Handwriting is always dying. Fading. Becoming a lost art.

That’s how it’s often described, even by those who love it. But the thing is, handwriting is not some quaint remnant of the past that we look back on fondly. It is an essential skill, obviously not as widely used as it once was, but still relevant, even now, and better in many ways than the more advanced tools that have supposedly replaced it.

1. Versatility of pen and paper

When I take notes, I don’t write only in linear paragraphs. Sometimes, a thought or detail jumps out at me, and I like to make a special note of it. When underlining isn’t enough, I’ll write a little side note, usually at a 45 degree angle to the original paragraph, with an arrow pointing to the word or phrase that triggered the thought.

You ever tried doing something like that with a keyboard and a regular word processing program?

But you can do anything you want with a blank piece of paper. Write or draw or both at any spot on the page, in any direction, in as many different styles as you like. You never have to change formatting and aren’t limited by the program’s features. The process is fast, seamless and intuitive. You think it, and your hand creates it.

The only limitation to what you can do with paper and pen is your imagination.

2. No special tools needed

Hardcore pen snobs might want to look away now. I’ll wait…OK, now here’s the thing: When you really need to commit a quick thought, piece of info, or image to paper, any old ink pen or pencil will do the trick. All you need is paper and a working writing instrument.

That’s one of the things that makes the simple pen and ink solution better than tablets that allow you to write and draw directly onto the screen.

With many of those tablets, a simple stylus won’t work. You need a special “pen” that actually connects with  –and is powered by – the tablet to take notes or draw with any degree of accuracy. For example, the Galaxy Note tablet requires Samsung’s S-Pen, using Wacom tablet pen technology. (CNN said writing with the S-Pen is like “writing with a slightly stubby ballpoint.”)

Lose the special pen that goes with your tablet, and you have to buy a new one before you can return to taking notes or drawing.

3. That comfy feeling

Using pen and paper is just a more pleasant experience than tapping a screen or cold plastic keys.

The balanced fit of the right pen nestled in your fingers, the soft, textured feel of good quality paper against your hand, the tactile feedback as the smooth nib glided across the page. It’s all part of the pleasure of writing that we’ve enjoyed since grade school.

It makes the act of preserving a thought or emotion something satisfying and personal – a feeling that is entirely lacking when you use a device for that same purpose.

4. Price you can afford

Gadgets are expensive – £500+ for an iPhone 5 – and seem to become outdated every 18 to 24 months. You could spend yourself into the poorhouse just trying to keep up.

Of course, you could spend just as much on high-end fountain pens and inks, if you wanted. But the nice thing about simple pen and paper for your daily notes is that it can also cost very little.

A decent quality refillable gel pen like an EnerGel or a G2 goes for less than £3 and a good Rhodia notebook is what, maybe another £10 or £12? Maybe not high-end, but you’d still get good use out of them. And at those prices, even if you write constantly, it would still take a few years to catch up to the price of an expensive tablet or phone.

5. Portability and convenience

The beauty of using pens and notebooks lies in the simplicity.

You just stick them in your pocket and go. They don’t require special totes or chargers, can be used anywhere, even when the sun is glaring down, and will generally take quit a bit of abuse. Get yourself a Uni Power Tank and a Rite in the Rain notebook, and you can even take notes or make sketches any ol’ rugged place you want to go, whatever the weather.

When was the last time your notebook stopped working just because you dropped it on some pavement?

6. The pen/brain connection

There have been numerous studies in the last few years that have shown a link between handwriting and learning. The basic idea is that writing information down by hand creates special associations in the brain that do not occur when using a keyboard.

For example, European researchers found that those learning a new language were more likely to remember letters correctly after handwriting them than typing them. And at the University of Indiana, another study found that students were more likely to remember information one week later if they wrote it in cursive, rather than in print or by keyboard.

That benefit may also extend to creativity, as well.

Dutch researcher Lambert Schomaker, attending last year’s International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition, told an Indian newspaper:

“Prolonged research and feedback at various levels in a society have shown that ideas come spontaneously to those who write with a pen or pencil and as a matter of fact, they largely fare better than those who work on keyboards. Because, writing with pen or pencil is a natural habit and very few people realise that.”

And this is how author Lee Rourke put it in a column for the Guardian about novelists who write by hand:

For me, writing longhand is an utterly personal task where the outer world is closed off, just my thoughts and the movement of my hand across the page to keep me company. The whole process keeps me in touch with the craft of writing. It’s a deep-felt, uninterrupted connection between thought and language which technology seems to short circuit once I begin to use it.

