|k| clippings: 2015-01-14 — scratch and scribble

WORK

Dear Uncle Ted,

Your letter arrived this morning. I have read it over many times. Firstly because your handwriting is so difficult and I have had trouble with some ambiguous phrases. Secondly be­cause there is much in it that puzzles me for other reasons. On the handwriting front, I spent much time wondering, for in­stance, what you meant by David’s “codfish chums.” I know that Davey is very much an animal lover, but I found this idea intensely peculiar until I realised that you meant “coltish charms.” Then again, there is a reference to yourself as a Rotarian which struck me as unlikely. I have now decided that the word is “Bohemian.” When I came upon the phrase “let us be frank, I am aching as your pansy,” I could only imagine that the whisky had got the better of you. I have since, by tracing out the letters and coming to an understanding of your pen-strokes, come to the decision that you actually meant to write “I am acting as your paid spy.”

This leads me on to my main point. Ted, I do not want you to consider yourself a viper in the Logan bosom or a snake in Swafford grass. You made a reference at the very beginning of your letter to the Trojan horse and that is a bad anallegory too…

—Stephen Fry
—from The Hippopotamus

WORD(S)

mogigraphia. noun. Writer’s cramp. From Latin mogi (difficult or with difficulty, related to physical action) + graphia (action or function related to writing). See also: mogilalia, difficulty or severe hesitancy in speaking.

“The first focal dystonia to be identified, though not by that term, was probably the condition known today as mogigraphia, or writer’s cramp. (In the nineteenth century, it was also often called scrivener’s palsy—or steel-pen palsy, because the change from quill pens was thought to have caused it or made it worse.)” (David Owen)

“It is quite otherwise with writers’ cramp, the so-called 'graphospasm' or 'mogigraphia.' This condition is purely and exclusively a disorder of the function of writing” (Henry Meigne)

“We would remark that Professor Eastman, of Eastman’s Commercial College, Poughkeepsie, has devised an excellent pen holder, with an egg-shaped attachment for the palm of the hand, which is well adapted to cases of mogigraphia.” (Canada Lancet)

See a rather strange example from Boy’s Life, 1976.

WEB

1. Who first said ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’?

2. Why Writing Things Out By Hand Makes Your Smarter

3. News at pen: The painstaking tradition of world’s last hand-written newspaper

4. On handwriting robots (and spam)

5. Today in 1875, Albert Schweitzer—philosopher, doctor, theologian, missionary, musician and Nobel Peace Prize winner—is born. Schweitzer won the Nobel for his philosophy of “Reverence for Life”, was a leader in the restoration and study of historic pipe organs, destroyer (for a while) of the critical quest for the “historical Jesus” and, relevant here, lifelong sufferer of mogigraphia.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• The fabulous Reader G. remarks: “Couldn’t agree more regarding the endless array of sad songs/romantic songs and romantic movies or books. I am finding I prefer songs that talk about just about anything else. Being content with life is all about making a decision on what I occupy my mind with ”obsessing“ over. Nothing assists in wallowing in misery like listening to sad love songs.”

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