Holding a pen the right way

Apparently a lot of people don't hold a pen the right way. I was a bit perplexed, but it seems to be the case. I was told of this yesterday when I had to do this PTA meeting. We all sat there mouth open listening to the teacher tell us this. Not saying anything about handwriting, cause that has, due to massive amounts of typing instead of writing, gone down the drain. I can't seem to keep my writing style the same on a single page. I can barely keep it consistent in one paragraph. But, anyway, yeah, do YOU hold your pen the right way?

No. not at all. There is actually a photograph of my hand (when I was a child) in a calligraphy book, demonstrating the WRONG WAY to hold your pen - called "Middle finger up".

I've frequently been told I have nice handwriting, and I'm a semi-professional artist, so it's not like it's hurt my style or anything.

I can't get the fine motor control without bracing my pen that way and using my whole wrist to make movements.

See I don't get why you have to do it the right way, what does it matter ultimately? I mean, look at me, I do it the right way and still write crap. Actually I think my crappy style is due to giving up on writing. We just don't need it anymore. I laughingly told a parent we should focus on using the keyboard.

that picture shows exactly how I hold a pencil ...except the pencil model has much tidier fingernails than I do.

I still can't understand how people keep their long nails clean. I cut off my nails like a child: short so it remainds very clean. I look like I h ave the hands of a child though.

It's a mystery to me, too. I don't cut them short, because they are often useful, but most of that use involves getting dirt and other stuff under them.

My fingernails grow until they fall off. They never really get that dirty unless I've been digging plants or something. Seams of jeans and things like that are good for getting random passing dirt out from under them. And occasional poking with the hooky ends of ballpoint pen caps. To which they are often in close proximity if you are writing with a pen, holding it incorrectly as I do. ha ha.

i hold pens incorrectly. my mother always used to tell me off for it. no doubt if she ever saw me writing now, she still would.

nails are like hair in that i never think about cutting them until bam, one day i wake up and they're so long that it constantly bugs me. (this isn't very long.)

mine tear or rip before they get long enough to bug me.

Isn't that a sign you are calcium deficient or is that if you have white spots?

I hate long nails on men. Really HATE it. Especially if they are SUPERlong and rounded off. You know, when you can tell he's been manicuring the shit out of'em. Ek.

I think my perfect hold is related to my perfect o-hashi hold.

I hold a pen against my ring finger instead of my middle finger, so like the right way except one finger over. My mom holds a pen the same way. They used to try to correct me in school but I was uncorrectable. The way I hold a pen has had no negative effect on my life, and I think my teachers and the teachers at Nath's PTA meeting are all bats.

i am amazed i hold it the right way, but don't really care

also pleased they chose a left-handed person for the picture. otherwise i'd probably say i hold it the wrong way because it's hard to imagine the other way.

I almost got held back a year in kindergarten for being unable to correctly hold pencils/pens/scissors, even tho I cld use them just fine.

Not only do I hold writing utensils the "right" way but it is the most natural and most comfortable for me.

yeah, i hold the pen the right way, but my cutlery is grasped in whole fists for maximum damage

I am presently (and confusedly) half-way between holding my flatware in the continental and the American way.

do you stir your coffee clockwise or anti? that's a major tell.

What? Surely the point of stirring is to do it both ways to maximise mixage?

ugh, SBing anyone who can't hold cutlery properly

FU, when i'm served slop i'll eat like a pig.

you'll show some respect when you're under my roof, young man.

i hate you all

you don't deserve my name!

do you stir your coffee clockwise or anti?

both, and then a S shaped pattern across the diameter of the cup with the bowl of the spoon held perpendicular to the direction of travel

lol perpendicular. u freak.

As I take nothing in my coffee, I am free from such loathesome vulgarities as stirring.

(xpost) dude that's the most efficient way of doing it, otherwise you may as well just wave the spoon in the general direction of the cup...

See I don't get why you have to do it the right way, what does it matter ultimately?

uhhh see i bend all my fingers back at the knuckles and can no longer write for more than like 10 minutes w/out my hand killing me.

def hold pens the right way. not sure if this is what MW does, re: flatware, but i grew up with a surgeon father and an un-american mother, so it's:

fork in left, knife in right. hold both the same way, like a paintbrush: shaft between thumb and middle finger, index finger on top for guidance. fork, tines down.

if i'm being polite, i'll switch the fork over to the right hand, but then i hold it like i do a pencil, tines up for scooping/poking

i am usually not polite, and do not switch the fork after cutting, tho. the switch is an american thing, right?

I suspect that like sitting, believing there is a "right way" to hold a pen (or fork) simply isn't in accord with human biomechanics. A lot of people are switching to iffice sitting on exercise balls, as this uncramps the abdomen and allows weight to shift when any given position gets tiresome.