This might seem alien to those of us who pick up our pens daily, even if for just a few moments, but apparently weeks can go by between writing sessions for the typical adult.

Docmail, an online stationery and business forms service, commissioned a survey on the writing habits of British adults and received some gloomy results.

According to the Daily Mail:

The research…revealed that the average time since an adult last wrote by hand was 41 days. But it also found that one in three of us has not had cause to write anything ‘properly’ for more than six months.

Two thirds of the 2,000 respondents said that if they do write by hand, it’s usually something for their eyes only with hastily scribbled reminders or notes most common.

Also from the survey, one-third of British adults have positive feelings toward handwriting, but would not want to do it every day. And one out of six said they didn’t think handwriting should even be taught in school.

But here’s the big question: Do you buy this?

My answer is a resounding, ‘No.’ Not entirely, anyway. I do believe most people are probably unsatisfied with their own handwriting and that there are many who prefer ‘writing’ on their phones, tablets, etc, simply for the convenience. But to go nearly six weeks without writing down anything?  Just not plausible.

When was the last time you were in a workplace, any workplace, and didn’t see pens lying around? Everyone from store clerks to carpenters to office workers need writing instruments on a fairly regular basis to perform their jobs. After all, someone has to be using the billions of pens that are sold around the world every year, and they can’t all be school children.

So far, I haven’t seen anything that reveals who conducted the survey for Docmail or what methodology was used.

It’s interesting to note that the survey was commissioned by a business that revolves around the automation of paperwork. As the Daily Mail quoted the company’s managing director, Dave Broadway, ’Handwriting will always carry a sentimental value but inevitably makes way when it comes to the need to be efficient.’

This might just be a case of finding exactly what they wanted to find.

What do you think?

OK, we’re understanding people, we really are. But the Guardian has published a piece that puts forth the idea students are so unused to writing by hand that it stresses them out to do so on exams.

C’mon…seriously?

From the Guardian:

For the moment it seems that the pen and paper are here to stay, but examiners are aware of the strain written tests place upon students. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, English tutor at Oxford University, says: “Inevitably, anxiety is sometimes voiced that students are now so used to typing they can’t cope with a three-hour handwritten exam.”

Students use keyboards almost exclusively for classwork, then are required to use pens and/or pencils on written essays during exam times. Apparently, that makes their hands hurt and slows down their ability to answer questions.

Writer Rebecca Ratcliffe says:

In the run-up to my undergraduate exams, I was advised by tutors to practice speedy handwriting. Some even claimed that candidates can’t write as much these days as their counterparts did in previous years, though no data is available to prove this.

UK school officials have suggested doing away with handwritten portions of tests, while some schools have given students the options of using laptops (although few students seem to take that choice, according to the Guardian).

Yes, writer’s cramp is real. We’ve all experienced it. Usually, it’s a result of practicing the ‘death grip,’ either from bad penmanship habits or from using a cheap ballpoint that doesn’t write smoothly.

And yes, writing by hand does require a bit of a different mental process than keyboarding. Research has consistently shown the two activities engage different areas of the brain.

(Oh, and there may also be a link between good handwriting and better grades.)

But has it really gotten to the point where it’s simply too much to pick up a pen for a few hours of test-taking?

Instead of abandoning a fundamental form of communication – one that is going to persist in one form or another until the end of time – there might be some better solutions. Such as encouraging students to handwrite some work throughout the school year. Or teaching them how to write properly in the first place. Or even just using ergonomic pens.

They’re students, after all. Writing is a basic part of education.

Now that the fun part – tearing open all those wonderful gifts – is over, it’s time to start thinking about saying ‘thank you’ to the people who put time, effort and money into making your holiday special.

Yes, writing a stack of notes can be tedious, especially if there are a lot of them. But it’s the right thing to do, and it doesn’t have to be a complete chore.

Simplify the process with these quick steps:

1. Make a list of who gave you what. Use the gift tags or cards that came with your packages to help keep them all straight.

2. Choose some fine stationery or ‘thank you’ cards printed on good stock. You don’t show appreciation with notebook paper and plain white business envelopes.

3. Set aside a specific time to write the notes, within at least 3 days of Christmas. Do all the notes at once.

4. Break out your best pen and hand write each note in a slow, neat hand. Be brief. Say ‘thank you,’ mention exactly what the gift was, tell the person how it will be useful to you, and close with another thanks. Shouldn’t be more than three or four sentences, at most.

