> I fit into the group of fitfully scratching cacographists.

Me and you both - but its better than being a cacophonist, I say.

I think that some of my cacography is very pleasing from a strictly esthetic point of view. You might not be able to read it but it looks pretty. Sort of a calligraphic cacography.

And I suppose one could have cacographic calligraphy.

I wonder if they still teach handwriting in schools. I had to spend hours practicing just long lines of slightly slanted connected verticals, and then an accordion roll of cconnected circles.The Palmer Method, I think it was called. I wrote in a nice round hand, but never got to be ruler of the Queen's navy. (Hi, wofa!)
I was quietly proud of the fact no nurse or pharmacist ever had to ask me what a word was.Then in Mechanical Drawing, I had to learn to print well. A blessing now that my handwriting has deteriorated, but I can still blockprint
very legibly, an asset now that I can't see what I am writing.
I started this wondering if "cacography" could be extended to mean writing worthless prose. There ought to be a word for that. I'm a master at it.

writing worthless prose

That'd be hacography, not to be confused with hagiography. Maybe we should spell it hackography.

I'm looking for a word for "bad prose", as it seems such a vital concept. not much to report as yet, but I did find this Brit. usage, which has the right sound:

tump..
4. fig. Trivial writing, bad prose.

1917 KIPLING Diversity of Creatures 172 It's the most vital, arresting and dynamic bit of tump I've done up to date. 1933 D. L. MURRAY Eng. Family Robinson ii. 36 Did you ever read such tump as our parish magazine?

edit: I guess hack-writing would kinda qualify.

well, if bad poetry is doggerel, how about catterel?

On Cacographic calligraphy.

That would be my wife's Chinese handwriting. It's interesting. Each of us has very bad handwriting, yet both of our father's are calligraphers. My dad (step-dad) used to do calligraphy for people - he did it for his bosses in the army, for friends, and now he sometimes incorporates it into the crafts he works on.
I was always intruiged by the fact that he was such a formidable person, but he wrote like a sissy.

My wife's handwriting: well, it looks pretty much like she took holt of a chicken by the neck, shoved it's feet in ink, and daubbed it vigorously all over the page. Her dad's writing, though, as well as her mother's when the woman was alive, were really amazing. The English writing is beautiful, but the Chinese is sublime.

I like these calli/caco words a lot. BTW, my recollection is that cacography refers to either poor handwriting or to bad spelling.

k

>my recollection is that cacography refers to either poor handwriting or to bad spelling.

yeah, OED gives it as the "opposite" of both calligraphy and orthography!

Of all livers in the entrie universe, I am the most chopped. I am so soundly chopped that I flow like a river of chopped liveredness.

Did I, or did I not, write above at the start of the thread:

"Just wanted to note that the MW Word of the Day is cacography, poor spelling and/or handwriting."

?

dear Mick,
yes, you are veritably cloaked in the Mantle of chopped-liverness. so what's your point?

my recollection is that cacography refers to either poor handwriting or to bad spelling

So his memory extends at least to the top of the thread.

My point, tsuwmuch? No point at all. I'm much too liquefied to have the capacity to form a point.

Dear WW: to take pity on your paté, FF's description of his wife's writing reminded me of Horace Greeley, whowe cacography was legendary. Allegedly a couple of his underlings put ink on a chicken's feet, and held it over one of Greeley's editorials, then showed it to Greeley and asked what the word was. "Unconstitutional, you damned fool."
I found a dozen sites mentioning his failing, but none worth citing here.

All the chicken that's fit to feet?

When I was in grade 9 a teacher told my complaining mother that I had poor handwriting because my brain worked too quickly for my hands to keep up. Gee I liked that man.
I won't tell her I'm a cacographist in case she faints before I can explain.

Did I, or did I not


Yes, you did. But I did not start at the top of the thread. I started at the bottom. Doesn't everyone?


Is that easier?


k

started at the bottom

And I had to go into threaded mode to figure out to whom this was in response.

I started at the bottom. Doesn't everyone?
No, because if you start at the bottom, that means you start with what you've just posted, but if you haven't made the post yet, how can you start there? ...said the cricket lady!