I generally hold pens in the usual way, but sometimes between the index and middle fingers. If there's any similarity with shifting positions to alleviate back-pain, having multiple positions is probably healthy. Wish I was ambidextrous.

gbx the way you do it is considered the right way in britain - fork in right hand a definite no-no, whenever it happens

many british people will even scoop up food on the BACK of their forks, to ensure that tines are always down!!!

I hold it properly but with the pen pointing away from me. Cruel teachers tried to break me of this habit by making me use a left-handed fountain pen nib, but I just kind of crushed the tip of the nib into a shape that worked for me by continuing to write with it pointing away.

Also people who try and enforce "correct" methods of doing things at the expense of methods that work for you should be ostracised, at least.

many british people will even scoop up food on the BACK of their forks, to ensure that tines are always down!!!

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, September 16, 2009 12:09 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol i have seen this and am always a little baffled, just cause it's like dude the fork is scoopy, take advantage of it!

not that this is entirely related, but surgeons are (perhaps unsurprisingly) very particular about the correct way instruments are held. prior to anatomy my dad gave me a crash-course in the 'right' way to hold scalpels, forceps, and scissors. you don't really hold any of them like their 'civilian' counterparts, and our instructors were pretty insistent on breaking ppl's habits.

I'm left handed, and have never got on with those twisted fountain pen nibs. I can believe that the person who designed them wasn't left handed, because how the heck are they supposed to work?
Fork in the right hand, tines down. Same grip for the knife. Except I flip the fork over tines up when it's convenient and use the knife blade to marshall food onto the fork. For example, when eating mashed potato.

I'm kind of ambidextrous, do a lot of stuff right-handed except for writing and darts as far as I can remember. I always think people using the fork in the right are just taking things too far.

Actually, my method often consists of abruptly standing up, insouciantly tossing the utensils over my shoulder, strolling into the kitchen to search for a paper plate to dump my plateful onto, returning to the table to toast eveyone with a long swig straight from the bottle, folding the paper plate into a half tube and then pouring the contents down my throat, belching loudly and appreciatively and then retiring to their couch to find their remote and watch recondite foreign cable stations, but that's only for the more formal dinners.

Sometimes, if I remember, I'll come back, find the knife wherever I left it and use it to pick my teeth.

I use scissors right handed.

I hold it the wrong way, but fortunately attended Catholic school right after the nuns stopped beating you for it.

I hold a pen against my ring finger instead of my middle finger, so like the right way except one finger over. They used to try to correct me in school but I was uncorrectable. The way I hold a pen has had no negative effect on my life

... except that when I was about six the school ordered a load of triangular sleeves for everyone's pencils, to help the slow kids hold properly instead of using their mouths I guess, and suddenly I couldn't write at all any more. That was an awkward couple of days before that fashion died out.

I just realised I don't rest it on my middle finger like that stupid photo, I kind of press the tip of index and middle onto the pen.

Despite the best efforts of my parents and teachers, I never learned how to hold a pen correctly. And it's only occasionally, when I really pay attention to how others hold pens when they write, that I remember that I'm such a failure in that department. But, yeah, I never really understood what made the 'right way' any more 'right' than any other way. People have complimented my penmanship and drawing ability for forever, so I remain unaffected.

I learned to write numerals with strokes either downwards or upwards depending on what was more efficient at the end of the last stroke.

For this I was ostracised, friendless, and lost several job opportunities.

tried taking notes longhand for about a week last semester. Fun but man was it tricky

i took the bar exam by hand and i am proud. i think it helped that i was holding the pen the right way but i can't say for sure.

I just double checked my form, and I also curl my whole hand around the pen instead of resting the pen gentling in my outstretched fingers. The overall effect is like a small child wrapping her cubby fist around a crayon, except I have better handwriting.

I took most of my notes long hand in law school because if I had a computer, I would fuck around on ILX instead of pay attention in class. I also took all of my exams and the bar long hand because I have a Mac and neither my school nor the great state of IL offered a Mac version of SofTest, the disgusting savages.

I almost got held back a year in kindergarten for being unable to correctly hold pencils/pens/scissors, even tho I cld use them just fine.

Oh man! At the PTA meeting she read aloud the whole list of GOALS our kids have to meet. Ek! One of them was holding a pen properly. (This is for next year though, not the first year of kindergarden. But this class is *mixed* so we got to hear the goals for the second year as well.) Freaked me the fuck out. I AM NOT READY FOR THIS PRESSURE. I kept muttering that Ophelia is already learning letters. Hey maybe that way, if she doesn't hold her pen right, it levels out. (J/K)

Aw, don't stress. When I would complain that my teachers had hassled me about how I held a pen, my mom would just tell me they didn't know what they were talking about, and that I held a pen the same way she did. It helped me not feel like a freak, and it inculcated a deep distrust of authority figures early on, both of which I think are valuable lessons to impart on young children.

hahaha She'll have NO problem with that.

being left-handed, it's regularly entertaining watching right-handed people try to show me the proper way to hold something or do something trying to do it left-handed.