5. Hand address the envelopes. Labels are just tacky for these types of things.

6. Stamp the envelopes and immediately drop them in the mail. If you wait, you might end up forgetting.

Want to really make your friends and family happy? Take a photo of yourself with each gift, and include the photos with the ‘thank you’ cards.

When you’re done, come back here and tell us all about the neat loot you got!

• Researchers at a U.S. university are working with the FBI to compile a database of donated handwriting samples to use in handwriting analysis programs.

It’s being run through the English Department of West Virginia University, which is conducting two-hour “collection sessions” with volunteers.

From the university’s website:

The goal is to compile an anonymous data set to be used by WVU and the FBI to study handwriting and the unique characteristics of writing styles. Handwriting can profile human behavior in the areas of social skills, thinking styles, work habits and the way persons deal with stress. Handwriting is a unique snapshot of an individual’s current state of mind, body and feelings.

Interestingly enough, while the English department is running the show, the contact person is from the school’s Homeland Security program.

Volunteers get free pizza during the handwriting collection and a $50 gift card when they’re finished.

That creepy feeling they’ll get from being watched by Big Brother is just a bonus.

• The end of cursive handwriting can’t come quickly enough for some people, it seems.

Columnist Lori Borgman took to the pages of the Kansas City Star recently to hasten the demise of communications written in flowing longhand. The end, she writes, is inevitable.

I know, I know, some of you are purists packing up your Montblanc fountain pens and the last remaining boxes of Crane stationery with talk about heading to the hills. Oh, you may be fine for a while, but you’ll turn on each other eventually, arguing about whether to resurrect the Palmer Method and whether it is acceptable to make lefties lose their slant. Come to grips with it now – the days of cursive are over. Man does not live by longhand alone.

If you’d just think rationally for a moment, I think you will shake those BIC pens out of your satchel, relinquish your beloved uni-ball with the fat grip and agree to stay close to your keyboard.

In today’s times, cursive is limiting. It slows us down, it gets in the way of expediency.

Case in point, you can’t Facebook in cursive. You can’t tweet. You can’t even organize a flash mob in cursive. Well you could, but you’d need a day to address the invitations, three to five days to make sure they had arrived and two additional days because cursive holdouts are also the sort that also like to RSVP. You have now killed the spirit of the flash mob. Feeling badly about that, aren’t you? Like a lowercase “m” drooping beneath the base line.

Why does it always have to be pen or keyboard? Why can’t it just be both?

Of course, we could just assume that she wrote all that with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Yes, let’s do that.

• A San Francisco artists’ group decided to lend a hand last month to people who liked the idea of handwritten letters, but were too lazy to do it themselves.

According to the local NBC affiliate, the project was called Snail Mail My Email and allowed people to email notes of up to 100 words, which volunteers then turned into actual letters and mailed, postage paid.

The project was the idea of a man named Ivan Cash, and apparently was a success.

Since starting the project several weeks ago, Cash has enlisted 134 volunteers around the world who’ve mailed out more than 2,500 letters. In a living room in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, Cash and a group of friends sat in a circle transforming emails into handwritten notes.

There were love letters from husbands to wives; a poem from a father to a son – a letter from a woman to her grandmother letting her know her injured ribs had healed. One volunteer wrote-out a “Dear John” letter intended for an unfortunate recipient in Australia: “Dear Thomas,” it said. “I don’t think it’s working out. Sorry, I think it’s time we ended things.”

Cash smiled at the words, and said he hoped it was a joke.

“We’ve definitely gotten letters from parents to their infant children,” he said. “Saying ‘hey this might be the only snail mail you get.’”

Sweet, but kind of sad, too.

• Want to see something encouraging?

The Boston Globe recently ran an article about people from the tech generation who still enjoy sending handwritten missives, instead of just posting on Facebook and Twitter.

Writer Anna Marden interviewed several 20-somethings who make a regular practice of writing and sending letters – and of encouraging their friends and family to do the same.

Phoebe Sexton received so much mail on her 27th birthday, the postman couldn’t fit it in her mailbox. A 2006 graduate of Boston University, Sexton moved to Dallas just a few days before her birthday last year. But because she wasn’t with her friends to celebrate, she wanted the next best thing – for them to send gifts, cards, and letters through the Postal Service.

