June 29, 2004

• I hold my pen in a most atrocious manner. I've never been able to un-learn it, and I've always suffered as a result when it comes to writing things. Also, I have handwriting like a four year old.
• here, blaise, try starting over with a "primary grip." when you are an adult, you may progress to "the grownup grip." but not until then.
• My handwriting has always been near atrocious. I wish I had a beautiful, flowing, script, but it's more like a hulking, slobbering, rabid drunk.
• or there's always the "tripod grasp" vs. the "washington monument grasp"... this is starting to sound kinky.
• God, I write in such a horrible way.. I hold it very deep between my index and middle fingers. Pretty much way past the first knuckle. My thumb pretty much does nothing but sit there and look... pretty. It's like I'm writing with my whole hand Teachers through school were always trying fix me, but I've resisted. It doesn't matter to me if nary a soul on earth can read it. That's what computers are for.
• Which grip was Daisy May's young man using?
• One of my daughters (she is only 8, I should say) holds her pen the wrong way, but not in the 'chimp' style: between thumb and three fingers with hand almost palm upwards. I can't persuade her to change and her teachers don't seem to believe it's anything to do with them. All I get from them is advice on how I can teach her to write. Mind you, I think handwriting has been deteriorating gradually since everyone wrote immaculate copperplate in the nineteenth century.
• I hold it very deep between my index and middle fingers see? i'm tellin' ya, kinky. kinky. kinky.
• I can't write anymore. As my job requires extensive mouse manipulation and keystroking, and the only paper scribbles I do are sketches or mock-ups, I've lost the ability to properly write. Those frantic times I have to jot down something in a hurry, the result is an unintelligible mess, more useful as a mnemonic device. And when I have the time and need to write something that needs to be legible, I end up resorting to all caps. Which makes it look even more WEIRD...
• I have traditionally had pretty nice handwriting (human grip) but I too have noticed a deterioration in the last few years (due to computer use v. writing by hand) which bums me out cause I like having nice handwriting but it is increasingly difficult to maintain...
• Well, I have the "index finger on top" part right, but my thumb is too far back and I rest the pen against the first knuckle of my middle finger too (so there's a slight callus there). I've never thought about this before, interesting.
• God that was dirty... I gotta learn to proof read things.
• >>Well, I have the "index finger on top" part right, but my thumb is too far back and I rest the pen against the first knuckle of my middle finger too (so there's a slight callus there). That's what I do, too, and I was never corrected... not even in third grade, when my teacher was spaztic about holding the pencil correctly. But apparently its wrong?
• I actually have different positions depending on what I'm using (to continue with vauge, and somewhat pathetic, subtext). If I'm using a fountain pen (preferred despite the south paw tendency to smudge), I hold it "normally" but ball-points or pencils are held between my index and ring fingers, with my thumb pressing it deeper against my hand -- this is the only way to get stable pressure to write neatly (which I'm somewhat anal about). I don't use rolling ball, because they render me instantly unintelligble. They're like my own personal kryptonite.
• This suposedly awkward chimpazee style of holding a pen is actually very comfortable, at least for me, and I write fairly neatly without any effort. It is true that my hand has suffered in recent years, but this is due to frantic note taking in lectures. So why is anyone fussing?
• I'm left-handed when writting and mostly I write horribly (except when I put care on it). To hold the pencil exactly like if it were a pair of chopsticks. that's why I had no problems learning to eat japanese food with them. Curiously I use my right hand for anything else, including that...
• "To hold" -> "I hold"
• I remember being taught in grade school, and thinking, "Yeah, that is the best and most comfortable way." The majority of my class resisted and write Chimp-style. I think the "good" way is supposed to be more ergonomic and easier on hand, tendons, etc. At least, that is the impression they gave me. I could never get any good success out of any other way. My parents always stressed traditional literacy (reading, spelling, handwriting) because they felt it was going out of style with computers, and consequently would be very valuable someday. Not that I have good handwriting or decent spelling.... God belss sepll cheeck..
• I am right-handed, hold the pen incorrectly, and have horrible handwriting. When people watch me write, they routinely say, "I didn't know you were left-handed." I am astounded each and every time that someone asks me that when I am clearly holding the pen in the proper hand. Does that mean that left-handed people are chimpanzees, or that chimpanzees are left-handed?
• WHO the hell is Daisy May? All I can find are vague references to her. Clearly she was evil, but why? This is driving me nuts. Oh. And I hold a pen the only normal, correct way. I've been clocked at a blazing 15WPM. So there.
• what with computers and such, writing much at all gives me a killer cramp. but i hold the pen correctly, although my chicken-scratch leaves a little to be desired. i can read it, my wife can read it (usually), but my poor, poor students... alas. and my mom had such neat tidy penmanship, too. wonder why it didn't rub off. i do have a fairly neat streak when printing though, if i take the time (mechanical drawing class in high school helped with that - took it as an elective for just that reason). and i can also outline letters freehand, which is fun for decorating card envelopes. much better to grab a sharpie and make a hollow letter than to do it in pencil first then trace. freehand is more fun. but then again i think i have fairly good spatial recognition skills too... used to do cut-paper puzzles freehand, from chunks of different colored posterboard, and they always fit together pretty neatly. and i can usually recognize a word in print even if 3/4ths of it (or sometimes more) is obscured (top to bottom, not left to right - although context helps with that too). go figure.
• People assume I write with my feet, but I don't.
• I used BOTH HANDS to hold my pen until I was 17. I had a proper grip on my right, and I pushed on the pen with my left index finger. But I started taking notes & writing long essays in class, and that style proved to painful to maintain for long writing sessions. I had to learn the proper way, and my grades suffered in the meantime because I was so slow taking notes and writing.
• Heh, thinking about it, I think the reason my grip is inverted (the pencil is always pointing at me while I write) is that I learned to pencil-draw before learning to write and it's easier for me to grab pencils that way while drawing. And, PatB, behold the first victim of the monkey fury!!
• How do you hold your pen? Like a human or a monkey? Like a pen.
• monkey-style, right here! (that does sound dirty!) i write neat but slow. i was taught the proper grip but never got the hang of it. also, i hold my fork "wrong" when i eat. coincidence?
• I am very proud of my penmanship unfortunately I have an unsightly welt on my middle finger.
• zemat thank you. It all seems clearer now. But um shit fuck fire, didn't she win? I mean more than 200 responses....67 is the best I've done, and I felt lucky at that.
• shit fuck fire and geeeminy christmas zemat that, right there, is the thread that makes me feel like no matter what I post, it will never be as...um...je ne sais quas or something, i can't possibly top that for bottom. Weel, you get it. I still have the best handwriting or printing of all y'all.
• I hold the pen/pencil directly across the middle finger first knuckle, and my writing has always looked like a chimp having a bad day. Used to have a horrible callus on my knuckle from using the Grip of Death in elementary school, but that's been replaced by the ugly bony knot of a Heberden's Node