Handwriting and Shakespeare

[fbhjr]

I’ve been listening to the soundtrack of the musical “Something Rotten” and
it has a song “God, I hate Shakespeare”.
I can’t help but sing along.

In 9th grade I was conditioned against Shakespeare.
I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the actual intent. But, that is how it worked
out.

One of the things I was consistently told was a problem for me growing up
was my handwriting. It wasn’t very good. Still isn’t.

For reasons not clear to me, in 9th grade this became a bigger problem than
it had been before. My guess it was some sort of fallout from my 7 & 8th
grade guidance counselor pronouncing me “too stupid to be a garbage man”
when I grew up.
I suspect spelling and handwriting were what he used to prove his case.

Both the school and my mother set out to improve my handwriting.
The school assigned an attractive female senior to go over my hand writing
and review it for two months. This did improve my handwriting.

My mother decided that what I needed was a lot of practice. So, she told
me that I needed to hand copy the works of Shakespeare.
My father had a set of the complete works. I was to start with the volume
on the left, copy it all by hand, then move on to the next until I had gone
through them all.

She told me she expected this to vastly improve my handwriting and give me
a good bit of culture at the same time.
It did neither.

I started and worked hard on making my writing better. When I brought it
to my mother to review she said “I don’t have time for that. Just copy it!”

So, with zero oversight on it, I just copied it letter by letter for 2-3
pages each night. I went as fast as I could. I paid as little attention
as possible to what I was copying.
I was judged only by how many sheets I could hold up at the end of the
night that had pen marks on them.

I honestly have no idea how many of the works I got through. I know not
all. As soon as the school version of improving my handwriting was
declared a success I was told I didn’t have to do it any more.
It was about 3 volumes in if I recall. But, I really don’t remember how
much was in a volume.

This has left me in the odd position of having a lot of Shakespeare sound
vaguely familiar without my really being able to remember any of it.
For a long, long time, I had no interest in getting to know the material
any better.

Over the years as I encounter them, it always strikes me strange when I
have one of those moments of “that was a pretty good story” when viewing
one.
And, as the song that got me thinking about it says “the man really knows
how to write a bitchn’ play.”
I guess that’s true.
Somewhat sad I don’t appreciate it as much as others.

What makes this ironic for me, is my mother’s handwriting is horrible.
Back in the days before I was declared an embarrassment to the family and
stayed in touch with her, I insisted anything she sent to me was typed or I
would ignore it.

But, since I’ve cut her off, she’s gone back to hand writing notes.
She sent me a note a few weeks ago to let me know about my father’s
cousin’s death.

At the bottom was what looked like:
“Diet Coke, love, Mom.”
I handed it to my wife to see if she could confirm my mother’s soda wishes.
After some time examining it, we decided it probably said:
“Take Care, love, Mom.”
That does make more sense.

OK, OK, she’s 84. I should give her a break on handwriting.

But, back when she was only about my age she sent a note that had what
looked like:
“Ret rum mold swirly.”
We knew it was in reference to the dog.
Finally it turned out to be the dog had been “reprimanded severely”.

I don’t know.
My handwriting isn’t good.
That Shakespeare wrote some good stuff.

Diet Coke everyone!

Comments

[ravena-kade.livejournal.com]

In 9th grade the English teacher told me that I had to start using cursive on all my papers or she would flunk me. I was an A student in the class. I asked why since this wasn't a handwriting class. She did not answer. I thought that maybe she thought that I did not know how. I told her that I could write in cursive, but I printed for the comfort of the teachers. Not wanting to flunk I wrote out all my papers... and after the 7th one she requested that I go back to printing since my cursive was very difficult to read.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I had early trouble with math. My mother decided that the problem was that I was learning it sitting down. So I had to spend a whole summer doing 2 hours a day of long division standing up! It made me hate math, and long division, and standing up. I retaliated by reading Shakespeare, lying on the sofa...

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Wow, I had never heard of someone blaming position before. Sorry for the results! Hopefully it is a nice sofa!

[hindustar.livejournal.com]

It was very wrong for any school official to say you were stupid. ugh.

I am so sorry your first relationship with Shakespeare was not agreeable.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

For the first 6-7 years it wasn't any, it was all...
Good thing I didn't believe them and was stubborn about it.

[hindustar.livejournal.com]

I am so happy you did well despite this. I am in awe of your determination. =)

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Ugh.

Yeah, my 'math dyslexia' earned me a tutor (well, three different ones) during most of the summer vacations for like 2 years straight. (one of them had to stop for whatever reason I long since forgot, maybe got pregnant). So that meant time I could have been playing with friends was spent inside with a stranger telling me I wasn't getting it so just pile on more and more horrible math problems because drowning in it somehow means you get better at it faster, or something like that (it seemed at the time). The 2nd tutor was nice and did try to either incorporate art into the math (I seem to remember plotting a poster-sized layout of her baseball team that she coached with the player's batting averages), or "rewarding" with doodle-breaks…Which was sort of a disaster waiting to happen.

The other tutor was an older woman with a sweet older dog but she understood that I "got it" just that I had to take a little longer and tried her best to show me a few techniques to get the right answers.

Anyway…That's all in the past now.

As for Handwriting, yeah they sort of gave up on penmanship by the time we hit Junior High, and then I got into Drafting which is ALL CAPS, although incidentally I didn't start writing in all caps until College.

Now with all of this Historical Art stuff I'm doing, I have to get back into handwriting and being able to "read" script. Which has been…Difficult. Although it doesn't seem nearly as head-explody and frustrating as it did when I was a kid. I do believe people will get better at something or have a better appreciation of it if you let them get into it their own way, not force-feeding it to them when they clearly despise it. Although the harder part is realizing they despise it and try to find another more appealing approach for them.

As for The Bard…To be honest, I don't see what the Big Deal is about. Many times I think he's way too over emphasized and overplayed. Yes, his contributions have been significant and world-changing…Er, Altering at least, but he's not the Only One out there. Although his appeal and interest has probably been more persistent in the last 100 years than the last 300. *shrug*

Your teachers and mom, though…Jeeze.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Math made one of your teachers pregnant?
What kind of math was that?

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

*spit/drink* LOL

genetic multiplication math, apparently…

Like I said, this was decades ago, and didn't want to commit it to memory (I already have too many bad experiences on repeat as it is)

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

The correct answer is:
multiplication!

[yesididit2.livejournal.com]

drafting is done in all caps? THATS why my dads handwriting is always in all caps!!! all these years i've never known that but always wondered! he said he didnt know why he wrote in caps, it was just easier. silly man must have learned it in his drafting classes.

[meathiel]

Hmmmm ... thank goodness nobody made me copy Shakespeare (or it probably would've been Goethe in my case)!

[yesididit2.livejournal.com]

jeez, just reading it is enough to turn me off. i dont care for old english. i dont want to have to freaking puzzle out meanings. i dont enjoy that kind of reading. give me a movie about it, then i'll pay attention. dont get me wrong, I LOVE TO READ! i tend to devour around 200 books a year. i really love reading. but not shakespeare. not anything from that era. yuck. what a horrible punishment!

my little brother had lovely handwriting as a child, but was constantly chastised by his 2nd grade teacher that he wrote too slow. took too long to write. he was basically bullied (in front of his entire class, on a daily basis) into writing faster. his lovely penmanship morphed into chicken scratch. my mother was not angry with that teacher, but the damage was done.

my own handwriting varies hugely depending on my mood.