Handwriting standard

I was in one of the junior grades at school when a new handwriting standard was introduced into schools by the state government educational department. Students in my year level were the first to be taught the then-new standard, called South Australian Modern Cursive, and the first to never be taught the funny old-fashioned style with extra loopy bits all over the place.

In theory, we were occasionally reminded, school policy was that primary school students were expected to adhere reasonably closely to this standard, whereas secondary school students (i.e. grades eight and up) had the right to use whatever handwriting style they wanted. I’m not saying that’s how it worked in practise, but it was reported to be the policy.

Consequently, I grew up seeing the shapes that one chooses to give letters and numbers as a significant form of self-expression. I’m not talking about the aspects of handwriting which are inescapably unique to each individual and mostly generated at an unconscious level; I’m talking about the aspects of handwriting which are a deliberate, conscious choice. Consider a scenario in which you are appointed Emperor, and it becomes fashionable among the nobility to write the same way you do. That doesn’t mean the nobles would literally share your handwriting, but the aspects that they could share, that lend themselves to hypothetical standardisation, those are the aspects I’m talking about.