By Colm O'Regan Comedian and writer
Did Elizabeth I have more time on her hands, or have standards slipped?
A letter leaked to the press from Vince Cable criticising the government was signed off by the business secretary with a distinctive moniker akin to a smiley face. So how significant is a signature?
The odd-looking sign-off became a talking point this week, with some people joking about what it might say about Vince Cable.
Is he trying to be cool? Is he too busy?
Maybe he just likes to draw a caricature of a smiling whale at the end of his letters as a reminder to himself and all of us that we are not alone on this planet and all our decisions have impacts on the eco-system.
Whatever it is, his squiggle is sufficiently odd to have people resurrecting that old chestnut: trying to predict personality from handwriting.
I became aware of the "science" of graphology around the time I had to produce my first signature. This was when I opened my first account of any description with a financial institution.
Signing an application form for a Sammy Squirrel Savings Account in the Irish Post Office is not exactly the same as inking a merger between Glencore and Xstrata but nevertheless it was a milestone of sorts.
I didn't make what one would call a cool signature. I just wrote my name a little bit faster. And that is still the case today. Someone analysing my signature now would conclude that I've no strong feelings about anything and that I may not even be a real person.
It's too late to change now and the lack of an impressive signature has affected my life. One of the reasons why I consciously shun the fame that would have otherwise occurred as a natural result of my talent, is that it would take too long for me to sign "all those books".
As for the rest of my letters, they soon came into focus. My older brother got a book from the library about graphology and a whole new world of navel-gazing opened up. Apparently my backward slanting writing was an indication that I was too focused on the past.
That was uncanny. I did sometimes think about the day before. I started rotating my pages anti-clockwise and immediately felt the past fall like a weight off my 13-year-old shoulders.
Large loops on the below-the-line letters were, according to my brother, a sure sign of a "total pervert". I clamped down on that dark side of me straight away.
For a few weeks when nothing else was happening, I gradually addressed each aspect of my handwriting until, according to the graphology book, I was a cross between Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe and Carl Lewis.
You don't see so much about graphology now - a succession of studies in recent decades have emptied a vat of scorn over its ability to describe and predict personality, but perhaps the biggest threat to graphology is not scepticism. It is the March of Time.
With the advent of computers, fewer and fewer people are doing any handwriting beyond their middle-school years, so their penmanship isn't evolving beyond the teenage stage of development either.
This would lead graphology experts analysing future populations to conclude that most of the subjects studied are moody, hard to get up in the mornings and think their parents are an embarrassment (I know what you mean, especially when they're trying to be cool).
Against this background, future pseudoscientific analysis will have to look at our computer-based evidence in order to jump to dodgy conclusions. Take fonts for example. If you want to spot the deranged and the psychopathic now, start with anyone who types exclusively in Wingdings.
Those who employ Comic Sans are the kind of people who want to make dull activities sound fun. A Comic Sans user may also display passive aggressive tendencies particularly when highlighting falling standards in the canteen. "These cups don't wash themselves" looks cheery in A4 on the wall, but inside the author is a seething cauldron of rage.
Times New Roman? This person is a no-nonsense individual. They believe if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well and no amount of dressing it up or "design" is going to change that fact. Or it could be someone who has not worked out how to change the font in Microsoft Word.
Apart from font there are other tell-tale signs of personality traits. If someone uses lots of emoticons they're not confident in their ability to convey their meaning to others. DO THEY WRITE IN BLOCK CAPITALS followed by a parade of exclamation marks that looks like a picket fence? Then they are someone who comments on an article on a website. You can leave yours below.
READERS’ COMMENTS
9 HOURS AGO
//Apparently my backward slanting writing was an indication that I was too focused on the past.\\
Or, like me, you are left-handed and learned to write in the days of fountain pens and needed a method so that you didn't smudge what you had just written. Turning the paper clockwise 90 degrees and writing in "columns" was so much more comfortable than dislocating one's wrist, elbow and shoulder.