“I called it my mail-order birthday, and I posted on Facebook and e-mailed. I let everyone know I’d really like to get any sort of mail,’’ said Sexton, who sends lots of postcards through the mail herself. “Oh my goodness, the response was insane… . I had 80 people respond – I think 21 of the 50 states were represented, and five continents.’’

Pretty ironic that she used Facebook to solicit snail mail. And, feels like a bit of a victory, too.

Schools across the United States are phasing out cursive handwriting, making it a hot topic of debate among educators, students and researchers.

So, CNN has responded with a brilliant series of articles about handwriting, all linked to a “cultural census” the network is taking that asks everyday people to submit samples of their own handwriting for review and public display.

(Look below to see what we’re doing to encourage our readers to participate.)

According to one of the CNN handwriting articles:

Forty out of 50 states in the United States have adopted the Common Core curriculum, which phases out cursive writing in the classroom, for their public schools. According to its mission statement, Common Core seeks to teach skills that are “robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.” In Common Core, the time formerly devoted to teaching cursive is spent on learning to type and other digital skills.

Obviously, this is not going over well with many teachers and even some parents, who grew up learning cursive and believe it to be a skill kids still need.

Besides, there has been considerable research in the last few years showing that writing by hand helps children learn to communicate effectively and is important in the development of cognitive skills.

From CNN:

“Will a simple handwritten note look like hieroglyphics to the next generation?”

So wrote second-grade teacher Anthony McGrann on his Seattle-based education blog, Seconds. The post, which argued that cursive handwriting should continue to be taught in schools, garnered more than 500 comments….

…educators like McGrann feel cursive is more than a traditional style of writing. They believe it has intrinsic value for learning and self-expression.

“For struggling writers, cursive allows them to be more fluent and thus lets their ideas flow on the page more readily … some students have more ideas in their heads than they can (print) on paper,” says McGrann. “If you integrate penmanship with other literacy activities, the formation of letters really does make a difference in the way kids retain information.”

As part of its handwriting “census,” CNN analyzed the 268 handwriting samples it had received as of Aug. 24. Fewer than 30 percent had been written in cursive. The majority were either printed or written in a combination of printing and cursive.

That’s interesting, given that a prominent American handwriting expert claimed recently that the “fastest and most legible hand writers avoid cursive.”

To collect the writing samples, CNN asked visitors to its website to write the line “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” then submit a photo of it. You can still get in on the handwriting census, if you’d like. All you have to do is register for an iReport account and upload your photo to CNN.

The samples are definitely worth browsing through, both for a look at the various handwriting styles and because some submitters also included photos of their pens, like FLJeepGuy, who used a Visconti Art Nouveau fountain pen.

Meanwhile, there are other fascinating articles to read in the handwriting series, including a piece by Michael Saba that looked at the evolution of English script, beginning with its roots as a monastic discipline.

It’s really great to see that a news outlet like CNN is not only reporting on developments in handwriting, but is also pushing the national and international conversation about it. Even greater is the fact that people are responding and actually taking the time to share their thoughts about it.

Readers, we’d love for you to join in on this CNN project.

In fact, if you do, send us a copy of the handwriting sample (preferrably with your favorite pen in the photo). We’ll number the submissions and post them on our site. Then, at the end of the month, we’ll randomly select one submission to receive a special gift.

Being pen fiends, we spend a lot of time talking about, practicing, looking at and sometimes making fun of handwriting.

Which is why we are delighted to recommend to you a couple of sites that will give you huge laughs about nonsensical stuff while exposing you to handwriting samples from around the world.

If you’ve ever been the recipient of a nasty missive left by an anonymous writer, then you’ll probably find PassiveAggressiveNotes.com fairly amusing.

The site collects those notes posted by cranky roommates, neighbors, co-workers, motorists and assorted other nuts venting their spleens about perceived slights and pet peeves. Visitors to the site submit the notes – either handwritten, printed, or emailed – usually with a little context to make them even funnier.

Recent entries have included:

• A backhanded compliment, complete with a hand-drawn heart, in a school yearbook.
• A bathroom reminder for men written on a feminine hygiene product.
• An irritated girl’s addendum to her little sister’s baby book.

As you might expect, the crazier the note, the worse the handwriting. And the spelling.

In a related vein, we also love FOUND Magazine, a collection of notes, lists and other handwritten epistles that people find and send in to be shared.

