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Forget
reading and ‘rithmatic, what about writing?
by Mad Dog
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The
Post Office says their automated systems kick out 60 percent of all
handwritten addresses, with 10 million of them ending up in the
dead-letter office because they’re completely unreadable. To put
that in perspective, this is fourteen letters from every doctor in
the United States. |
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No one writes anymore. Oh, stop feeling sorry for me, I get plenty
of mail. Ed McMahon writes weekly. Product samples like panty
shields, Depends, and earwax recycling kits arrive daily. And free
credit card offers fill my mailbox hourly, proving once again that
banks have more money than brains. But that’s not the problem. The
problem is no one writes anymore. Thanks to computers,
typewriters, ballpoint pens, and PDAs, the handwritten word has gone
the way of the 8-track stereo. Yes, cursive script is all but dead.
I remember being in elementary school. Every day we’d trudge down
to Mrs. Clausen’s classroom where Bobby Bagley would pin me down
on the floor by sitting on my shoulders while Tommy Sackett put a
worm on my forehead and all the other kids in the class laughed at
me. This has nothing to do with the penmanship classes we had to
take but it sure felt good getting it of my chest after all these
years.
According to Newsweek (“Just like Time, only
different”), in some parts of the country hand printing has
actually become more common than cursive writing. Cursive writing,
for those of you who have been too busy trying to get on Survivor
2 to look it up online, is that flowery penmanship they tried to
teach you in elementary school that consists of circles, curlicues,
and letters which are all connected so Jiminy Cricket can pull
entire words off the blackboard and shake them out, much to
everyone’s delight.
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A
company in Oregon will create a computer font that looks just like
your handwriting. This is perfect for those occasions when an
emailed Mother’s Day card just doesn’t cut it but you still have
no desire to leave the privacy (and day-old pizza) of your computer
desk. |
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Even the government has found out no one can write anymore. The Post
Office says their automated systems kick out 60 percent of all
handwritten addresses, with 10 million of them ending up in the
dead-letter office because they’re completely unreadable. To put
that in perspective, this is fourteen letters from every doctor in
the United States.
But
it’s not too late. There are ways to bring good penmanship back
besides having Sister Mary Ignatius Himmler smack our knuckles with
a ruler until we figure out how the hell to make a cursive lower
case zee. One would be to buy a Mont Blanc model 888 Prince Regent
fountain pen. Not only do fountain pens, by their very design, only
work when writing script, but if you pay the $5,900 they ask for
this pen I guarantee you’ll use it more than the one you got at
Graceland with the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich that
slides into Elvis’ mouth when you tilt it.
Another, and cheaper, idea is to order a personalized signature font
for your computer. For $99 a company in Oregon will create a
computer font that looks just like your handwriting. This is perfect
for those occasions when an emailed Mother’s Day card just
doesn’t cut it but you still have no desire to leave the privacy
(and day-old pizza) of your computer desk.
They create your signature font by having you handwrite your name
and a few words on the back of the order form. Not surprisingly,
some of the words they ask you to write are grocery, jewfishes,
rybema, and yachtque. Honestly. I offered to trade them my
spellchecker for a free font but my letter was returned by the Post
Office marked “Unreadable—Please Order A Signature Font.”
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Begun
in 1972, his typewritten journal now stretches to over 38 million
words. In it he records everything he does during the day including
vacuuming the house, going to the bathroom, and even scraping his
feet. |
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This
is a boon to criminals everywhere. As anyone who’s ever watched Matlock,
Murder She Wrote, or Mayberry R.F.D. knows, Andy
Griffith starred in all three of them. Okay, in one he was in drag.
They also know that the easiest way to catch a murderer is by
matching their typewriter to the notes they sent the police taunting
them because they can touch-type 75 words per minute while all the
police are legally allowed to do is hunt and peck. Lucky for the
police no one uses a computer printer to write ransom notes or
they’d never catch anyone.
One person who could really have used a signature font is Ted
“I’m Having a Blast” Kaczynski. If he’d had the foresight to
spring for the $99 he’d probably still be Helena’s answer to
Grizzly Adams. A prime piece of evidence against him was the
typewriter the FBI found in his luxury lodge that matched the one
used to write the Unabomber’s 35,000-word manifesto.
Interestingly, Kaczynski had three typewriters in his possession. If
he hated technology half as much as he wasted all those words
claiming he did, he wouldn’t have had even one of those newfangled
contraptions cluttering up his log cabin. Hell, Lincoln didn’t and
he grew up to be president.
There’s
one person who needs a signature font more than Kaczynski: Robert
Shields of Dayton, Washington (town motto: “We used to be in Ohio
but they asked us to leave”). He holds the distinction of having
written the longest personal diary in history. Begun in 1972, his
typewritten journal now stretches to over 38 million words. In it he
records everything he does during the day including vacuuming the
house, going to the bathroom, and even scraping his feet. All this
without once mentioning the horrors of a technologically corrupt
society, modern civilization’s impending downfall, or how
disorienting blue M&M’s are.
There is one problem with ordering a script font for your computer.
If you’re like me, you can’t remember the difference between
cursive and cursing, so you won’t be able to fill out the form.
Luckily those fine people at Signature Software already thought of
that. For only $49.95 you can get a package of five pre-written
script fonts which are named Lisa, Wilson, Tsui, Jocelyn, and
Victoria. The “Doctor in a Hurry” and “Unabomber” fonts are
custom orders so please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery.
©2000 Mad Dog
Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country. Sign
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