#crossed letters

[nothwell]

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got a lil too excited talking about crossed letters on the Right Here Write Queer podcast

[littlebirdy0301]

Aaaa so I don’t even remember what brought it about but I just had Fond Memories of a past hyperfixation that was Cross-writing (aka crossed letters aka cross-hatching). Where to save postage and paper money, people would write out their letter normally then turn the paper 45 or 90 degrees & continue writing with the new lines angled against the first set (creating a cross hatched look, hence the name). I used to do it cause I thought it was cool and cause if I journaled in cross writing and in cursive, it would be virtually unreadable to most people, cause for some reason younger me had anxiety about ppl reading anything I wrote.

So anyways I remembered cross-writing & looked into it again for funsies. & I’ve always thought the cross writing with diagonals looks prettier than the right angle cross writing but I’m bad at keeping the lines straight and consistent if I try to write diagonally. & I was like “hm it’d be cool if there was a lined paper that had a set of horizontal lines & a set of diagonal lines, that’d solve it”

AND APPARENTLY CALLIGRAPHY PRACTICE PAPER IS EXACTLY THAT!!!!! I CAN BUY A CALLIGRAPHY PRACTICE NOTEBOOK & WRITE A PRETTY N AESTHETIC CROSS HATCHED JOURNAL!!! IM SO NORMAL ABOUT THIS!!

[blue-electrode]

This image is an example of a crossed letter. A crossed letter is one in which the writer first writes across the page in one direction, then rotates the page (usually 90 degrees) to continue the letter. This was done to save on postage and conserve paper, both of which were relatively expensive back in the day.

We haven't transcribed this document yet -- we've been saving these more difficult items for later!

--- Letter, To: "Mama" (Ellen Ewing Sherman) From: Ellie, March 14, 1878.