What do you call that embellishment at the bottom of old signatures, like the hash-marked line beneath John Hancock’s name? It’s called a paraph, originally used as a distinct mark to protect against forgery. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Paraph on Old Signatures”
Here’s a found word I didn’t know. Okay, it’s got two pronunciations: paraff or paraff. Do you know this?
How do you spell it? P-A-R-A-P-H. Does it have to do with books? No, with signatures. You know the gigantic flourish that people used to add at the end of their signatures, like with weird hash marks and curly Q’s.
John Hancock.
Yeah, it has nothing to do with the letters. It’s just like a decoration at the end. That’s a paraff or a paraff.
And it was used in olden days as a precaution against forgery.
Oh, really?
Yeah, and it comes from, of course, you could guess, the Latin word related to paragraph.
Oh, okay.
It’s just like a contraction or a reduction.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
So it was interesting to me to find there was a name for this particular flourish at the end of a signature. I just thought it was like people showing off, but there was actually a use for it and a name for it.
Yeah, who knew? P-A-R-A-P-H.
Well, now we all do.
Yeah.
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