Why are pen lifts used?

[lightout964]

Hello, I'm trying to learn about fountain pens as I collect vintage autographs. Can someone explain to me why the pen was sometimes lifted in the middle of a word or name and restarted? Was this to keep the ink flowing properly or because it was difficult to go from one letter to another? Any comments would be appreciated.

[I am not a number]

Moved from Writing instruments to Penmanship.

[jmkeuning]

dip

[sexauerw]

1. I know I do it because I usually have a messy desk with not much room. I run out of room to move my arm and have to stop to readjust the position of the paper in order to be able to finish the signature.

 

2. In modern times many documents are signed using a different pen for each letter so that there are multiple souvenir pens available to be given away in commemoration of the signing event. I don't know when this practice started.

 

3. Certainly jmkeuning's explanation that the use of a dip pen would require lifts to re-ink the pen would apply to almost anything before 1900 or so and to many documents even after that date. Fountain pens are a relatively late invention, at least in a reliable form.

 

I'm sure there are more reasons, but those are what come to mind immediately.

[RLTodd]

I do it sometimes.

 

Have no idea why, it is just my style.

 

 

[Shalori]

I do it sometimes to rotate the nib back to the proper position. It is now a conditioned reflex.

 

Neil

 

[HDoug]

Hello, I'm trying to learn about fountain pens as I collect vintage autographs. Can someone explain to me why the pen was sometimes lifted in the middle of a word or name and restarted? Was this to keep the ink flowing properly or because it was difficult to go from one letter to another? Any comments would be appreciated.

 

Post some examples. Would be helpful to know the (approximate) dates too, because that would have a bearing on the style of handwriting and the implement used (quill, steel dip pen, fountain pen, etc.).

 

Doug

 

[lightout964]

This individual for instance. In his last name he would always lift after the "F", the "t", the first "s", and the second "m". One example is from 1892 and the other is dated 1914 on the reverse.

[lightout964]

A few more examples:

[lightout964]

One is dated 1900 and the photo probably late 1890's. Always consistent pen lifts:

[Daosus]

In the case after the F, it's impossible to continue a line and have it look good. If the "tz" were linked, it would introduce too much space between the letters and make the signature unbalanced. After the "s" is a standard way to lift. It only recently became common to lift the lowercase "s" to the letter following it. Basically, this looks like a signature this man composed carefully to look good and be consistent, and then held on to for many years.

[wykpenguin]

I think it's just personal preference. I don't join all the letters in a word when I write.

[Inka]

I too am guilty of "pen lifting".

In my "cursive" hand, I make my upper-case letters and then do not connect them to the next lower-case, although the partial definition of "cursive" is "flowing; not disconnected".

This is how I was taught, not to connect the first letter in a sentence, the upper-case or capital letter, to the following letter and the same applies for letter requiring capitalization mid-sentence or thereabouts.

I also do the "pen lift" when I find my nib rotates too far inboard or outboard, lifting it to center the tips on the page again.

[Paddler]

Speed could be another reason. It is sometimes faster to lift than to connect. This could be especially true in one's signature, when one writes it often.

 

Another reason could be vanity. The writer is perhaps trying to make his signature look distinctive. At a time when good penmanship was an admired skill, a few lifts would stand out.

 

I was taught to never join capital letters. To do so was considered sloppy and we were really upbraided for it in school. Sister Mary Nuncia would have had me by the cheek if I had ever connected a capital F to something.

 

Paddler

 

[FrankB]

I lift a pen frequently when I write. It is just the way I have found to form my letters more fully.

[Randal6393]

Check out Kate Gladstone's site on Handwriting Repair. Pen lifts are used to readjust the hand, readjust the pen, add speed to one's writing, etc. It was truly liberating to find out that I did not have to write a word out without lifting the pen from the paper. Any word longer than six or seven letters left me with a crick in my wrist from not gliding along the paper (something that resulted in smashed, crinkled paper, in my case).

 

Enjoy,

[Renzhe]

I lift the pen when I think not lifting will make a mess, or when I'm constructing a letter.

 

(My definition of "construction" is when a continuous curve has to be written with more than one stroke.)

[HDoug]

The signature seems to be from the period when all letters were "supposed" to be connected so the lifts might represent some kind of significant anomaly. I would guess that the writer learned his signature at a youngish age and used the lifts to accommodate his long signature and once learned, was kept. Just a guess, though.

 

Doug

[Jamesiv1]

Cursive writing is "joined up" writing - meaning all the letters are joined together. It does not mean "no pen lifts" writing. Even back in the "Golden Age" of cursive writing, the professional penmen would lift their pen every 2 or 3 letters in order to move the paper. Then start the next letter from the exit stroke of the last letter written.

 

The idea is to keep the arm, wrist, hand and body in the same writing position, and move the paper instead. It appears there are no pen lifts since all the letters are joined, when in fact pen-lifts were common and in fact, proper technique.

 

It also depends upon the size of the writing as to how often one lifts the pen. Larger writing, perhaps every two or three letters. With smaller writing, you can probably write five, six or more letters (entire words) before a "paper move" is necessary.

 

James