Humming away in offices on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon and in the White House is a technology that represents the pragmatism, efficiency and unsentimental nature of American bureaucracy: the autopen. It is a device that stores a person’s signature, replicating it as needed using a mechanical arm that holds a real pen.
Like many technologies, this rudimentary robotic signature-maker has always provoked ambivalence. We invest signatures with meaning, particularly when the signer is well known. During the George W Bush administration, the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, generated a small wave of outrage when reporters revealed that he had been using an autopen for his signature on the condolence letters that he sent to the families of fallen soldiers.
Fans of singer Bob Dylan expressed ire when they discovered that the limited edition of his book The Philosophy of Modern Song, which cost nearly $600 and came with an official certificate “attesting to its having been individually signed by Dylan”, in fact had made unlimited use of an autopen. Dylan took the unusual step of issuing a statement on his Facebook page: “With contractual deadlines looming,” Dylan wrote, “the idea of using an autopen was suggested to me, along with the assurance that this kind of thing is done ‘all the time’ in the art and literary worlds.” He also acknowledged that: “Using a machine was an error in judgment and I want to rectify it immediately.”
Our mixed feelings about machine-made signatures make plain our broader relationship to handwriting: it offers a glimpse of individuality. Any time spent doing archival research is a humbling lesson in the challenges and rewards of deciphering the handwritten word. You come to know your long-dead subjects through the quirks of their handwriting; one man’s script becomes spidery and small when he writes something emotionally charged, while another’s pristine pages suggest the diligence of a medieval monk. The calligraphist Bernard Maisner argues that calligraphy, and handwriting more broadly, is “not meant to reproduce something over and over again. It’s meant to show the humanity, the responsiveness and variation within.”
I certainly think it is valuable, and I hope it remains a required learned skill for kids, but as someone with dysgraphia—and much to my dismay, dyslexia—writing has always been completely miserable to me. Although I’m glad I learned how to write properly in both regular hand and in cursive, and I’m fully able to read it as long as it isn’t excessively ornate, I’m so thankful I was able to learn to type as a kid. What a wonderous feeling it was to actually excel in my typing class. To this day it’s one of the most worthwhile skills I learned at such a young age.
As an interesting aside, I wonder if there are any learning disabilities that affect typing but not writing?
Hey I’m a linguist and I’d like to chime in! Great article!
There’s this misconception that language is exclusively a communication tool. In reality it’s a cognitive tool that helps us process the world around us. This is why writing something down helps you figure it out or why we sometimes talk to ourselves. So, very broadly, the more ‘linguistic effort’ you put into a task, the better you’re going to remember it. This is also another reason why writing notes in lecture by hand helps you remember better than if you type on a laptop. Pressing a button or tapping on a screen is a lot less ‘linguistic effort’ than writing a letter by hand.
Another consequence of language being a cognitive tool is that it’s intertwined with a lot of the ways we use physical tools. In fact, some historical linguists use the emergence of complex hand tools as evidence of when language emerged in our pre-history. But that’s a very complicated subject for another time. There is some evidence that cognitively, proficiency with fine motor skills are correlated with language processing functions (big caveat that I’m not a cognitive linguist). So writing might not only help you slow down and be deliberate about what you’re putting on a page, but the act of writing itself might also be intrinsically linked with language processing.
This is all not to say that typing is a somehow bastardized version of language production. It’s just that we’ve decided that easier is better, which in the sense of language learning and maintenance, isn’t really the case.
It’s bad dude, I’ve always had shit handwriting but since I left school it’s just gotten so much worse. When I have to write a check or mail a letter I feel so fucking uncomfortable and awkward.
I think the point about the individuality of handwriting is absolutely fascinating, people’s handwriting really does offer a window into their souls and their mental state at the time.
That being said, typing is also pretty amazing if you think about it. I feel like I can type so much faster than I could ever write, and thus express my mind so much more seamlessly and clearly. Ideally you should be able to do both.
