised with it

Being from a "italic devoted" country I have allways thought, that cursive represented artwork and skill - italics were just legible writing. I love flourishes and loops and thin/ tick strokes.

Well - mr. James Pickering changed my opnion of Palmer/Spencerien/Round hand and so on being the only artistic scripts (se his rendition elsewere in this forum) and in turn the Write on system from Getty-Dubay (Highly recommended) In my opnion the cursive italic is the ideal clone of cursiveforms and italics - using the best from both worlds..

kind regards Henrik

Hi Henrik, my handwriting is still all over the place, and my Spencerian p is creeping into my italic p. It's a mess!

Dear Leigh R

Don't worry - in my experience it will pass, when you decide, which script you want to execute. - and it's possible to write Getty- Dubay very "Palmer like" if you want - almost like the german "Lateinischer Ausgangsshcrift" ( I can post an example later if needed)

Besides Palmer and Spencerian are great scripts, that I admire very much - but my pupils can't read it <_< - so I had to find something more Italic style.

Kind regards
Henrik

I would very much like to see a sample of Henrik's "Palmerized" Getty-Dubay.
Henrik, I agree with you (and others) on the difficulty of reading Palmer Method (even when done brilliantly) and similar styles — but if some people still write this way, then all the rest of us must learn to read it even if we do not write it!

Often, I find young students (or even not-so-young students) cannot read looped cursive — so I've developed a way of teaching someone to read such writing if s/he can read other writing. If a person can read the "print" or Italic AaBbCc, it takes about an hour to teach him/her to read the fancy stuff (such as Palmer Method) too — IF you teach this by showing how every print-like Italic letter changed little-by-little over the centuries and produced the later elaborate versions. This takes about 1 minute to show for most upper- or lower-case letters, even for the least-obvious letters such as "Q" and "I" and "Z" and "f" and "r."

For me, Palmer (or some variant thereof) is what I was taught. I read it easily. I just don't want to.

Dear Kate,

As you wish, I will try to post an example.
By the way I did not mean "Palmerized" - I just like to add loops to my humble Getty-Dubay interpretation and sometimes find some of the caps beautiful- But at work using blackboard og writing notes to my pupils or colleagues for that matter I have to stick to the strickt Getty-Dubay forms to be understood.
My pupils suffer from various kinds of braindamages and is not capable of mastering handwriting very well nor reading - so I have to stick to one form - but of course I try...
(Posted image is in danish)
kind regards
Henrik
(sorry :doh: wrong example the second one is what people can't read)

To the person who found Italic hard to read — can you post a sample of some that you found hard to read? I ask because *bad* Italic (like bad anything-else) can present problems.

I rather like Henrik's samplke, and don't mind anyone writing that way if s/he likes to do so.

Sooner or later, Henrik, your students will need to learn to read such writing (and even fancier writing) and not only the simplest possible forms ("strict Getty-Dubay" or whatever).

Did you know that the Getty-Dubay site contains two downloadable free materials specifically for teaching/learning how to read looped cursive? —
http://www.cep.pdx.edu/samples/rloop_compare.pdf
and
http://www.cep.pdx.edu/samples/rloop_compare.pdf —

additionally (or instead), I recommend teaching students (for each letter) exactly how the simple Italic shapes gradually changed into the fancier shapes that they will often have to read. Blackboard demonstrations work well for this — also collect (or have students collct) and practice with various examples of fancier and ancier writing that they may see outside the schoolroom (lettering from advertisements/Christmas cards/etc.)

Dear Kate
Thank you for the links - I totally agree - and as said elsewhere, I will take all your advice in consideration in the future
kind regards
Henrik

I'll admit that to my rather untrained eye (I'm from the UK, where neither Palmer or Spencarian handwriting has been taught for a very long time indeed) the two look very similar - can someone highlight the key differences?

While we're discussing different styles, is there any style of cursive that does away the 'extra' loop at the start of words?

Spencerian usually has shading here and there (achieved by pressure), along with thinner and more angular lower-case but wider and more curvaceous capitals.

Spencerian also has more strokes in many of its capitals than Palmer does.

What do you mean by "the 'extra' loop" at the start of words? If you can describe/illustrate this precisely, I can probably steer you to styles that do or don't have it, or that have it on more/fewer letters,

Sorry for not being clear. The American styles of cursive all seem to encourage/demand that writers put the same entry stroke on a letter, whether or not it is actually being joined to a previous one. In the UK (in my experience) teachers repeated again and again that you should _not_ do this. So, for example, 'h', 'm' and 't' might start at the base if following an 'e', but would start at the top if starting a word. The letter where it is most noticable is the letter 'm', because to my eye putting in the additional stroke makes the letter appear to have three arches where it should have two.

I'd like to write in a slightly more cursive style, but both Spencarian and Palmer are firstly too radical a change for my writing and secondly would probably not be very legible to a UK eye.

hello, i am from uk

your comment about teaching of spencerian is partly true. i contacted Brian walker who runs a intrest group for more details. he sent some information/lessons along with handwritten examples of spencerian. if you want to find out more i suggest contacting Brian.
Spencerian Study Group (Brian Walker)

i haven't had the time to practice much but when i do i want to learn spencerian, and try to use it everyday and everywhere. as for joined up writing, maybe you would try business script?
Styles of Script

there are some books and info to browse on iampeth.com and www.zanerian.com.

the answer to which style i prefer is spencerian!