7 HOURS AGO
Handwriting analysis has actually been used in the corporate environment to consider whether or not a person was right for a job. Hmm, crosses his T's in a very sharp upward slant. This man is obviously psychotic and a danger to others... Please let us be rid of this ridiculous pseudo-science. You might as well judge a person's mental fitness based on his star sign.
6 HOURS AGO
Brilliant article. made me laugh. I remember being around 14 and getting caught practising my signature in school by a teacher. She told me that it showed a certain degree of self obsession. I replied that i didn't have a clue what she was on about..... I was just practising for when I became famous. - she didn't see the joke.
6 HOURS AGO
I just scribble really fast. I hate being in a queue (line) waiting for the really s l o w person to s i g n their name just right. Dotting the i's and crossing the t's. As for the 'experts'? Go get a life and put an end to your clap-trap!
5 HOURS AGO
My signature is unreadable, because I developed it in my teens and it was too much hassle to change for banks etc. I reckon you can tell that a woman is married(or using a married name) by looking at her signature as it is more likely to be readable because she developed it later in life and had time to think about taking care over making it presentable.
Taken from the BBC.
Taken from the BBC.
This is really interesting. I used to try to "read" people's signatures and usually I come out right, but then I read this article. From this article, I realize that people DO care about their signatures and the thought that sometimes there are certain people who purposely creates their signature in a way so that they can be viewed as someone who they're not comes to mind. I can't read my own signature though, but a friend said that I am ambitious and I respect conventionality. I guess that is correct, but I also enjoy the contemporary. I don't think looking at someone's signature should be the only factor to guessing a person's personality, so I don't think that a signature is significant.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine once told me that my signature shows that I'm an indecisive boy. She said it's because there are some strokes on my signature that go from right ro left. Believe me, I have no idea how did she come up with that theory. And honestly, I'm not sure that graphology theories are logical. I mean, how can a stroke in here and a scratch in there on your signature can determine your personality. For some people who wrote their names faster and declare it as their signatures, their signatures are just the matter of neural capability, and not their personality. I think signature is a "branding tool". Some people tend to create a signature which can represent his/her image. And I have a friend who made a signature that is easy to be imitated, so that his classmates can help him signing the attendance list whenever he wants.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard about graphology before. But a friend of mine has said about signature's meaning. Actually I've never cared much about reading personality with signature, but I’ve heard about reading personality by the handwriting. When I look at someone's signature, I only said something like 'wow, your signature is cool' or 'that's so simple'. I've been practicing my signature since I was in 6th grade. Actually I just wrote my name fast then, but I added an infinite sign under my name when I was in high school, just to make it more complicated so that people won't easily imitate it. Sometimes I try to imitate my friends' signature, or a signature of someone famous. I've imitated my father's signature several times for school purpose with his permission because he was just too lazy to sign so many files. My mother once told me to imitate her signature when she was lazy to sign anything, but I just can't imitate her signature.
ReplyDeleteI think graphology is really unique and interesting to learn. Even though I cannot read and define others' signatures, I always want to be able to. I think signature is a considerable factor in determining someone's personality and characteristic. I do believe in graphology because it has been proven scientifically. I have watched one of CSI television series in which the criminologists use this method to analyze whether the criminal is a psychopath or not. And most of the hypothesis based on graphology is right. However, we should not judge people solely based on their signatures. I think attitudes and behaviour of someone are the most trustworthy assessment of someone. As for me, I think my signature is really easy to imitate since my signature is the faster writing version of my name.
ReplyDeleteI thought this article would be boring. But it interested me a lot I must say. Sometimes I do believe in reading personality through the signature. Because my friend once told me that I am an indecisive and an over thinking person by just looking at my signature. I think those two points she pointed out to me are all correct. I don't know how, even I have already changed my signature like many times since I was started doing it in 6th grade for the national exam. A friend of mine in another university has 2 different signatures: the first one for important signature ( the real one ), the second one for unimportant signatures and to be imitated by her friends or other people if it is needed. How can you tell the behavior of someone that has more than one signature? You can guess, but to judge someone's personality by just looking at their signature is absolutely just doesn't seem right.
