Hacker News Reader

Comment by Graham24 | Hacker News Reader

yeah, i got the same, the school went on and on about my handwriting and spent far too long trying to improve it, wasting my time and theres.

Not exactly an issue as I sit here and type this is it?

Mind you, the one thing i did do when i got a chance, was to do a typing course meant for secretarys as I knew i'd have to type.

View on HN

Not to sound rude ... but your typing isn't that great either.

theres instead of theirs, secretarys instead of secretaries and none of your I's are uppercase as they're supposed to be.

Don't be a pedant. It's distracting from the actual discussion.

How's this for the actual discussion: There have been cases of people dying because the pharmacist misread the doctor's scribbles and gave them the wrong prescription.

I think the discussion is not about readability but rather artistic value attached to handwriting.

We have medical students "training" their fast and ugly writing, right from the beginning of college. It's all about the doctor's status. The bad handwriting is one medal.

And you've just lowercased the starting letter of a new sentence. If you're going to flag someone over something, make sure you double check what you've typed.

Yes I did and it was on purpose, because I was listing exact examples from his comment. Probably should have put them in quotes though, I'll give you that.

I did miss that part, but they should have been quoted as examples, quotes save lives.

More incorrect than rude, typing is about hitting the letters you wanted to hit accurately, quickly, consistently and without strain or injury, spelling and grammar are something entirely different!

And both are about communicating with other human beings effectively. I could spell out everything phonetically or use text shorthand as well, but that makes it generally harder for a wide audience to enjoyably consume my writing. Humans do a large part of reading via gestalt comprehension, changing the "shape" of words stymies this process.

And what value exactly does your comment add? Did you consider that English may not be parent's native language?

The thing is people attach too much artistic value to hand writing.

Think of it more like painting and drawing.

What makes it worse is the visual appeal and they way it can be preserved over the years.

Your example showed it isn't artistic value so much as social class.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com