Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
Yeah, but people are TAUGHT to write letters in a certain way! For example, I was taught to make a little loop inside the "o" !!!
Part of it is just convenience; how to write as fast as possible while still making it look legible.

I was taught the "new" Scandinavian cursive, then moved to a school that preferred the "old" cursive and had to change.
This looks different from, for example the German cursive which has different.

And if you write a language that uses a lot of vowels, like Finnish, then of course you get a bit sloppy with all the vowels!
etc! Swediish has very long words and you get a bit sloppy towards the end of the word sometimes, whereas English has shorter words.
Also the flow is halted if you constantly have to stop and put umlauts and accents on the words.
Surely it can't be a reliable representation of the personality!

I'd say this would only work if you apply it on people who were taught the same type of cursive. For example comparing yours and mine would be apples with pears, wouldn't it? We were taught different cursive applicable to different languages.

But perhaps with you analyzing Snowden, it's a relevant match; same language at least but possibly he was taught a different type of writing from you? He's not even writing cursive at all.
Well, I don't want to take over the thread with a discussion on handwriting - outside of what pertains to Snowden. But yeah, every country has its own methodology about teaching cursive, and there is a school of thought that kids are taught negative habits which can actually affect their behavior. For example, in the US, kids are taught to cross their lower-case t's low on the stem, which is a classic sign of low self-confidence. There are conspiracy theorists who think it's intentional. I have seen graphotherapy in action, where people learn to write letters differently and it changes their behaviors. As for loops in O's - there are actually many ways you can make them and they can all mean different things. A "lying o" has a very distinctive double inner loop, sometimes with an aggressive hook on it.

Ok, back to Snowden )))))