ReplyDeleteI was just reading another article about graphology the other day and found a webpage where you analyze your handwriting within 20 steps and afterwards you can read the results of the interpretation of your personality. It was interesting to do that but I have to say that the interpretation was totally wrong. Furthermore, my handwriting is never the same. It depends on my mood and how much time I have and to who I am addressing my letter etc. I think, although graphology is already out of time and does not interpret the personality accurately, it is still a pretty interesting science.
ReplyDeleteHi Kristina, I think it would be fun if you post the link to analyzing handwriting. Although from your experience it seems that it isn't accurate, I think that people would be interested to finding out what the website thinks about our personality. I too never have the same handwriting, and yes it usually depends on the mood. I usually start neat then I get bored and squiggle around until I myself cannot read what I wrote.
DeleteThis article is interesting and it reminds me of my teacher who see his students’ personalities by signatures. When I joined a test to enter my high school, I was interviewed by this teacher. He told me about my personality by looking at my signature. I didn't know how, but most of what he said was true. At first I didn't really believe, but then my mom told me that there’s a study about analyzing handwriting and signature that is called graphology. Until now, I haven’t try to learn it but it’s pretty interesting for me. I agree with Dea’s reply on Kristina’s comment. It’s better if Kristina post the link of analyzing signature. No matter it’s accurate or not, but I think it’s such an entertaining thing to try.
ReplyDeleteI’ve heard about the case of signatures first on the television. One of television program invited the expert of graphology and talked about the characteristic of signatures and its connection with personalities, characteristic, or even career. I found this very fascinating that actually signature is also a matter that affects our career. For the very first time, I wasn’t quite sure about that. But then this expert showed the viewers the empirical explanation regarding the connection between signature/handwriting and the personalities. Usually the analysis is based on the thickness, tilt, font, and so on. I also bought a pack of card that assists us to analyze the hand writing, then I tried for myself and somehow it matched. It’s very interesting.
ReplyDeletewhat i believe that signature is a symbol of human identity .human nature have an strong refraction on his or her signature. A professional must consider carefully what she/he is signing before placing her/his signature on any piece of paper. A physician must recognize that misrepresenting her/his signature violates the codes of ethics, both written and unwritten, to which she/he agreed to adhere upon beginning her/he education. She/he must establish a standard for her/himself and for those around her/him, and in doing so, encourage her/his colleagues to remain faithful to these codes, to their profession, and ultimately to themselves.
ReplyDeleteThis article is really interesting. Sometimes it is really fun when we are try to find out what are the meaning of people’s signature. As we can see on the article, the signature that are really simple is reflect people that are cool and have simple behavior. Beside that, there are also several people opinion that people who has really complicated signature is a workaholic people. They tend to make something really long and maybe people cannot read it. But in my opinion, it will not always true. My mom is really workaholic people but her signature is really simple and there is no meaning of her signature. She said that she only want to make symbol that people will recognized that it is her signature. People creating their signature is when they are in elementary or junior high school so maybe they only think to make it prettier or cooler so it will be not valid that we try to recognized people behavior through their signature.
ReplyDeleteMy parents said that a signature really reflects about the person's past, recent, and future life. They said that a signature shouldn't have a line that goes backward because they believe that a backward line shows that the person will find it hard to be successful because they will always look back and hard to move on. When my parents saw my new signature, they asked me to change it. They see that my signature has a backward line. Personally, i don't take this kind of situation seriously because me myself, i like to do drawing and sketching stuffs so i really like the fluency of the movements made by my hand when i write down my signature. Talking about this situation, i only take it as a myth.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I love to look at people’s handwriting and signature, but I just can’t guess what kind of person he/she really is by only looking at their signature. But my mother knows a lot about this kind of stuff. Once she asked me to sign a paper, then she just analyzed it and said “You are the kind of person who lacks of confidence and often make decision hastily”. Of course, she has spent one third of her life time with me, but she often get it right when guessing someone else’s characteristic by doing exactly the same thing; and I always get amazed by it. In my opinion graphology seems interesting to learn, I should read some articles about it sometimes.
