MARK MY WORD: BAD HANDWRITING IS BETTER THAN NO WRITING AT ALL

Welcome to National Handwriting Day. Actually, the celebrated day was Friday, but it took me until now to decipher it.

Of course, without graphologists, there would be no need to recognize handwriting at all. Besides having a job that no one can spell, graphologists labor at interpreting penmanship.

Companies hire these guys to help screen prospective employees, and lawyers use them to study potential jurors and witnesses. They also get called in on forgery cases.

The Kansas City newspaper recently asked one of these handwriting experts to take a closer look at the scrawlings of famous Kansas Citians.

Among others, this guy looked at the penmanship of Kansas City Chiefs coach Marty Schottenheimer. The expert said the coach's handwriting shows that he learns fast and prefers to trust his own opinion and research. He just can't win that big game.

If I were Marty, I'd be scribbling off some illegible note to the Broncos. That way, you won't have to worry that the note will be read on national television at halftime of the Super Bowl.

The expert also analyzed the handwriting of Henry Bloch, America's tax man. The conclusion: Bloch appreciates variety in life. I guess that explains why we have so many tax forms.

The expert said Bloch's handwriting shows that he is enthusiastic about whatever he does because he has long stems on his "Ts." I've never had long stems, which I guess explains why I dislike filling out tax forms and leave that chore to Bloch's firm.

As far as I know, none of these handwriting experts were ever called in by any of my teachers to decipher my penmanship.

Actually, I was amazed at the ability of my teachers to read my cursive writing, which often looked more like hieroglyphics than anything that could be found in the English language.

Growing up, I thought it was good to have poor penmanship when I was taking essay tests. I figured a few illegible words were better than no answer at all.

I'm not sure exactly how I happened to make the grades at bad penmanship. I did OK at printing words on large-lined paper. But cursive writing proved a challenge. Everything flowed together, just not very neatly.

My dictionary defines cursive as "written with the strokes of the letters joined together and the angles rounded." My letters are joined together in a jittery fashion, with an occasional sharp angle thrown in.

Colleagues at work marvel at what they view as mere scribbles in my notebooks. "How can you read that?" one co-worker asked me the other day.

Of course, the answer is that after years of bad penmanship, I have become quite good at reading the lingering letters and spiraling scribbles that pass for my written word.

It's also nice to know that you don't have to worry about someone peaking at your notes. Any peaking would tell them little. They might as well be reading a note from space aliens.

As a journalist, you have to be quick at taking notes. You can't linger on "m" and "n", or any other letter. You don't have time to tidy up all those words.

Society solved the problem by inventing the typewriter and more recently the computer. As a result, we don't have to send illegible letters to our loved ones, except when we feel in the scribbling mood.

Of course, as a dad, I hope I never have to write a note to my kids' teachers. With my handwriting, it's best to let my kids write their own notes.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.