Interesting Facts

According to neuroscientists, children who write using good old fashioned pen and paper learn better than those who use a keyboard. (A study carried out at the University of Stavanger in Norway showed that people who are learning new letters—such as children learning to read for the first time, or as adults picking up a second language with new characters— retain the information best when writing the letters by hand. One of the researchers, Anne Mangen, said, "The movement for “the typing of a T is no different than the typing of a Y. Furthermore, when you write something on the keyboard, you get the visual output somewhere else, on the screen, as opposed to watching your hand when you write on paper." I am so tempted to say "Told you so" again.)

To any teenager who thinks text speak is "new", letters have revealed that Queen Victoria regularly used modern-day contractions such as ‘shd’ and ‘wd’, instead of should and would. (For example, in one note about a visit to Balmoral she wrote:- ‘I have never invited the Duke of Atholl to come over with his men and I think it wd. be better not to do so this year. It wd. entail the encampment of his men in our grounds wh. wd. be inconvenient.’  Not only that, but she had pretty awful handwriting too:-   I just wish I'd known this at school.  My English teacher always marked down my work because of my poor penmanship.)