ReplyDeletewhen I see the attendance list, there's always someone who do their signature just as simple as writing symbol, or alphabet letter, my question is : it is safe?
ReplyDeletesay that someone fake your signature to sign some document that are disadvantageous to you, what will you do? since it is so similar maybe it will be decided that it is a real signature from the person.
I think some signatures can be easily copied by the other, it's unsafe to put a signature just a one word alphabet or a simple writing, we must make it unique and hard for the other to copy. although they can copy it but i will not be exactly the same, maybe it's an advantage for some students to have a simple signature cause students can cheat and tell the other friend to make a signature for them.
DeleteSome say that signature represents your personalities. Also a friend of mine once said that it represents either you most likely to be on top or not. Well, in my personal opinion, signature is a unique mark for your identity, other than fingerprint. But I don't fully believe the signature's mojo. Like the one if we had backward line means we are too focused on the past.
ReplyDeleteMy dad has a super-easy-to-fake-signature. My mum's is quite tricky. so whenever i took a day off from school without my parents knowing I signed the letter "from my parents" with my dad's signature. Everything else was always signed by my mum. My own signature is also quite easy to fake, because I was too lazy to come up with something creative and complicated. But I am in the process of changing this. In two years I will need a new passport and this one will be signed differently.
ReplyDeleteHowever some documents will bear my current signature for ever - like my driving license.
Oh by the way, at some time at school I started to learn how to fake my teachers signatures... My French teacher's was the easiest. By the end I could make a perfect copy. Never made use of it though (really, I never did).
DeleteMy signature is quite childish and easy to copy. The reason why, is that when I was quite young I had to pick up a bankpass and I actually didn't think about a signature yet. It was winter that time, and when I arrived at the bank office, my fingers were totally frozen. I just made a ridiculous sign and after that was also on my first passport I was always 'scared' to change my signature...because I think there are strong rules for that. You can tell that it had an high impact on me as a child because I still remember the situation after so many years. Should be funny if i become an important business women with a childish autograph.
ReplyDeletewhat i believe that signature is a symbol of human identity . Human nature have an strong refraction on his or her signature, actually i don't have the accrual idea about full signature or short signature if the name is too big then it would be hard for one to maintain his/her signature. So sometime people use their short form to sign, but no one can have problem on it.
ReplyDeleteGraphology amuses me in some ways and I used to learn a bit about it. Before reading this article, I always thought that we could read our personality by our signature but now I realized that some people who understand graphology can manipulate others by changing their signature so people who try to read it will think that they are an entirely different person. When it comes to handwriting, I'm a moody person. Sometimes mine can look small, big, neat, dirty, and many else. Some interpretations of our signature or handwriting aren't even right either, so I think we can't depend on them to understand someone completely, but well, it's always fun to try.
ReplyDeleteI ever heard once that your signature reflects your personality. Those who are expertised in graphology can easily read your personality through your signature, what kind of person is you - whether you are a hard worker or not, a goals oriented person or not, etc. I also heard once from my father that a lot of human resource department is now using graphology tehnic as one of their method in recruiting new employees. That idea of reading people personality through their signature is somewhat scared me because I do not think that I have a good-looking signature. Does it make me having a bad personality?
ReplyDeleteI think graphology is both interesting and hard to believe. It is interesting because it just nice when people guess your personality through signature and the guessing is right according to the signature owner. In some ways graphology is hard to believe especially people who never experienced it before. How can people guess personality with hand writing and signature? A person can change its signature any time, but I don’t think their personality change alongside their signature.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe in characterizing one's signature. I am what I am without having other people pointing out from my signature. I do not believe in characterizing one in general. I think people cannot be described nor can they be defined as one specific thing. You are what you choose to see, you can be anything. You can see yourself as anything from the list, you can be it. If you want to be a good person, just see yourself as a good person, then you will do good things, and you will be a good person. If you have this negativity inside your mind and you think you are not enough, you will always be not enough. It depends on point of views.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with this comment, I don't believe that signature reflects the characteristics of the people. every people has their own characteristic and is it correct if a good person has a good signature? I don't think so, cause there's someone who has a good signature but they behave like an animal. and in any case, I don't believe that good signature is the signs of good person, it's rubbish.
