Legible handwriting: the great French art form

The French education system puts a great deal more emphasis on neat handwriting than the American one does. I remember glancing at the notes of a boy next to me in one of my first classes here and feeling my eyebrows nearly touch my hairline: his handwriting was equivalent to the 'Palace Script' font on Microsoft Word, and coincidentally three hundred times neater than my own. It was a little unsettling after years of boys handing me the pen to write things down in group projects on the sole merit of being the girl. After all, I grew up with a father whose scribbled writings sometimes more closely resemble hieroglyphs than the English alphabet. (I say it with love, Daddy).

So it was with a great deal of amusement that I noticed some graffiti on the side of a building as I walked home today, calling for the end of Roi Sarkozy ("King Sarkozy"). It wasn't the content of the message that caught my attention - putting down Sarkozy is daily sport for Parisians. What made me snicker was the fact that it was written in the typical, flawless French cursive teachers here insist upon so strenously. The 'y' of Sarkozy was an especially curly delight.

Kind of takes the edge off the statement, doesn't it?