Ask Lemmy

I never learned cursive (can't even read it most of the time) but I don't think my answer would be helpful to you. But it might be interesting.

My signature isn't my full name, it's just an arrangement of 3 alphanumeric symbols that has meaning to me but to anyone else probably looks like a meaningless scribble. If someone ever tries to forge my signature, they'll almost definitely do it wrong.

But the reason my answer isn't useful is that English isn't my native tongue, and neither is the Latin alphabet. My native tongue is Hebrew. Hebrew cursive is very different from Latin cursive, in that the letters don't flow into each other. It's still "block letters", just a different variant of them. I've never looked at many signatures but I think a lot of people just write their name quickly, and that inevitably involves lifting the pen from the paper between letters multiple times.

In a lot of less important contexts that require signature (e.g. receiving a package), many people just make a really quick meaningless scribble, which might look like α or φ or whatever to just get on with it. Workers asking for these signatures often humorously say "give me a scribble here" in those scenarios.

*signs in Chinese

Signatures needn't be cursive. It just whatever you want to use. For example, mine is a little drawing.

I've had customers like this. Usually they just write their name in block letters. There's no rule that says a signature has to be written in cursive so it still works.

I learned some, like shit and crap and stuff

Clearly you haven't seen many signatures.

Mine is a scrawl that no one could identify, and I learned cursive a long, long time ago.

I've recently taken to drawing figures whenever I have to electronically sign something.

I had a cursive writing handbook thing in 3rd grade... then never saw it ever again.

Just randomly scribble quickly like chicken scratch and that's the "signature"

i use digital id with a cryptographic signature. get with the times, grandpa!

more seriously: i learned cursive not because it was compulsory, but because i have fine motor issues and the teachers couldn't read my normal handwriting. so they thought cursive would help. unfortunately i'm also left-handed, so all it did was give me cramps, make my hand dirty, and tear up the paper even more. eventually i got an alphasmart.

i've never even been able to make two instances of the same letter consistent, nevermind a whole word. thankfully a signature alone is not a valid identification method.

I have an uncle who designed his signature before he learned to write in cursive. When he was a child he just practiced until he found a scribble that looked nice and chose it. That’s what he uses even today, decades later.

His signature doesn’t resemble his printed or cursive name at all. However, if you look at it it fits right in with the weird signatures that people choose to do.

I learned cursive, but my signature doesn’t actually resemble what my name would look like written in cursive. It’s more of a highly stylized version of what my name would look like in cursive, but developed over the last 40 years or so. Kind of a piece of art that I developed that is very much mine and I’d be very surprised if anyone could ever convincingly copy it. That sort of the point of the signature.

I used to write it on checks, and I paint it on pieces of art that I make.

For what it’s worth, I also have about six different types of cursive handwriting, plus a couple of different types of fancy script/calligraphy handwriting, in addition to a few different types of regular handwriting

Just a reflexive squiggle with the appropriate number of ascenders and descenders.

One attribute you want in a signature is that no one would be able to fake it from samples of your other handwriting—and for that, not using cursive normally is a plus.