According to the site, the magazine got its start when:

One snowy winter night in Chicago a few years back, Davy went out to his car and found a note on his windshield – a note meant for someone else, a guy named Mario:

We loved this note – its amazing mixture of anger and hopefulness – and so we shared it with as many folks as we could. Each friend we showed the Mario and Amber note to seemed to have a few finds to show us in return; clearly we weren’t alone in our fascination with FOUND stuff! As a way for everyone to join forces and share their finds with everyone else, we decided to start a magazine called FOUND, a showcase for all the strange, hilarious and heartbreaking things people’ve picked up.

That was 10 years ago, and the magazine has been collecting ever since. Birthday cards, love letters, bookmarks, cocktail napkins, just about anything you can imagine that someone would write on.

One that always makes us laugh is a help-wanted flyer written in a scrawled hand. It offers “2 bucks” for someone willing to pick up poop, pick up trash, “rack” leaves and play with puppy. You gotta know that’s some future CEO spending part of his allowance to hire another kid to do his chores.

Another good one: Part of an index card, found inside a copy of Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.” Written on the card in green crayon was this bit of wisdom: Love is the root of estrogen.

Unfortunately, the site does not seem to be well set-up for browsing, so we suggest you use the search box on the left side of the home page to find notes grouped by subject.

So, take a few minutes to visit these sites and see if you find them as delightful as we do. Just be warned – entire afternoons can disappear before you realize it.

• Here’s an interesting little bit of handwriting trivia: The entertainment site Ugo reports that director Quentin Tarantino handwrites, instead of types, the cover pages of all his movie scripts.

That detail came out when a Twitter user posted a pic of the title page of Tarantino’s new spaghetti Western, called “Django Unchained.”

According to Ugo:

While a handwritten piece of paper doesn’t exactly sound like anything official to us either, apparently handwriting the names of scripts on their first page is one of the director’s quirks, and is as “Tarantino” as barefoot broads talking about music you’ve never heard of.

The photo of the script bears an uneven and slightly childish scrawl with the movie’s name, the writer/director’s name and the date that the last draft was finished last month. Even though the handwriting isn’t exactly neat, it still appears Tarantino took his time printing the letters, as they’re all well-spaced and the text doesn’t slant (much) on the unlined page.

Guess that’s what the handwriting of a genius looks like.

• Have good handwriting?

You can use that skill to start a home handwriting business and put cash in your pockets, according to a man hawking an e-book called “Handwrite for Cash: Firsthand Advice from Write On Results.”

Self-described “serial entrepreneur” Ray Hrach issued a press release last week announcing his brand new website providing information for people wanting to get into the handwriting business. The site, www.handwriteforcash.com, mainly just pushes his book, though.

Apparently, Hrach explains how you can make a business out of hand-addressing envelopes for large mail-outs, whether they are for marketing campaigns, non-profit fundraisers, wedding invitations or holiday cards.

Sound exciting? Well, the book is only $14.95 and promises that “you can have money, financial security, and control over your work and family time, all from the comfort of home.”

Yeah, seems a little sketchy to us, too.

• The New York Times has really stirred up the handwriting conversation with a piece that raises an odd assortment of potential problems that come from kids not learning cursive. The article makes the case that those without cursive skills lose fine motor skills, are more at risk for forgery and may not be able to read historical documents, written as they were in cursive hands.

It’s a relatively brief article, for the Times, but the response has been intense, from the 220+ comments (many of them saying “good riddance” to cursive) to a chorus of follow-up articles in other publications. The Atlantic reported on the connection between handwriting and brain development, the Village Voice opined that cursive is obsolete, and Slate pooh-poohed the idea that cursive is dying out.

From Slate came this bit of handwriting wisdom:

As long as writing is going to stick around, we have a responsibility to teach it. In fact, cursive writing is a bit like sex: Youngsters are going to do it whether we like it or not. We just need to figure out whether we’re going to teach them the right way to go about it, or let them stumble their way through on their own.

Not sure that’s correct – after all, only one of them is something kids enjoy – but it’s nice to see someone naysaying the doomsayers.

• If there’s one group of people who need to keep up with their handwriting skills, it’s journalists – after all, you never know when an earthquake is going to stop the presses.

The Associated Press is reporting that reporters at some newspapers in Japan actually handwrote news articles and posted the pages in public when there was no electricity to power computers or printing presses after the recent disaster there.

