Is Left Slanted Writing "wrong"?

[joeeykn245]

As a left hander, when I rotate the paper to a comfortable angle, I end up writing with a moderate left slant. The writing is perfectly legible, but just doesn't seem as nice looking. It seems very difficult pushing the nib to the right to create the right slant.

[Chthulhu]

When I was in elementary school, too many years ago, it was "wrong" simply because it was contrary to what was being taught. Unless you're being paid (money or grades) to do it "right" do what works well for you and is legible. I will agree it looks a bit odd, but certainly not "wrong." :-)

[otherboss]

Most suggestions for left handers I've seen, recommends that you turn the paper to the right, but it just doesn't work for me. My writing ends up slanting to the left and I think the final product looks unnatural.

 

You haven't said which way you slant the paper, so maybe you're slanting to the right. Try it to the left and see how you go.

 

There is nothing that is "right" with left handers, apart from what works for you. A friend of mine even turns the paper to the left by 90 degrees and writes "up" the page and his his writing is fantastic.

 

Keep plugging on.

Cheers

Barry

[joeeykn245]

@Chthulhu: Well, It is mainly for my own satisfaction to do it "correctly". My writing looks odd even to me =P. I suppose it is fine though, if it cannot be fixed.

 

@otherboss: I am currently trying to turn my paper to the right as is 'conventional', but it seems unnatural to me. When I write with the paper turned to the left, my handwriting looks much better, and slants to the right effortlessly. However, it brings other problems, such as having to reach across the page, or getting my hand caught on the side of the notebook.

[PatientType]

I think that a left slant is the type of script that comes easily to you then that distinctive writing is part of your make up and you should embrace it. It looks "funny" because it isn't the way most people write. So what? I think it would be cool to be able to write something that is perfectly legible but that even casual acquaintances could glance at and say, "Joe wrote that." A signature script..

[caliken]

IMO left-slanted writing isn't necessarily wrong, it just makes reading slightly more difficult. We read from left to right and it is natural for the letters to be either upright or sloping to the right. Lettering which slopes backwards seems to me to be contrary to the natural left-to-right flow.

I don't think the being left-handed has much to do with it. The Penmanship moderator Ann Finley is left-handed and writes beautifully in Italic and in a personalised form of Business Writing, both with a conventional right slope (see here).

 

However, not being left-handed, I realise that I could be completely wrong! :embarrassed_smile:

 

caliken

[Renzhe]

It is unusual because it's easier to write strokes that are perpendicular to levers formed by our body parts such as fingers, wrist, and forearm than it is to write strokes that are parallel. Most people are right handed, so the fulcrums of their levers are usually on the lower right of writing. The result is that any kind of quick writing tends to have strokes that have positive slopes. This occurs not only with Latin characters. For example, consider the strokes in the following sample.

http://i43.tinypic.com/2a4ofv7.jpg

The characters characters in the rightmost column are 百尋下臨則崢. The typeface you see <--here probably has some truly horizontal strokes. However, in the writing sample, they have a small positive slope. They are still recognized as being basically horizontal.

Edited June 18, 2010 by Renzhe

[caliken]

There's another thread on the same subject here