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...
Susan in San Antonio uses John Henry at work to mean a signature, as in needing a co-worker’s John Henry on a return form. She’s not alone, but the much more common version is John Hancock, from the famously large signature of John Hancock on the...
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...
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...
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:...
