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Speaker 2: Oh hey, it's your old pod, dad Ward. Just me
Speaker 2: hanging out in a breezy summer tunic and linen coolotts.
Speaker 2: Ali Ward back with another episode of ologies Are you
Speaker 2: ready for? Are you ready for a weird one? Came
Speaker 2: or random one? Kind of a dark one if you're
Speaker 2: all about bank robberies and or calligraphy and or murder?
Speaker 2: She wrote, why the writing's on the bathroom wall. You've
Speaker 2: landed at the correct episode, my friends. But before we
Speaker 2: get deep into it, let's first think some folks patrons
Speaker 2: at Patreon dot com who make the show possible. Thank
Speaker 2: you to everyone buying merch at ologiesmerch dot com. Thank
Speaker 2: you to the folks who subscribe and rate and especially
Speaker 2: review which I read gingerly each week I pluck a
Speaker 2: fresh one, but your reviews keep it up in the charts.
Speaker 2: So thank you to this week Anna Banana, who says
Speaker 2: my first blood meal was acroology, but unlike ticks, I
Speaker 2: needed more, lots and lots more. Never did I think
Speaker 2: I would stay sitting in my car for an extra
Speaker 2: thirty minutes to finish a podcast about hagfish, But here
Speaker 2: I am. Thank you, Dad WORDVN podcast The Pleasure an
Speaker 2: a Banana, It's all mine, Okay. Graphology, let's just roller
Speaker 2: sleeves up, let's sharpen the pencils. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2: So in Greek, graphos means to write, so it's a
Speaker 2: study of writing. Should be simple, right, Yeah, not so much, okay.
Speaker 2: So graphology is the study of personality through the analysis
Speaker 2: of handwriting traits. So can you tell if someone is
Speaker 2: like organized or anxious, or ambitious or critical through the
Speaker 2: way they write their fs and t's and ies and such.
Speaker 2: This was a field pioneered by a Frenchman, Gene Hippolyte
Speaker 2: Mashon in the mid eighteen hundreds. And before you say,
Speaker 2: wait a second, analyze a personality via handwriting, isn't that
Speaker 2: flum flam. It's been called pseudoscience, which is why this
Speaker 2: episode doesn't focus much on it. Instead, we're talking all
Speaker 2: about actual forensic handwriting analysis and signature forgeries and wills
Speaker 2: and fraud and court cases. So that field is technically
Speaker 2: called graph analysis, and this guest is an expert in
Speaker 2: that as well as does graphology on the side. So yeah,
Speaker 2: this episode title is called graphology, and this expert does
Speaker 2: do graphology. But really there's not a lot of graphology
Speaker 2: in this episode. We stick to mostly the scientific penmanship
Speaker 2: analysis and expert witness stories. So I was in Nebraska.
Speaker 2: I was on a tour through the Midwest talking to
Speaker 2: different ologists, and this was a stop in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Speaker 2: I think it was Lincoln. It was at our Omaha,
Speaker 2: got Nebraska. I'm so sorry. So I had looked on
Speaker 2: a site for expert legal witnesses in the area and
Speaker 2: I'd come across her name as a graphologist before I
Speaker 2: really understood the distinction. Anyway, we met at a conference
Speaker 2: room in the back of a Kinkos, which I don't
Speaker 2: even think they call Kinkos anymore, but whatever she came in.
Speaker 2: She was smartly dressed with curled blonde hair, carrying a
Speaker 2: folder of paperwork in case we needed visual references. She's
Speaker 2: kind of like the aunt that makes family barbecues a
Speaker 2: little more lively and gives you dating advice that you
Speaker 2: remember for years. A real hoot. So she completed a
Speaker 2: four year comprehensive handwriting profiling and forgery detection training program.
Speaker 2: She developed and taught quote red Flags of Forgery classes,
Speaker 2: and she teaches handwriting analysis through the Metropolitan Community College
Speaker 2: in Nebraska. She's so passionate about handwriting. So if you
Speaker 2: like sitting around and gabbing about weird court cases and
Speaker 2: upstrokes and downstrokes, this is your lady. So cross your eyes,
Speaker 2: dot your t's. Let's hear about why your handwriting is unique,
Speaker 2: how to protect your signature, which letters of note and
Speaker 2: ransom notes in history may have been fakes, and how
Speaker 2: you can chill out by writing stuff with graph analyst,
Speaker 2: court witness, forensic handwriting experts and also on the side graphologist.
Speaker 2: But we don't talk about that much. Sylvia Kessler.
Speaker 3: About right there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. They're on and they're ready to go.
Speaker 2: And so, now, Sylvia, you are a graphologist. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: How long have you been a handwriting expert? Oh?
Speaker 3: Since nineteen eighty that's when I opened my business.
Speaker 2: How did you get into it?
