Penmanship is the art of writing clearly and quickly. Different styles of writing have been popular at different times and in different countries. Styles of handwriting are also called hands or scripts. A publication of Platt Rogers Spencer's style in The Spencerian Key to Practical Penmanship by his son in 1866 introduced business writing to North America. This "Spencerian Method" was taught in schools until the mid-20th century. Starting at the beginning of the 20th century, Zaner-Blosser Script and the Palmer Method, introduced by Charles Paxton Zaner (15 February 1864 - 1 December 1918) and Elmar Ward Bloser (6 November 1865 - 1929) of the Zanerian Business College and A. N. Palmer in his Palmer's Guide to Business Writing, published in 1894, became the dominant copybooks in North America. Starting in the early sixties, D'Nealian Script and Getty-Dubay become the dominant copybook taught in North America. Writing may refer to two activities: the inscribing of characters on a medium, with the intention of forming words and other constructs that represent language or record information, and the creation of material to be conveyed through written language. ... We dont have an article called Platt Rogers Spencer Start this article Search for Platt Rogers Spencer in. ... 1866 is a common year starting on Monday. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The Palmer Method of penmanship instruction was promoted by Austin Palmer in the early 1900s and soon became the most popular handwriting system in the United States. ... February 15 is the 46th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1864 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... December 1 is the 335th (in leap years the 336th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... November 6 is the 310th day of the year (311th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 55 days remaining. ... 1865 is a common year starting on Sunday. ... Austin Norman Palmer (December 22, 1860 — November 16, 1927) innovated the field of penmanship with the development of the Palmer method of script. ... 1894 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... DNealian Script is a popular slanted script developed by primary school teacher Donald Thurber. ...

History

At different times of Europe's history the quality of penmanship has varied considerably. Ancient Roman handwriting styles included Roman cursive, and the more calligraphic rustic capitals and square capitals, the latter of which forms the basis for modern capital letters and was used in stone inscriptions. Writing implements and materials were easy to come by. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Dark Ages, new scripts developed from the old Roman ones, such as uncial and later blackletter. The Carolingian period saw the development of Carolingian minuscule, the basis for modern lower case letters, and the era saw a vast improvement in the quality of penmanship. Carolingian script was more easily readable and led to the creation of many new manuscripts, and the period is often described as a Carolingian Renaissance. The actual 15th century Renaissance saw a return to the square capitals of the classical period and the minuscule of the Carolingian period, from which modern scripts developed. The Roman Forum was the central area around which ancient Rome developed. ... A modern example of ancient (or old) Roman cursive; hae sunt litterae romanae (these are Roman letters) Roman cursive is a form of handwriting used in ancient Rome and to some extent into the Middle Ages. ... shoe ... The Arch of Titus, with an inscription in Roman square capitals Roman square capitals, also called elegant capitals and quadrata, are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters. ... Petrarch, who conceived the idea of a European Dark Age. From Cycle of Famous Men and Women, Andrea di Bartolo di Bargillac, c. ... The Book of Kells, c. ... Blackletter in a Latin Bible of AD 1407, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. ... Charlemagne (ca. ... Example from 10th century manuscript Carolingian minuscule is a script developed as a writing standard in Europe so that the Roman alphabet could be easily recognized by the small literate class from one region to another. ... The Carolingian Renaissance refers to the often-rejected but just as frequently resuscitated idea that a flowering of literature, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical and scriptural studies occurred during and shortly after the reign of Charlemagne, that this flowering was consciously nurtured by the court, and that this flowering was... By region Italian Renaissance Spanish Renaissance Northern Renaissance French Renaissance German Renaissance English Renaissance The Renaissance, also known as Il Rinascimento (in Italian), was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution, religious reform and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. ...

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in part because printing replaced most formal communications, handwriting became extremely cramped, small, and difficult to read. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw another revival of clean formalized handwriting. In the early twenty-first century, with the increasing popularity of electronic communication, some note a decline in the quality of penmanship similar to that brought on by the advent of printing, and when handwriting does exist, it tends to be a mixture of cursive and printing; some consider this as evidence of the decline of handwriting instruction. The folder of newspaper web offset printing press Printing is an industrial process for production of texts and images, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. ...

Illegal simulation of handwriting is a frequent occurrence and commonly appears in the legal court system. Extended handwriting and signatures are repeated victims of forgery, and are analyzed by a questioned document examiner. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

See also

• Regional handwriting variation
• Palaeography - the study of script
• Diplomatics - forensic palaeography (seeks the provenance of written documents)
• Sütterlinschrift - modern German running writing, used from 1915 to 1941.

Although people in many parts of the world share common alphabets and numeral systems (variations on the Roman alphabet are used throughout Europe, the Americas, Australia, and much of Africa; the Arabic numeral system is nearly universal), there are sometimes regional variations in how the characters are formed. ... Palaeography (British) or paleography (American) (from the Greek palaiós, old and graphein, to write) is the study of ancient and medieval manuscripts, independent of the language (Koine Greek, Classical Latin, Medieval Latin, Old English, etc. ... Diplomatics is forensic palaeography. ...

External links

• Examples of several scripts