The Missing Ink – Phillip Hensher (How reading has made us who we are)

Website design By BotEap.comPhillip Hensher’s highly readable book, The Missing Ink, manages to inspire a handwriting renaissance. His is an eloquent tale and a journey through a vanishing world that, with technology, may be about to disappear forever.

Website design By BotEap.comWhat prompted Hensher to write his book was the realization that he had no idea what the handwriting of a friend he had known for over a decade looked like. Although the friend had emailed and texted Hensher, he had never sent her a handwritten letter. Life goes on like this and relationships can last forever and people hardly realize that there is no need to write by hand anymore. He points out that writing has ceased to be a

essential intermediary between people.

Website design By BotEap.comWill any part of our humanity be lost, Hensher wonders, other than the habit of writing with a pen on paper? In brilliant prose, Hensher delves into the history of handwriting: the pioneers who were masters of handwriting. He looks at the different styles. He looks at what the handwriting has meant to humanity. He cites eccentric conclusions about personality, illness, psychosis, and even fitness for employment that students of the pseudoscience of graphology have drawn from close scrutiny of handwriting.

Website design By BotEap.comHe reflects on his early life at school learning to write by hand, graduating in the united adult style, the callus on his right hand where the pen used to rest, and the schoolboy’s penchant for using the pen as a missile. She remembers the spill of ink on his shirt and his constant creaking of the quill until indelible teeth marks were left.

Website design By BotEap.comHensher repeatedly asks if we should care that handwriting is dying out since the internet and its keyboard have replaced everything. After all, bad handwriting has cost businesses and governments a fortune. Millions of letters could not be delivered due to bad handwriting. In the 1994 one, Kodak said that “400,000 rolls of film could not be returned because the names and addresses were illegible.”

Website design By BotEap.comSo, in the age of computer terminals, who cares if handwriting disappears? Hensher cleverly lists a few reasons driving the decline in handwriting skills. With the dawn of the digital age, the curriculum in many Western countries is devoting less and less time to teaching handwriting. Less than half of UK primary schools set aside time to teach handwriting.

Website design By BotEap.comSome teachers are beginning to see teaching writing as a chore rather than skill development. Some education departments encourage ‘keyboarding only’. Some authorities have even recommended that children be taught only how to sign their names, and that time previously spent teaching handwriting be devoted to learning the keyboard and typing.

Website design By BotEap.comHensher argues convincingly for the preservation of handwriting. Far from being an expression of education or class or engaging us in any way with the written word, it beautifully conveys the role it has yet to play in our lives. He cites research showing that improved writing skills not only shape the construction

it blocks written language and improves memory, but it also made subjects better for students who enjoyed learning. He also mentions a case in Texas in which a man died after a doctor’s handwritten prescription was misread by a pharmacist.

Website design By BotEap.comIn another case, a nurse’s handwriting was so appalling that a colleague misread the instruction to administer only four units of insulin out of forty-five with fatal consequences.

Website design By BotEap.comIn his sublime conclusion, Hensher writes: “While there would be no point in giving up the clarity and authority of print that is available to anyone with a keyboard, to continue to diminish the place of handwriting in our lives is to diminish in a way small but real, our humanity.

Website design By BotEap.comIn all sorts of areas of our lives, we improve the quality of our lives by taking the slow option, the path that requires a bit of effort. Sometimes we don’t spend an afternoon watching Km Kardashian fall on YouTube: we read a book. Sometimes, we don’t just pop a prepared meal in the oven and take it out later. Chop and prepare the vegetables; we follow a

recipe or some procedure we remember from our family kitchens and we gladly make dinner from scratch.

Website design By BotEap.comWe often do this because we love people and from time to time we think they are worth our effort. Sometimes we don’t get in the car and we don’t get to where we need to go as soon as possible. Sometimes we open the doors of our house and go for a walk in the spring sun. We may not get very far in two or three hours on foot, while in three hours by mechanical means Yorkshire (by car), Paris (by train) or Istanbul (by plane) can be reached. But, on the other hand, you’ve had a nice walk in the spring sunshine for very little expense, and you feel better for it.

Website design By BotEap.comPerhaps that is the way to bring handwriting back into our lives, as something that is a pleasure, that is good for us, and that is human in a way that not all communication systems manage to be.