Happy Thought for 8 May 2026

 Have a Happy Thought:

Some of us learned proper cursive writing in school. I would venture to say that none of us fully remember how to write in cursive. Fewer of us can probably easily read something written in cursive from over 100 years ago.

Calligraphy from around the time of the invention of the printing press is... even worse. It was difficult enough to understand that in 1655 an author brought together a bunch of examples of over-the-top calligraphy into one book, so that centuries later we could marvel at just how unintelligible it was.

 

Here’s an example of “easy to understand”:



Advanced calligraphy readers may be able to decipher these:



But I can pretty much guarantee that you can’t say for sure which letters these are:



 What I can agree on is that these were artists, experimenting with a fun medium.

 And leaving us all baffled as to what they were writing.

 

Speaking of being baffled, may I present to you this most cursed of clock faces, where the “numbers” are arranged alphabetically.


 

 

Thanks to the Public Domain Review for bringing us this beautiful calligraphy: *The Proper Art of Writing* (1655) — The Public Domain Review

 

And thank you to CatSalad on mastodon for the clock face Cat 🐈🥗 (D.Burch) :paw:⁠:paw:: "Alphabetical clock Photo of a…" - Infosec Exchange

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