When we talk about the decline and fall of handwriting today, what we are really referring to is the decline of letter-writing. It is quite true that very few of us actually write letters any more and insofar as we do so we will certainly prefer to type them out rather than to use freehand. In my case, and according to that yardstick, I don’t think I have handwritten a word in anger for the last 20 - 25 years. However, this means that handwriting was virtually my exclusive means of oral communications in the preceding 5O years of my life.
As a child, a schoolboy and even a student, I used a pen or a pencil and I don’t think anything has changed since then. Perhaps schoolmasters are not quite so prone to tell us to write out “I shall not talk in class” a hundred times before sunrise. (Looking back I wonder if they actually checked the contents of these lines, for it seems they would have been an ideal opportunity to insert the occasional obscene or abusive remark in the middle of them.).
As an adult I continued to communicate in both personal and professional settings. The diary I kept for about 12 years when In came to France was written in longhand, whereas there was nothing to stop me using typewriters. Even when I bought my first word processor in the mid-1980s I continued to write as before, and it was only when I branched out as a freelance translator that I gradually abandoned handwriting for typing.
I would have to check with my children and grandchildren to see how their experience differs from mine, but I would be prepared to bet that handwriting reigns supreme until the outset of their adult life.
When I look back at my last diary entries in 1979, what strikes me most of all, even more than the quality of my script, is how little I had to cross anything out. That for me is the most extraordinary thing of all. This no doubt is partly to be explained by the fact that I have never mastered typing anywhere near as well as writing, and partly - and more intriguingly - sentences no longer form “ready-made” in my mind they did before.
Your last handwritten letter to me is dated 29.7.1999 and is just one short paragraph. You tell me to regard it as a collector's item and how right you were! After that they were all emails.
ReplyDelete22 years ago! But I haven'r said my last word...!
ReplyDeleteGreetings Barnaby
ReplyDeleteHandwriting becomes less and less clear for the reader as one becomes older at least mine does. Before retirement computers and secretaries really took over more than 95% of my handwriting, leaving little more than signatures and Christmas cards.
I still have a friend from prep school who lives in Ireland. He sends written letters so I still have to write to him.
Well, Jerry, you were very lucky to have a secretary on hand!
ReplyDelete