Speaker 3: I met a lady that was a retiring chiropractor and
Speaker 3: she it was my teacher, and I was just fascinated.
Speaker 3: I was just fascinated right from the very beginning with it.
Speaker 3: And so she said, well, if you're going to study this,
Speaker 3: you also need to study forensic document examination. And so
Speaker 3: I was with her for four years training. It's quite
Speaker 3: in depth and I absolutely love it today. That's how
Speaker 3: come I still haven't retired.
Speaker 2: You're like, I don't want to give it up. I
Speaker 2: like it too much.
Speaker 4: Well, it's exciting.
Speaker 3: It's exciting, and it's different every day, even though we're
Speaker 3: still talking about handwriting and documents and now technology and
Speaker 3: things like that. It's a very exciting business.
Speaker 2: Did you have impeccable penmanship as a child, Yes, you did.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 2: Do you remember when you'd have to do the cursives?
Speaker 2: Did you always like doing it?
Speaker 3: I learned to write in a one room school house
Speaker 3: in Pennsylvania, Taylortown, Pennsylvania. So we had grades one through
Speaker 3: six and we had to use the quill pen with inkwells.
Speaker 2: So quick side, what is this Palmer method? Well news
Speaker 2: to me. Different styles of penmanship over the eras have
Speaker 2: different names. This hasn't just evolved organically. So back in
Speaker 2: the seventeen hundreds, that gorgeous curly cue script was called
Speaker 2: English Round, and following that was another beautifully ornate, oval
Speaker 2: based Spencerian style script designed by this Victorian pen master Spencer.
Speaker 2: But some folks thought it was too gurly, so they
Speaker 2: created the Palmer method, which was simpler and less beautiful,
Speaker 2: but it was faster. Now. The Palmer method rained in
Speaker 2: schoolhouses from like the eighteen forties to the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: So if you wonder why old letters from fifty years
Speaker 2: ago looked like they're all written by the same great aunt,
Speaker 2: well maybe because everyone was all palmered up. But of course,
Speaker 2: the only constant in life is changed and wanting snacks.
Speaker 2: And since the Palmer method, a few different types of
Speaker 2: printing and cursive have been taught in school, so you
Speaker 2: may have learned the zan or blowser method of printing
Speaker 2: or you may have learned nothing at all. And now
Speaker 2: was there something about writing with quill pens that was
Speaker 2: soothing to you?
Speaker 4: Or well, no, that was no, that was just what
Speaker 4: we had.
Speaker 3: We had pencils and quill pens, and the only time
Speaker 3: we got to write with the quill pen.
Speaker 4: Ballpoint pens were.
Speaker 3: Invented in nineteen forty and they were invented to go
Speaker 3: through carbon papers.
Speaker 4: It was wartime and it was.
Speaker 3: They needed those to go through those duplication of papers,
Speaker 3: and so those weren't available.
Speaker 2: So side note, let's take a trip through time to
Speaker 2: just appreciate the pen in your purse, which you probably
Speaker 2: got for free from a car wash or something. So
Speaker 2: four thousand years ago, Egyptians made pens out of hollow
Speaker 2: bamboo reads. And then about fifteen hundred years ago, folks
Speaker 2: are like, I have a great idea. Let's sneak up
Speaker 2: on a live goose or maybe a turkey. Let's rip
Speaker 2: a feather out of its butt and sharpen it with, yes,
Speaker 2: a pen knife, and then use that as a writing instrument.
Speaker 2: Everyone loved this idea, except a live birds. And then
Speaker 2: in the early eighteen twenties, steel nibs were the next
Speaker 2: great thing. Literacy rates improved because of this advancement, and
Speaker 2: then only five years later, the fountain pen was patented.
Speaker 2: Who cares, you say, Well, guess what. Having a pen
Speaker 2: on your person as opposed to carrying around a jar
Speaker 2: of ink and a smeary goose feather was huge. All right,
Speaker 2: this was a big deal, But fountain pens still smeared,
Speaker 2: which sucked. So ballpoint pens as we know them, were
Speaker 2: inspired by quick drying newspaper ink. When this newspaper writer
Speaker 2: was damn sick and darn tired of spending time refilling
Speaker 2: his fountain pens and then smearing them all over the page,
Speaker 2: so he invented the ballpoint pen. Now, ballpoint pens involve
Speaker 2: pigments suspended in oil or in some cases now a smooth,
Speaker 2: silky gel in the kind of pens that you borrow
Speaker 2: from an office made and then quietly refused to give back.
Speaker 3: And now it's still chemically manufactured, but it's mostly alcohol
Speaker 3: or gel, And so that comes into play in forensics
Speaker 3: to see what kind of ink was there. And so
Speaker 3: I'm not an expert in ink, but I've studied about
Speaker 3: inc all of the things that have to do with
Speaker 3: handwriting or documents I have studied over the course of
Speaker 3: the years.
