When I first heard that Friday was National Handwriting Day, I had several thoughts:
Thoughts like, Who comes up with these national "holidays"? Can I be that person? Does that same person also name the crayon colors at Crayola? What does your handwriting say about you? I don't dot my lowercase i's. Does this mean something weirdly terrible or fascinating about me?
I have some answers:
The Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association created National Handwriting Day back in 1977. They chose January 23 "in conjunction with John Hancock's birthday" because, y'know, his name is the HUGE one on the Declaration of Independence.
I can imagine the scenario perfectly. John Hancock signing the Declaration of Independence was like the first person to sign the "happy birthday" card or the "get well soon" card at the office/church/whatever party, and he turns around to a long line of people scowling at him for taking up all the space and practically writing a paragraph about how much he loves America just based on the sheer size of his name when there are 55 other dudes left to sign it. Then, the whole U.S.A. recognized him forever based upon that one embarrassing moment, and now there is a random holiday (sort of) in his honor.
Graphology is the name for the analysis of handwriting to determine facts about an individual--usually the person's psychological state at the time of writing, or certain personality traits. It's considered by most to be a pseudoscience, but nonetheless, you can get certified with a "Diploma Course in Forensic Graphology" (ooh, very fancy) from The Cambridge School of Graphology.
^ See, you can learn plenty of things about people from their handwriting, like if they are poor planners and run out of space on the paper.
According to research from the National Pen Company, "writing the capital letter "I" much larger than other capitals is usually written by someone who is arrogant and has a high opinion of themselves." They also noted that, "writing that changes dramatically over the course of a text is symbolic of lying." They say that a signature that is not legible means "you are very private, hard to read or understand" while a legible signature means "you are comfortable in your own skin; you don't need to pretend you're something you're not." So--Obviously many doctors are private, hard to read or understand.
As far as dotting i's goes -- According to John Cowens, a dot centered above the stem says you're "over-precise," a dot to the right of the stem says you "tend to act quickly or hastily," and no dot says you're reckless and/or have a poor memory.
I was going to say something else to finish off this post, but I forgot what it was.
