Letter from Palmer to Detterer

April 30, 2009 in handwriting, penmanship by Sheldon | No comments

Apr. 30, 2009 — In December, 1925, Ernst F. Detterer published a brief article in the Chicago Schools Journal, in which he attacked modern cursive penmanship in general, and the Palmer Method in particular.

A. N. Palmer, at that time one of the most famous penmanship experts in America, replied graciously to Detterer, with a personal letter.

Ernst F. Detterer was a typographer, an amateur calligrapher, an instructor at the Art Institute of Chicago, and later a curator at the Newberry Library. In 1913 he studied briefly with Edward Johnston (a British calligrapher who tried to revive medieval lettering arts in the 20th century).

It seems unlikely that Detterer and Palmer would have had any connection at all, but here it is.

To the best of my knowledge, this letter by Palmer has never been published before. I found it listed in the Newberry Library catalog. It is a digital scan of a photocopy, of a “verifax reproduction (positive)” of the original typewritten letter. That’s quite a few layers of reproduction, so for easier reading you might want to read the transcription instead of the original.

Detterer’s article contains several blunders, and many factual errors. Palmer responded with humility, tact, and patience, but some of Palmer’s basic views on the history of penmanship were as erroneous as Detterer’s. (More on this later.)

Ban Comic Sans?

April 11, 2009 in typography by Sheldon | 1 comment

Apr. 11, 2009 — “These widespread abuses of printed type threaten to erode the very foundations upon which centuries of typographic history are built.” Some people have very strong opinions about specific font styles!

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Origin of the Tilde

April 8, 2009 in calligraphy by Sheldon | No comments

Apr. 8, 2009 — If you looked closely at the sample of Mercator’s Italic lettering you probably wondered why the m was missing from latinaru[m] and scribendaru[m], and why the n had disappeared from voca[n]t. I was quite puzzled by this myself, but one of my Latinist friends figured it out right away: these words were abbreviated.

However, this didn’t explain why the abbreviation marks — called tituli (sing. titulus) in Latin — also seemed to be missing! Here’s the explanation. (This was another peculiarity of Mercator’s wild flourising.)

The Latin titulus evolved into the modern tilde, used in Spanish and Portuguese, as explained below:

A tilde is a diacritical mark (˜) placed over the letter n in Spanish to indicate the palatal nasal sound somewhat like /ny/, as in cañon, “canyon,” or over a vowel in Portuguese to indicate nasalization, as in lã, “wool,” or pão, “bread.”

The tilde originated as a mark of abbreviation used by medieval European scribes, most often writing in Latin. When scribes wanted to save space or had come to the end of a line without finishing a word, they omitted the final letter of the word and drew a line above the letter after which the letter was omitted. In Latin, this sign of abbreviation was called a titulus, meaning “superscription, something written above or outside something else.” The device was especially used to abbreviate Latin words ending in the consonants n or m. A Latin word like aurum, “gold,” could be abbreviated as aurū, for example, and many scribes also used a curved version of the titulus, as in aurũ. The titulus could also be used within words.

[From: Spanish Word Histories and Mysteries: English Words That Come from Spanish; page 206. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007.]

Pen Spinning

March 30, 2009 in pens by Sheldon | No comments

Mar. 30, 2009 — I first learned about “pen spinning” at the website of my favorite source for imported Japanese writing implements, JetPens.com. (They have a huge selection of rare pens and pencils, imported directly from Japan, reasonably priced.)

Pen spinning is a strange art form, that has become popular in many parts of the world, but still hasn’t caught on here in the U.S.

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Cn U Rd Ths?

March 30, 2009 in calligraphy, handwriting, penmanship by Sheldon | No comments

italic calligraphy, 1540

Mar. 30, 2009 — Can you decipher the three words shown above? They were written in cursive Italic handwriting, nearly five centuries ago, by one of the greatest experts in this hand, Gerardus Mercator. If you need help decoding this loopy Italic cursive, click on the image.

I’ve finished reading Script & Scribble, a new book about the history of handwriting, by Kitty Burns Florey. She gets many of her facts wrong, but for the most part she has nice things to say about traditional American penmanship — that is, until she jumps off the deep end in the final chapter and claims that modern Italic handwriting is far superior to American cursive styles. Her criticisms are presented amateurishly, comparing poor examples of “loopy cursive” with clearly written, semi-cursive Italic, and repeating the clichés and biased opinions of Italic handwriting experts. (Opposing views were not included.)

The real “penmanship wars” lasted for centuries, but this strife ended long ago. Serious penmanship pedagogy, in American schools, was dead and buried by circa 1940–1960 (a bit later in some places), and yet our modern Italic enthusiasts struggle along to this day, like abandoned soldiers on a forgotten island.

They criticize penmanship methods they know little or nothing about, but they never see the inherent flaws and weaknesses of Italic handwriting, of which there are many.

As Charles P. Zaner (1864-1918) emphasized, all handwriting styles have their strengths and weaknesses — therefore it’s silly to get hung up on a particular style, and to belittle other approaches.

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