Speaker 2: What was it like when you were learning for four years?
Speaker 2: Kind of like it seems almost like an apprenticeship almost
Speaker 2: with them, It wasn't start to shock.
Speaker 3: What more was really funny about it is my teacher said,
Speaker 3: I don't want to take you a student. I had
Speaker 3: to beg her to take me as a student because
Speaker 3: she was just retiring. And I said, I will do
Speaker 3: anything you want me to do. I will pay you
Speaker 3: whatever you want me to pay. I will not argue.
Speaker 3: I will be a good student. So she finally agreed,
Speaker 3: and I would go every other weekend to Kansas City,
Speaker 3: that's where she lived.
Speaker 2: This, my friends, this is passion. So pour yourself a
Speaker 2: cup of tea, stare into the morning missed, and ask yourself,
Speaker 2: what would I drive to Kansas City to learn? And
Speaker 2: at the end of that question may hang the secret
Speaker 2: to a happier life. Anyway, I know, what are some
Speaker 2: things that a handwriting expert learns? Do you learn about
Speaker 2: the idiosyncrasies of each person's handwriting?
Speaker 4: Every person writes differently.
Speaker 3: And there's a Supreme Court ruling on this that goes
Speaker 3: back to I want to say, eighteen forty six something
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 4: Hm, the Holland will.
Speaker 2: This was not the Holland will, but the Holland will
Speaker 2: now the wishes of the late Sylvia Ann Holland, whose
Speaker 2: fortune today btw would be equivalent to thirty two million dollars.
Speaker 2: So she left half of that to charities, various entities,
Speaker 2: and the remaining half to her niece, a woman named
Speaker 2: Henrietta Howland Robinson. So upon Sylvia's death, Henrietta produced an
Speaker 2: earlier will that said everything was to go to Henrietta,
Speaker 2: with an attached note that said, nah, any future will
Speaker 2: should just be ignored, which is a weird thing to
Speaker 2: have attached to your will, But anyway, Henrietta produced it
Speaker 2: saying give me everything. So based on the number of
Speaker 2: overlapping downstrokes in the late Sylvia signature, an expert handwriting
Speaker 2: witness concluded that it was statistically near impossible to do
Speaker 2: an identical signature, and so this must be a tracing,
Speaker 2: a forgery.
Speaker 3: And this was a fascinating story. A grandson took his
Speaker 3: grandfather's letters. He kept his grandfather's letters, maybe for sentimental reason,
Speaker 3: I don't know about that, But in the long run
Speaker 3: he made out a will, cut and pasted a will,
Speaker 3: and that's called a holographic will when it's handwritten, leaving
Speaker 3: everything to him and ruling out the rest of the family.
Speaker 3: And then he was he got an agreement with a
Speaker 3: printer that had some paper that was age appropriate. They
Speaker 3: printed up this will okay, and they actually he actually
Speaker 3: got everything. However, the way the story goes is the
Speaker 3: printer got greedy and wanted more money, and when the
Speaker 3: grandson wouldn't give it to him, then he an amount.
Speaker 3: So I think they both went to jail, but I
Speaker 3: don't know how it ended, but that was that was
Speaker 3: this ruling that no two people can ever write the same,
Speaker 3: and mathematicians were brought in and somehow they proved this.
Speaker 3: It's like families may have similar writing because sometimes the
Speaker 3: parents will be teaching their children. However it's just no
Speaker 3: two people write alike. If you have enough handwriting, you
Speaker 3: will see the differences.
Speaker 2: How has handwriting changed over the decades.
Speaker 3: How has it changed like in our society?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like because if you look at a document from
Speaker 2: the eighteen hundreds, it's gorgeous. And if you look at
Speaker 2: a note that someone leaves, you know, for the mailman
Speaker 2: it's garbage. So what happened to her beautiful handwriting?
Speaker 3: Well, people quit practicing, they quit learning cursive writing over years.
Speaker 4: One of the things that was a big.
Speaker 3: Influence on why they quit teaching cursive writing was computers.
Speaker 3: I was invented to ruin your handwriting, because everybody types
Speaker 3: now and text now, and there's very that people aren't
Speaker 3: writing as much as they used to. If you get
Speaker 3: a handwritten card in the mail, you treasure it because.
Speaker 4: You get to see it.
Speaker 3: And I have collections of handwriting over all these years,
Speaker 3: and it's just fascinating. Sometimes I'll look at it and go,
Speaker 3: oh wow, I got to keep this. This is really
Speaker 3: important to you.
Speaker 2: Is there someone in the world or in history who's
Speaker 2: handwriting you think is the most beautiful any documents you've
Speaker 2: seen that You're just like Wowser's.