Reference starting at the bottom.
Here's the dilemma, Jackie.

I have some time throughout the day, a few minutes here and there - sometimes it's long enough to read through an entire thread, but usually not. I can start at the top or at the bottom. I used to start at the top and sometimes I still do, but I found often I had said things that were already said or that the subject had changed. I could break it up and read an entire thread in several sessions except I will have 1) lost my train of thought and 2) forgotten anything I'd read earlier. (Cursed with a small short-term buffer.)

I try to scan the new topics, but I only read a small fraction of posts generally unless it's raining outside and the kids are out with their mom.

Beyond this - if I get someone else's idea stuck in my head or their words stuck to my lips or fingertips - it's not done by purpose but only because it resonated, I guess, and I inadvertently osmoted it. Maybe subconsciously I'm thinking "Gee, I wish I'da said that." Consciously I don't recall having read those particular words. In your case, I'm sure I started at the end and didn't read yours. I blurted a random brainfart that came to me.

It's a poor excuse for plagiarism or being conversationally boorish, of course, but it's not like I go out of my way to imitate other people.

k

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I inadvertently osmoted it.

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I like osmoting. Osmoting is one of my preferred ways of assimilating information.

Dear WW: There may be a drawback to "osmoting". Osmosis
depends on existence of a membrane that it permeable to water and some very small ions, but not to large ions.
So by analogy, you could absorb only little ideas.

wwh, so that explains that.

... and thus spake WWH, the Zarathustra of literalism ...

[Ahem]

You can osmote big ideas if they are made up of small components.

Osmoting prevents the ideas from being watered down. Besides, I like the way the words "inadvertant osmosis" feel on my tongue.

Actually, osmosis "waters up". If you take a sample of blood, and add water to it, water penetrates the red cells by osmosis, and causes them to swell until they burst.
I assisted at a post mortem in the Philippines on a soldier who was given 12 bottles of Glucose in water, and no saline. He had enough hemolysis to kill him.

Keith, I was only teasing; you do just fine! And, I've got you beat--only a glimmer of recollection prevented me from posting a self-osmosis, not long ago!

I wondered whether there was a connection between cacography and the expression 'cack-handed', but it seems not:

Cack-handed: Chiefly British 1. Left-handed. 2. Awkward; clumsy. Perhaps from Old Norse keikr, bent backwards; akin to Danish keite, left-handed.

Keith, I was only teasing;


I know. I'm just playing it deadpan here.

k

Dear dxb: does not "cack-handed" go back to days when in Arabia and elsewhere, the left hand was used to remove "cack" and so was socially unacceptable. Deadly insult to offer left hand to an Arab in those days.

An amusing thought sir, and it's a real pity that the dictionaries don't make that connection. See my post above for cack-handed, see below for cack:

Cack (?), v. i. [OE. cakken, fr. L. cacare; akin to Gr. , and to OIr. Cacc dung; cf. AS. cac.] To ease the body by stool; to go to stool. Pope.

Both definitions from Webster's 1913 edition via One Look.

Perhaps we should start a dictionary giving definitions and derivations as they would be if life were better arranged. No - come to think of it, that's Hogwash!

I wondered whether there was a connection between cacography and the expression 'cack-handed', but it seems not
Do you know, it seems to me there IS. Look at Dubdub's opening post, where she says "cacography, poor spelling and/or handwriting". Now look at yours where you said, "Cack-handed: ... 2. Awkward; clumsy".

We had a fascinating discussion here a long time ago about left-handedness and the (perceived) implications of being so, even the very word sinistral; mostly centered around its being the opposite of right.

Re cack-handed, the Italian word for lefthanded is mancino, and I nbever did get around to finding out its origin, or what it "really" means, since it makes no reference to handedness or left. I suspect its another derogatory term, designed to make all those puir wee right-handers feel better about having been born so cruelly impaired.

mancino … it makes no reference to handedness or left

I dunno, I see mano in there and mebbe the diminutive -cin-.

>I dunno, I see mano in there and mebbe the diminutive -cin-.

D'Oh! Stupidone. Grazie mille.

