The Illegible: Difference between revisions

 

Often [[Truth in Television]]. Not to be confused with [[The Unintelligible]], which deals with a character that cannot be understood when speaking.

 

== [[Anime]] ==

* [[Rurouni Kenshin|Kenshin]]. Seeing as he was born in a family of farmers, spent about a year as a slave, was raised by a hermetic swordsman from ages six to thirteen, and then left to join a militia, there probably wasn't much opportunity to work on handwriting.

* The American dub of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' badly Americanized the series as a whole, but actually called the Japanese symbols written by Sailor Moon (Tsukino Usagi) herself "squiggly handwriting" in one instance where the viewers got to see what she'd written (when it wasn't shown, characters would instead comment that she couldn't spell very well or used horrible grammar). In a way, this is actually faithful adaptation, because in the original Japanese version, Usagi has ''legitimately'' lousy handwriting in her native language. She either fails to use kanji, or uses the wrong ones.

* There was an ''Uncle Scrooge'' comic that had Scrooge finding an old IOU and being unable to make out the signature. He starts tracking down people he thinks it could be, but finds that he owes each of them money. He eventually realizes that the signature is his own and it was an IOU he wrote to himself.

* In ''[[Watchmen]]'', the police are unable to tell whether Rorschach's journal is written in some elaborate code or it's just that his handwriting is totally illegible.

 

== [[Film]] ==

== [[Literature]] ==

* Hagrid from ''[[Harry Potter]]'' has a primitive, childish handwriting due to the lack of education.

* It has been pointed out by Sophie and other characters that [[Howl's Moving Castle (novel)|Howl]] cannot write in a way that another human being could read.

 

* On [[Roseanne]], the Tom Arnold character Arnie was [[Put on a Bus]] and Roseanne showed his note to Dan.

{{quote|'''Dan:''' Who are the Allens and why are they out of spice?

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

* This was a ''[[Hagar the Horrible]]'' strip once. Hagar, who's illiterate, wishes he could read the prescription a doctor gave him. So does the pharmacist (or whatever he was, since he's in the Viking age).

 

== [[Radio]] ==

* In ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' Mr. Edward Verres [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-01-31 has] "[[Inkblot Test|Ink Blot]] handwriting", which isn't quite impossible to read, but no two people ever managed to read in the same way any part of his message, except its header in big letters. On the next page one of viewers muses aloud:

{{quote|'''Justin:''' Maybe it's a ''map''?}}

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* An episode of ''[[The Weekenders]]'' featured Carver attempting to send notes to Chum Bukkit [a band] in various ways. They read these as obscure new lyrics.

* [[Doug]] once lost his <s>diary</s> journal in which he writes the events of every episode. It's picked up by [[The Bully|Roger]], seemingly the worst person who could find it, but Roger gives it back unread, simply because he can't make out a word of Doug's handwriting.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* There's a condition called "dysgraphia" which results in illegible handwriting without necessarily affecting intelligence or ability to read. Most dysgraphics are able to adjust by typing whatever they need to commit to paper, but this isn't always an option, forcing them to attempt to write by hand.

* Anyone who starts to fall asleep in class while still trying to take notes has probably ended up with this.

* The infamous note [[Oscar Wilde]]’s lover’s father passed to Wilde at a party.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Universal Tropes]]

[[Category:The Illegible]]