by Emily Schilling
Editor
Years ago, I picked up a $1.99 pocket guide to handwriting analysis while I waited in the grocery store checkout lane. It was a true impulse purchase — but it turned out to be an entertaining find for someone who loves dabbling in fun personality quizzes (like “What Your Favorite Color Says About You” and “Discover Your Animal Personality”).
With the book’s help, I practiced (emphasis on the word “practice”) graphology, a theory relating someone’s handwriting to human psychology. Details like the slant of the writing, the spacing between words, the shape of letters’ loops, length of “t” strokes, and placement of (or lack of) dots over “i”s became my focus whenever I received a note from anyone. (No, it wasn’t my only focus — I also read the note!)
News of my talents of analysis spread through my circle of friends. Though I was a novice, I regularly was given letters and notes from friends’ boyfriends, mates and bosses, and asked to decipher what these people were really like deep-down.
Being an amateur graphologist wasn’t easy. Not only did I have to find patterns and consistencies in the script, pay attention to the pressure of the writing, and note the relative size of the letters. But I had to report my findings if the handwriting of the afore-mentioned boyfriend indicated he was an egomaniac prone to fits of depression. I didn’t want to upset the egomaniac — or friend. Usually, I’d put a positive spin on the analysis, hoping the description “emotional and hard to ignore” got the point across.
After a couple of years as a handwriting guru, I lost my instruction book. Since I relied on that book to guide me through my evaluations — and I couldn’t find another one I liked to replace it — I gave up on handwriting analysis.
Nowadays, handwriting samples can be analyzed online. But in this day and age, when cursive writing is no longer taught in schools, and when handwritten communication is almost obsolete, I can’t help but wonder if graphology is “heading” down the same road as phrenology. (Phrenologists felt the bumps in individuals’ skulls to determine their psychological attributes.)
In the meantime, we can still bid homage to the handwritten word on Jan. 23, National Handwriting Day. This non-Hallmark “holiday” commemorates the birthday of someone whose signature just begs to be analyzed: John Hancock, the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence. If only I still had my pocket guide!