DeleteI don't believe that signature reflects your personality. If the myth is true, then you can change personality and attitude by just change your signature? Absolutely not. My signature is pretty simple and easy to copy, but I will try to change it with a better one later. I guess if someone try judge my personality from my signature, it will be wrong
ReplyDeletei totaly agree with your argument. how come the signature can reflect your personality. for me isn't logic at all.but the signature for me is really important and unique. more unique the signature that you make. more harder the people to copy it.and actually signature can be your personal icon and characteristic
DeleteI have a friend that can see my personality through my signature. altough i don't want to believe it, she can see my personality through it. maybe she is lucky when guessing me, but when she tries to guess other people she is also got it right. well you can believe it or not. for me, even tough my friend can predict it. i still don't believe it.
ReplyDeleteI don't really believe in graphology science. Everybody have a diffent writing, but I can't understand how it reflects our personnality. But on the other side, I think that we can't really change our writing. Indeed, even if we try to change the forms of the letters, graphology study how you write every letter, how you start it and how you finish it also. And that's amazing, because they can know if you are right handed or left handed just by observing your way to write. And it's easy to see if it's a man's writing or a woman's writing, so maybe they can also analyze your personnality. I think it should be interesting to read more about that, because we don't really talk about this science, except in movies.
ReplyDeleteI never know about graphology before, i think this article is interesting. But, I have heard that signature of a person reflect their personalities,and the more your signature close to your real name the better personalities you have. I madre my signature when I was in elementary school, and I have changed my signature twice, and finally i have my fix signature when I was in the 5th grade of Elementary school. At that first time I made my own signature, i felt so excited, because I always want to sign like my parents did. I think my signature is really simple and close to my first name.
ReplyDeleteI really like graphology because I think the handwriting of a person can tell a lot about his or her character. Once I read an article about graphology and there it was said that people who write to the left direction are less self-confident. From that I always took a closer look at people's handwriting and I recognized that it is true. Unfortunately, I forgot the rest of the article. For me graphology is not old-fashioned, it just go forgotten a little bit in times of computers and mobile phones. However, I am convinced that you can learn a lot about the character of a person if you look at her handwriting.
ReplyDeleteGraphology is very interesting and I´m convinced a person´s handwriting can tell a lot about his character and sometimes even the situation and maybe the he was while writing - just remember the tremendous difference in the look of my handwriting in an exam for instance, under pressure and without enough time, compared to how it looks like when I write a letter to a friend or just make random notes during class.
ReplyDeleteI think the signature is a very special part of this topic and needs to be evaluated differently, by the person´s character of course, but the job, the position and the frequency of using the signature have an important influence on the signature as well. For example, a bank employee, that has to sign numerous payment orders a day, logically tends to adapt his signature to make it easier, quicker. Whereas a construction worker, that maybe needs to use his signature only a few times a month probably has different intentions and therefore can take more time to sign in a slow a nice way.
Someone’s signature maybe cannot explain certain personality he has, but surely it reflects how he is. I do not think a signature could be that significant since we cannot judge people from their signature. I believe that a person’s handwriting could symbolize something about themselves. I haven’t heard about signature graphology but graphology is an interesting subject for me as we can know more about people by just looking at their signature or handwriting.
