Following up on our conversation about whether cursive handwriting should be taught in schools, 23-year-old Rachel from Newport News, Virginia, wrote to say she learned cursive in third grade, but has never used it since. This is part of a complete...
A San Antonio, Texas, woman wonders about the phrase to ask for your John Henry, meaning to ask for your signature. It’s a variant of the far more common phrase, to ask for your John Hancock, a reference to the bold signature of John Hancock, one of...
Cindy from Descanso, California, heard fignature in New York for the wobbly signature made with a finger on a phone or card-reader screen. The blend of finger and signature has several spellings, including fingature and fingerature, plus the plainer...
What does your signature say about you? In today’s world of PIN-codes and electronic communication, maybe not so much. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Reading Signatures” You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett...
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...
It’s a grammatical question that trips up even the best writers sometimes: Is it who or whom? A physician says he likes the sentiment in a colleague’s email signature, but he’s not sure it’s 100% grammatical. The sentence: “There are some patients...
