a little paleography goes a long way ~
i've been a writing teacher for a long time and have read many a student journal. i can decipher most handwriting if i sit with it long enough. general hancock's writing has taken me a long time to acclimate, but i think i have it down for the most part. i have learned how to recognize the difference between his "h", his "p" and his "ss" which, frightening all look like the same letter ~ so that when he says "hap" he means "pass" and "hrovipions" means "provisions" (misspelled).
this is not an easy thing.
general hancock, therefore i have determined, spent his purgatory crammed in a too-small grammar-school desk with a severely-bunned and scowling owly teacher hanging over his shoulder while he learned to write legibly.
this is what i believe.
with all my heart.
in his more legible moments, you get something like this:
which reads: Major Eckert has a pair [someone please tell me what this word is] and a
little Tobacco which by direction of the Secretary
of War he is authorized to give in his own way,
to Paine.
let's forget for a moment the ominous expression "in his own way" or the curiously "correct" spelling of "Paine" (the goverment had yet to decide to conveniently change it to the more controversial "Payne" in an attempt to link their mysterious prisoner with known guerrillas). instead let's look at the manner in which hancock likes to float his t crosses over the letters and make slashes with his "j"s. or how he joins words together (like "Warhe" and "togive"). let's also note how messy the overall page is ~ full of blots and blobs (this selection is actually pretty clean ~ you wouldn't believe how slobby most of the others are). i swear, trying to decipher this man's handwriting has been mostly nightmarish.
the word i can't figure out in this one just eludes me no matter how hard i look at it.
it looks like "cushion" but that makes no sense. betty seems to think it alludes to a pair of carpet slippers (or slippers of some ilk), but Hanty writes about the slippers later, asking if he can give prisoner 195 some (which, if Eckert was already authorized to do so, there'd have been no question about it). i'm at a total loss on this one. knowing what his "p" usually looks like, i even question the word "pair" here.
all this to say: thank you Lord for making Mr. Hanty's handwriting so so so nicely textbook by comparison. not quite as composition-book perfect as Poppet's, but highly readable compared to this mess. only once does Hanty ever sort of lapse into a lazy scrawl and even then his letters are very clear.
but hancock ~ hoo boy. what a pen!
(your obedient servant,) ~ yeah, that's legible!
: D
this is not an easy thing.
general hancock, therefore i have determined, spent his purgatory crammed in a too-small grammar-school desk with a severely-bunned and scowling owly teacher hanging over his shoulder while he learned to write legibly.
this is what i believe.
with all my heart.
in his more legible moments, you get something like this:
which reads: Major Eckert has a pair [someone please tell me what this word is] and a
little Tobacco which by direction of the Secretary
of War he is authorized to give in his own way,
to Paine.
let's forget for a moment the ominous expression "in his own way" or the curiously "correct" spelling of "Paine" (the goverment had yet to decide to conveniently change it to the more controversial "Payne" in an attempt to link their mysterious prisoner with known guerrillas). instead let's look at the manner in which hancock likes to float his t crosses over the letters and make slashes with his "j"s. or how he joins words together (like "Warhe" and "togive"). let's also note how messy the overall page is ~ full of blots and blobs (this selection is actually pretty clean ~ you wouldn't believe how slobby most of the others are). i swear, trying to decipher this man's handwriting has been mostly nightmarish.
the word i can't figure out in this one just eludes me no matter how hard i look at it.
it looks like "cushion" but that makes no sense. betty seems to think it alludes to a pair of carpet slippers (or slippers of some ilk), but Hanty writes about the slippers later, asking if he can give prisoner 195 some (which, if Eckert was already authorized to do so, there'd have been no question about it). i'm at a total loss on this one. knowing what his "p" usually looks like, i even question the word "pair" here.
all this to say: thank you Lord for making Mr. Hanty's handwriting so so so nicely textbook by comparison. not quite as composition-book perfect as Poppet's, but highly readable compared to this mess. only once does Hanty ever sort of lapse into a lazy scrawl and even then his letters are very clear.
but hancock ~ hoo boy. what a pen!
(your obedient servant,) ~ yeah, that's legible!
: D