Still, Max, I'm sure there's *something derogatory about the term, notwithstanding Leonardo's genius.

>Still, Max, I'm sure there's *something derogatory about the term, notwithstanding Leonardo's genius.


Weeelllll, he was OK in Catch Me if You Can, but I've never seen Titanic, so I can't comment on "genius".

In reply to:

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Weeelllll, he was OK in Catch Me if You Can, but I've never seen Titanic, so I can't comment on "genius".

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Well, where's Juan when you need him? He'd have a lot to say about Leonardo's genius!

I was always intruiged by the fact that he was such a formidable person, but he wrote like a sissy.

Ahhh, yes. Well, being formidable he didn't think too much about his handwriting being sissyish!
My Dad was 6' 4" and also "formidable" and had beautiful cursive handwriting.
Our local schools did have a course in handwriting in the 1980s - I remember voting for it at the School Disctrict Meeting (similar to Town Meeting but to do with school finances) Whether it is still extant I have no idea.
And I have legible handwriting - a result of classes that were standard in all schools in the 1940s and 1950s.
(Hi Bill!)

My first grade teacher, Mrs. Gilson, tried to teach us the Palmer Method. It didn't take with me, but I can write legibly if I have to.

Consuelo, why write legibly and screw up your creativity? You don't have to write legibly, honestly. Half the fun is in watching an entire new system of hieroglyphs develop on the page right before your eyes. The world has quite enough legible writing in it. Shoot, and with computers to take care of legibility for anything that needs to be accurately communicated, handwriting is one of the last bastions of the foreign, exotic and truly strange.

If you want to study calligraphy, you could do worse than startaing with SpeedBall pens. It used to be the Hunt Pen company. I have no idea if the founder was a member of my tribe or not. My older brother used to be able to make very attractive Christmas cards with those pens. I even made some passable ones. The software I used ten years ago became obsolete, and the replacements were just too damned hard to master. But take a look at what SpeedBall offers:
http://www.speedballart.com/letteringcharts.pdf

handwriting is one of the last bastions of the foreign, exotic and truly strange

Don't remember handwriting anything that you've seen, WW!

In reply to:

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Don't remember handwriting anything that you've seen, WW!

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Don't...remember...handwriting...anything...that....you've...seen? Hey, Cap! I speak English, but I cannot parse this sentence. I'm on my first cup of coffee, so go easy on me...

It's not difficult, WW: Once you insert the "I" at the start of the sentence (left out through "I"dleness, no doubt) it becomes obvious that pfranz is bemoaning the fact that nearly two years of testing as many of the strngest beers that England can produce has caused his memory cells to diminish in power.

On a more personal note, I gave up hand writing when I was about four years old, when they gave me, first, a pencil and, later, a pen.

Let us not forget that the invention of the typewriter was an impostant step in women's liberation. Remember Galsworthy's "The Twelve Pound Look"?

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Ww>handwriting is one of the last bastions of the foreign, exotic and truly strange

CK>Don't remember handwriting anything that you've seen, WW!

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let's see if obviousizing helps here: [I d]on't remember writing anything that you've seen, said the foreign, exotic and truly strange Kiwi.

-ron o.

Let's reobviousise this into some semblance of the truth, then:

"I don't remember HANDwriting anything that you've seen", yadda, yadda. The fact that she read my post shows that she has seen something that I've written.

- jimmy [even more] obviouser

And I don't think that I'm weirder than a certain sesquipedalious, logophiliac Minnesotan of my acquaintance!

And I don't think that I'm weirder than a certain sesquipedalious, logophiliac Minnesotan of my acquaintance!

Well - and that still gives you plenty of scope, I guess! - and whose giving prizes, anyway??

I was just making sure that there wasn't some steganographic (ref. tsuwm's treasure chest) information in Cap's computer writing about his handwriting. Letter for letter, I'll put the worst of mine up against anybody's.

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Let us not forget that the invention of the typewriter was an impostant step in women's liberation.

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Millions of women rose up and said, "We will not be dictated to," -- and became shorthand typists.

Not, alas, my own. But I forget who originally said it, and the exact wording.

Bingley