The Newseum, a journalism museum in Washinton D.C., has gotten copies of the sheets put out by one Japanese newspaper for a display, according to the AP.

The paper’s journalists used flashlights and marker pens to write their stories, and they posted the newspapers at relief centers across the hard-hit city of Ishinomaki for six days beginning March 12. Six staff members collected stories, and three spent more than an hour each day handwriting the newspapers.

What awesome dedication to their profession.

• Apparently, the chief regulator of school exams in England has declared that tests should be conducted on computers, rather than with pen and paper. As Ofqual head Isabel Nisbet sees it, handwritten tests are “invalid” means of measuring the progress of children raised on technology.

So, James Preston has published a succinct rebuttal against the obsolescence of handwriting in the New Statesman, arguing that the simple task of putting thoughts on paper encourages learning in a way that computers can’t.

This is not just an English language issue. Mathematics and the sciences are subjects that require a flow of thinking to come to a conclusion. This flow can only come from a pen or pencil.

The English exam boards long ago decided that, when it comes to answering questions, it is not just about the destination, it is also about the journey.

Seeing how an answer is reached is just as important as the answer itself.

The process of ‘working out’ can only be naturally produced when handwritten. Thoughts can move from the brain to the paper seamlessly without the self-consciousness and over-analysis of word processing.

The link between the hand and the brain is a symbiotic one, with research suggesting handwriting can boost brain development and capacity, particularly in young children.

He certainly makes an excellent point.

• Who says good handwriting doesn’t earn you anything?

Pentel recently sponsored a handwriting contest in the US, asking entrants to submit handwritten letters to troops serving overseas in a competition called, “Heroes Worth Writing For.”

According to the Daily Breeze, there were 250 entries. The grand prize winner was Betsy, from Virginia. She received a $200 Visa gift card and $100 worth of Pentel products, the paper reported.

That’s a pretty good haul for doing what we all do every day.

• For an interesting read, check out mom Theresa Walsh Giarrusso’s blog in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about her daily battle trying to get her 7-year-old son to practice his handwriting.

She’s actually convinced his teacher at school to use it as a punishment – probably not the best way to turn him into a proud writer – but Giarrusso has good reason to insist he practice. She posts a compelling round-up of evidence suggesting that handwriting might make the kid smarter.

“With the ubiquity of keyboards large and small, neither children nor adults need to write much of anything by hand. That’s a big problem, says Gwendolyn Bounds in The Wall Street Journal. Study after study suggests that handwriting is important for brain development and cognition — helping kids hone fine motor skills and learn to express and generate ideas. Yet the time devoted to teaching penmanship in most grade schools has shrunk to just one hour a week. Is it time to break out the legal pad? Here’s a look at how the brain and penmanship interact:”

“Writing by hand can get ideas out faster
University of Wisconsin psychologist Virginia Berninger tested students in grades 2, 4, and 6, and found that they not only wrote faster by hand than by keyboard — but also generated more ideas when composing essays in longhand. In other research, Berninger shows that the sequential finger movements required to write by hand activate brain regions involved with thought, language, and short-term memory.”

“Writing increases neural activity
A recent Indiana University study had one group of children practice printing letters by hand while a second group just looked at examples of A’s, B’s, and C’s. Then, both groups of kids entered a functional MRI (disguised as a “spaceship”) that scanned their brains as the researchers showed them letters. The neural activity in the first group was far more advanced and “adult-like,” researchers found.”

Interestingly, many of her readers seem to disagree that there’s any link between handwriting and intellect.

• Les O’Dell wants to know what would happen if people forgot how to write in cursive.

From his clever column on Galesburg.com:

If students don’t learn longhand, how are adolescent girls going to spend hours practicing their Mrs. Justin Beiber signatures? How will sports fans realize they are watching the Dodgers playing the Astros if they can’t read the script on the uniforms? What computer font will people use for their Christmas card mailing labels to make it look like they hand addressed all of those envelopes?

And what becomes of the special brotherhood between physicians and pharmacists — the only two professions that can decipher each other’s handwriting? How will kids ever learn to forge their parents’ signatures on less-than-stellar tests?

I couldn’t help but laugh at that last one, having done that very thing more than once on report cards, notes from teachers and failing tests.

• There’s a new service available to people too lazy to write their own thank-you notes.

