BAD WRITING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5074, 12 January 1927, Page 4

BAD WRITING.

A GENERAL PREVALENCE. GREAT NEED FOR IMPROVEMENT. The prevalence of bad writing is receiving attention in other countries besides New Zealand. A Sydney paper says :— Many a man, it has been observed, has; been refused a hearing because, of his bad writing. The waste-paper baskets of the world have been filled with letters intended for publication, articles, stories, and poems, because they wore set down in scrawls, hard to decipher and repellent to the sight. It is notable that the worst writer is also given to 'free interlineations and sprawling along the margins. The typewriter, in this, respect, has been a blessing, but the need for teaching the young caligraphists of the schools to write plainly and elegantly is still almost as great as ever it was. Occasionally the. bad handwriter, when he is able to write something worth reading, finds that the printer—generally a genius in prying out the meaning of a manuscript—sadly misinterprets him. For instance, a story is told of one bad penman who wrote in an article for publication : “Augustus found Rome, brick, and left it marble.” He was astonished to read nxt day—- " Augustus 'found Rome brisk, and left it miserable.”