ReplyDeleteMany of us sign our names often enough that it becomes routine. Writing a check or signing a credit slip is so commonplace to us that we do not stop to think of what we are actually doing. Signing a check is a binding contract, stating that the amount of the check will be deducted from one's account, based on the assumption that the account contains at least the amount for which the check was written. If a person falsely leads the seller to this assumption, she may suffer costly consequences and may be financially and socially scarred for life. Any other type of legal document, such as a marriage certificate or apartment lease, requires a valid signature to be binding and admissible in court. In the case of a marriage certificate, the couple has made spoken vows to each other and the legal document solidifies these vows. Breaking the marriage contract both dissolves the relationship and nullifies the document. Similarly, a renter signs an apartment lease to demonstrate that the rules stated are satisfactory to both parties, and that both parties will abide by these rules. Signing the document is not simply writing one's name on a piece of paper. The signature means that the person agrees to the conditions outlined and also agrees to perform the actions stated in the contract. The person signing pledges to follow the rules and also pledges to accept the consequences if she fails to do so. It is both legally and socially required of a person either to uphold her end of the bargain or to assume responsibility if she does not.
ReplyDeleteI really like articles which related to human being's psychology and personality. Actually I want to be a psychologist because I can study one of the psychology art which is graphology, but my parents didn't let me at that time. So, the article is really interesting for me. I have known this before that we can know our personality through our signature if we know how to read it. Not only our signature, but also our writing can also reflect our personality. Although, it is not really significant to reflect our personality, but for me, I just believe that the statement is true because from my writing and signature, they said that I have a good personality. So, rather than not believing what they say (whether it's significant or not, I'd better to believe it because it can be a suggestion to always be a good person who has a good personality.
ReplyDeleteKemas
I don't believe that a person's signature shows a person's characteristics, it's nonsense, but in my opinion a person's signature shows the artistic skill of the writer. To me whenever I sign i tend to express my signature with artistic flair, that is why until now i haven't decided on my permanent signature, because i still like to improve my signature with a little touch of Graphology. I guess i'll never decide on how my final signature will be like, because i will always try to improve it.
ReplyDeleteI still don’t understand how signatures can describe or explain its owner’s personality. Similar to Mr Colm O’Regan, my signature used to be just me writing my first name superfast. Because I think signatures is just the simpler way of telling people that we know or approve about the things we put our signatures on. I even used to question why do people even bother to make such complicated signature and why don’t they simply write their full name. Anyway, I changed my signature when my mother told me that signatures actually represent its owner’s personality in a way or two. Like if the end of the signature is facing upwards, some say it means the owner likes to always strive for the best. While signatures which end are facing downwards means the owner will face bad luck or such throughout his/her life. I still don’t understand how that is possible though.
ReplyDeleteI think a signature is an important thing in our life. A signature can represent you and your personality. I believe that the looks of your signature will show your personality, although it could be changed. But for me having a nice signature is cool, because people could understand who you are by looking at your signature. And I think it’s cool to get known by other people by your signature, it means your signature is eye-catching and well-worth.
ReplyDelete-Sasha
Personally I believe with the graphology. There are some experts who are dealing with this method to learn the tendency about people personality and their potential. I believe that person’s handwriting and their signature are the representation of their selves. As far as I know if you want to know your natural talent, graphology is more accurate than IQ test. People use signature to symbolize their existence into something, then I believe there is psychological factor that is effected people to make signature in which represent the way that they want to be seen by others. In addition, I think the logical thinking for handwriting is you will have difficulty on change your handwriting so it is parallel with your difficulty to changes your natural behavior or talent.
ReplyDeleteI have never learned about graphology, but it is quite interesting to know about graphology I think. Although some of my friends said that signature reflects our personality, I do not believe it because I think it doesn’t make sense that you can guess the personality of someone from a handwriting and signature without officially meet the person. Some people made their signature as well as they want but not naturally comes from their thought so guessing personality through signature is not totally accurate.
ReplyDeleteSome people said your signature is your personality. And believe it or not, there are some instances which using people from graphology to decide the personality for people which registering a new work on that instance. But, i still don't understand how the graphology people read someone personality through the signature. Are people with complicated signature have more complicated personality? I'm not sure about that.
ReplyDelete