Thankster.com describes its offerings this way:

Thanking people can take less time than going to a card shop. Sign up on Thankster.com, select your card, personalize notes with your message and font, and voilà! They will soon be on the way. The site’s ever expanding themes include Weddings, Holidays, Graduations, Showers, Religious, Kids, and more. Thankster takes your order, prints it, stamps it and sends it in the mail.

Presumably, there’s a charge for the service, but the fees weren’t readily apparent on the site, which is still in beta.

What do you think, readers, would you be pleased or a little insulted to receive a thank-you note from a service like this?

• St. Louis Today took time recently to highlight a woman who still manages to make a living with her handwriting. Barbara Winnerman has been a professional calligrapher for 35 years, and still gets enough work to stay employed full-time, she told the paper.

I stay busy designing wedding invitations and addressing envelopes throughout the year. I also do commission work such as poems, quotations and awards. Thirty years ago, there was a lot of work filling in names on certificates and diplomas. All that work went away with the advent of computer printing.

Winnerman says she uses a “broad-edged fountain pen” in her work, but the article doesn’t say what kind.

• The director of a Scottish private school says she’d like to give up on old-fashioned pen and paper in favour of more modern tools like the iPad, according to The Scottish Sun.

Alison Speirs, from Cedars School of Excellence, said the country’s exam system was out-of-date and needed to be upgraded. Part of that includes dropping handwriting as a skill for school-children.

Ms Speirs said: “Handwriting is a dead art and the exam structure is out of line with everything you do in real life.”

We’re guessing that she doesn’t spend much time doodling.

• Jane Derenowski, a producer at NBC News, has written a powerful piece on the ways that handwritten letters can help keep you tethered to the memory of a lost loved one.

She says she decided to do a story about handwriting after her 18-year-old niece told her that she’d never received a handwritten love letter. The niece, of course, didn’t think much of “snail mail.”

I struggled with the newsworthiness of this assignment. After all, what makes the demise of the handwritten letter something to write home about? But then I started meeting people like 84-year-old Magdalen Fisher and journalist Dana Canedy. Both women loved quiet men—men who they say were not overly expressive—and yet these men were prolific letter-writers…

… Journalist Dana Canedy has a war story which also involves handwritten letters. Her fiancé, Sgt. Charles Monroe King, was killed in a roadside bombing in Iraq in 2006.   Before he died, Sgt. King wrote letters to their baby son, Jordan, whom he had met just once.  The letters contained heartfelt life lessons on how to be an honorable man.  Within the letters, Sgt. King told Jordan everything about himself…it was as if he knew he might not make it back alive.   When the worst happened, Dana took solace in those notes… turning them into a book called A Journal for Jordan. She says without those letters, Jordan might never have a clear picture of the great man his father was.

We highly recommend that you take a few minutes and read the whole piece. Then, you might want to sit down and write a letter to someone you love.

• Speaking of love letters, there is an awesome story out of New York about a guy who actually is in the business of selling old love letters.

Dan Treiber, a flea market vendor and owner of a record store, is so into handwritten letters, especially love missives, that he actually converted a vending machine to sell old letters. He initially filled it with letters he’d written to previous girlfriends – he’s married now – and now uses letters he picks up from estate sales, according to Inquirer.net.

Writer Pam Pastor describes how she discovered the love-letter machine:

I met Dan at the Brooklyn Flea Market last November. My friends and I were poring over the precious finds in his booth when I spotted the love letters. There was a bright yellow vending machine that sold high school love letters and a couple of boxes of older letters, mostly from the ’40s and ’50s. I bought two—a high school love letter from the ’90s that cost a dollar and a love letter from the 1950s that cost two.

I read the letters just minutes later, on the subway headed back to Manhattan. The high school letter was written on notebook paper. “Do you like me too?” the letter writer wanted to know. She had bigger concerns—the boy she liked was Jewish, she was not. And would he like to hang out after school?

The second letter, which was still in its original envelope, was written by a man named Terrance in 1952. He was in the navy during the Korean War and he was writing to Shirley, who was in San Francisco. He wanted to know how she was doing. “I have a favor to ask of you, my darling,” he wrote. The girlfriend of his buddy from the war was moving to San Francisco and she knew no one there. “Would you please show her around?”

I was riveted. And as the subway car continued to speed away from the flea market, a sinking feeling hit me. I should have bought more letters.

The article delves deeper into Treiber’s work, including his 1,000 Letters project, and has a lengthy Q&A. Very interesting reading.

This certainly is a new one to us. If anyone have heard of anything like, please let us know.