Regional handwriting variation

I started doing that during my undergrad degree in electrical engineering, along with some other changes to remove ambiguity in my handwriting.

I wasted 20 minutes on an exam because I confused a 1 and an ‘l’ in my own writing and didn’t want to do that again.

It's becoming compulsory again in Ontario's curriculum this Fall (2023). It was made optional in 2006.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/ontario-cursive-reintroduction-1.689...

I think italic is better than cursive. It has all the good parts like speed, plus it's actually legible.

https://sites.google.com/view/briem/handwriting/what-exactly...

I’ve met a lot of people complain about learning it, and while I don’t write it as often as I used to, it does help me write faster. We were also told even as kids that a big justification for us learning it was to help develop fine motor skills. I’m not sure if science backs that up, but I feel like it helped.

I don’t normally, but I can if I’m trying to print clearly. I basically make the shoulder and descender of the a, then come back up the ascender and make the loop, connecting the loop in such a way as to leave the tail. That said, I normally just do a D’Nealian lowercase print a.

Edit: thanks to the other commenter who shared a link to this. Much easier to show than to tell! http://sketchtoy.com/71138762

I don't normally write the double-storey `a', but when I choose to do it (such as when hand-lettering something very neatly with lowercase), it's (1) the top-to-tail stroke, (2) reposition pen, (3) stroke the remainder from top to bottom.

I could skip the pen reposition, by reversing direction at end of the tail, but the options I've thought of for that don't have the aesthetic I'm going for when using double-storey `a' at all.

My mother uses both "double-storey" a and "loop-tail" g in all her handwriting, even throwaway notes and shopping lists. Most likely due to working for many years as a graphic artist/signwriter.

Your guess is exactly how I did it before returning to the normal handwritten way.

I do. stroke order is - | o

I write ‘a’ this way, but my hand movement is more like making a lower case ‘d’ with | and then o without lifting. but in the case of ‘a’ the stem is a curved motion to start with.

I do. The quick, single-stroke version goes like this (follow the numbers:

     ___
    /   \
    1   2
        |
     _6_|
    /   3
    |5  7 8
    \_4_|/

(I draw the bottom part of the right line twice, and the bottom loop ends up being rounder).

Or, the two-stroke version:

     ___
    /   \
    1   2
        |
     _6_|
    /   3
    |7  4 5
    \_8_|/

Yes, learned it from a manual typewriter before starting elementary school.

Two strokes, but the ampersand is a single stroke.

Lower-case "g" as seen in Times New Roman too.

Quick dollar sign has one vertical, formal has two verticals.

Never used cursive and I am old enough to endure penmanship being universal. Only use it for calligraphy.

Talk about regional handwriting, interestingly, Port Arthur, Texas must have had a hell of a penmanship teacher at a quite early time from which descended some of the most beautiful handwriting across all walks of life well into the 1980's.

I also preferentially draw this form in my notes but find people in the USA are typically confused by it. Also I’ve started taking my notes with a pen and tablet and find character recognition doesn’t understand it,

Polish uses "w" instead of "v" and it's pronounced as "v" yet we are taught to write it rounded in cursive (capital letters are still edgy).