Quote of the Day (Nick Foulkes, on His ‘Idiosyncratic’ Handwriting)

“I wonder what psychological torment, latent criminality or sociopathic markers a graphologist might identify from examining my writing. The customary simile of an intoxicated spider staggering across the Nile Blue lined paper of one of those large notebooks from Smythson is pitifully inadequate when trying to describe the varied appearance of my, ahem, ‘idiosyncratic’ handwriting style.”— English historian, author, and journalist Nick Foulkes, “Writing: His Nibs,” The Financial Times (“How To Spend It” supplement), November 2025

Here, Foulkes provides a good reason for reading prolific authors: they’ll likely know a great word to substitute for another when a thesaurus simply won’t do. In this case, the word being replaced by “idiosyncratic” is “illegible.”

I can relate to his feelings, and then some. A close relative came up with yet another "i" word to describe my penmanship. “My handwriting is illegible; yours is indescribable,” he told me some years ago.

The problem with my scrawls was first noted, with extreme disapproval, by a nun who taught me in sixth grade. Time has brought no improvement.

I can still make out my notes from college classes. My first drafts these days of works in progress? No dice. I have to transcribe my notes onto a computer as soon as possible—like, within a couple of hours—and even then it can be touch and go.

Fifty years ago, a priest in my parish enjoyed some local renown as a prominent graphoanalyst who could, like the hypothetical one mentioned by Foulkes, determine character traits from handwriting. Thankfully, that priest never got his hands on a specimen of mine.