Same. My penmanship was always aweful to begin with and now I rarely use it outside of signatures and as you say checks occasionally.
Thx for sharing.
There is something sad for me to be reading this article while I’m making a break from my usual work, having a quick look at the pen that is resting on top of the sheets of scribbled reading notes I’ve been taking for the last few days while I’m working my way through Rousseau’s Emile, ou de l’éducation (Emile, or On Education for the few non-French speakers out there ;)).
Our mixed feelings about machine-made signatures make plain our broader relationship to handwriting: it offers a glimpse of individuality.
Schoolchildren are not the only ones who can no longer write or read cursive. Fewer and fewer of us put pen to paper to record our thoughts, correspond with friends,
For me, that’s the real sad part. So sad.
More and more often, even though I’m no teacher and don’t meet that much young people, I can see and hear their baffled reactions when they watch me take handwritten notes, or when they discover I’m always taking notes while I’m reading, or when they learn that I draft almost everything I write longhand—like some caveman, save that cavemen back then did not write even if some of them painted.
They sincerely don’t understand why anyone would not want to use the speedier keyboard, when they’re not surprised one may want to write anything at all. They also don’t understand why anyone would want to use such an impractical mean of storing thoughts and sharing them (my handwriting is shit, even I can have a hard time reading it). And I can’t blame them. Why would I?
Most of them have never experienced first hand how handwriting very slowness is key and how its uniqueness (my shitty handwriting, or the much nicer handwriting of my spouse) make it such an efficient way to internalize thoughts, notes, ideas, lists and have them ingrained in our brains… in our personality. And a unique way to share them, too.
I’m a decent typist, I can use many type of keyboard in a few various layouts without much need to look at them, but I would not exchange my fancy fountain pen or even my cheap ballpoint Bic pen for any keyboard when it’s time to take notes, to put down some thoughts and draft something. The keyboard is best for finalizing a text as far as I’m concerned, not so much before that.
“We’re trying to be realistic about skills that kids are going to need,” said one school board member in Greenville, South Carolina. “You can’t do everything. Something’s got to go.”
The grumpy old man in me is tempted to say ‘Maybe it’s that type of education that needs to go out, and quick?’ but I won’t say that.
Instead, I would suggest we question the purpose of educating kids. Why waste so many effing years of their life on school benches? What is it supposed to make out of them or help them make out of themselves? Very optimized and very performant parts of some gigantic machinery that constantly needs new (but highly standardized) cogs to keep working? Or do we wish to help them become the individuals they can be, each with their own personality and, yeah, sometimes also with their own shitty handwriting? But like I mentioned, it’s most probably just grumpy-old-me that’s, well, old and grumpy and doesn’t understand the time we’re living in and how bright and happy the future of those kids is looking like— rejoice child, you won’t have to learn cursive.
My coffee has gone cold. The conclusion is obvious: too much of me ranting, time to go back to my (paper!) book, and that stack of sheets, and to my stupid pen ;)
edit: typos + clarifications.
I teach English in highschool and assign every assignment that does not require lengthy writing to be done on paper. Granted most of my reasoning centers around increasing the time that students brains are activated while handwriting vs typing, reducing technological distractions, creating physical artifacts for future reference, and safeguarding academic dishonesty. Students struggle and clearly do not have much writing stamina, which is especially problematic for AP classes that require multiple times, hand written essays on the AP Exam.
Students struggle and clearly do not have much writing stamina, which is especially problematic for AP classes that require multiple times, hand written essays on the AP Exam.
I’m sure a lot of that is simply down to not writing by hand as much anymore, but I’d also note that some of it may relate to how they were taught to write. Posted about writing technique awhile ago, and seeing as it’s relevant here, you might check it out.
Trying to help your students adjust their handwriting techniques may help with their writing stamina, as I think many aren’t taught handwriting very well to begin with (not in terms of legibility alone, but comfort for writing at length).