Speaker 3: Well, the Declaration of Independence, not only the content of it,
Speaker 3: but the beauty of it. And every now and then
Speaker 3: I will run into someone and that still writes like
Speaker 3: that with all the flourishes, and they practice that for years.
Speaker 2: So if you don't like practicing or mastering stuff, because
Speaker 2: you know, there are things on the internet to look
Speaker 2: at and naps to take I get it. You can
Speaker 2: always use this Declaration of Independence font. It's available via
Speaker 2: p twenty two dot com and it's called what Else
Speaker 2: Declaration And as long as you can print it on
Speaker 2: a thin sheet of aged cow tissue, no one will
Speaker 2: ever know it's fake. Also, the original penman of that
Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence document was Timothy Matlack, who was a
Speaker 2: Quaker and a professional engrosser who lived the ripe old
Speaker 2: age of ninety nine. So if you're scared of dying
Speaker 2: young and are convinced that good handwriting will help, you
Speaker 2: could practice the artful penmanship of calligraphy where you could
Speaker 2: start kiddos young and then have them compete for money.
Speaker 2: There's one competition called the Zaner Blowser National Handwriting Contest,
Speaker 2: and it offers five hundred bucks in prizes for the
Speaker 2: neatest penmanship. And this year a ten year old Sarah
Speaker 2: Hinsley earned the Nicholas Maxim Award in the National Handwriting Contest.
Speaker 2: One detail she was born without hands, she learned to
Speaker 2: hold a pencil and write impeccably anyway, and she told
Speaker 2: reporters she's not sure what she's going to do with
Speaker 2: the cash, but she said quote. I felt proud, and
Speaker 2: I hope others who have challenges learned from me that
Speaker 2: if you try your hardest, you can do it. So
Speaker 2: that thing you want to do but you're afraid you
Speaker 2: can't do, learn from Sarah Hinsley and try hard and
Speaker 2: then just do the thing.
Speaker 4: Nowadays it's a simplified.
Speaker 3: Writing that we do, But computers were the biggest influence
Speaker 3: for the printed word, and printing is just fine, except
Speaker 3: I can evaluate there's very few extensions, but not at
Speaker 3: all printing if it's block printing. Those people are usually
Speaker 3: very constructive, and you get that with engineers architects.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well naturally write that way.
Speaker 3: Because it feels best to them. So handwriting is a
Speaker 3: kinesthetic activity. So when you're learning these exercises, they were
Speaker 3: taught with number two lead pencils and you feel that motion.
Speaker 3: And I've actually gone to a hospital before where someone
Speaker 3: had had a head trauma and their motor skills were involved,
Speaker 3: and I've done the circular motions helped build back coordination.
Speaker 2: Has anyone ever come to you just maybe not trauma related,
Speaker 2: but just said, listen, Sylvia, my handwriting sucks. What can
Speaker 2: you do to help me? I'm an adult, can you
Speaker 2: help me with my handwriting? It's not good.
Speaker 3: Well, what's interesting is most people will tell me my
Speaker 3: handwriting is terrible, or I have two different kinds of handwriting,
Speaker 3: and it's not. It's seldom. I've only seen one or
Speaker 3: two people in my whole career that had two separate
Speaker 3: different handwritings.
Speaker 2: So let's address the elegant elephant in the room graphology proper. Okay,
Speaker 2: this again not considered heart science. So graphology hangs out
Speaker 2: kind of in the same lunch table as astrology or
Speaker 2: numerology or chirology, which is a technical term for palm reading,
Speaker 2: no joke. Should I do an episode on that? Maybe
Speaker 2: I will. Anyway, this show is ologies, and Sylvia is
Speaker 2: a legit forensic handwriting witness by day and a graphologist
Speaker 2: on the side. So let's just ask her opinion on
Speaker 2: that ology. What do you think handwriting says about a
Speaker 2: person's personality?
Speaker 3: A lot?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: How so?
Speaker 3: Now, and there's let me qualify this. Not everybody that
Speaker 3: says they're a handwriting expert is a handwriting expert.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So they'll read a book and say, oh, I can
Speaker 3: go make twenty bucks on this or something at them
Speaker 3: all or at the carnival or whatever. In fact, when
Speaker 3: I've been on I'm an expert witness about documents and
Speaker 3: signatures on documents, and I have to prove that to
Speaker 3: the benefit of the judge or jury. And so I've
Speaker 3: been asked when I was getting qualified in the beginning, well,
Speaker 3: is this like what they do over at the carnival
Speaker 3: or at.
Speaker 4: The state Fair.
Speaker 3: No, it isn't, It isn't. Yeah, I said, I don't
Speaker 3: know what they do with the state Fair because I've
Speaker 3: never been hired to go over there anyway. So to
Speaker 3: get back to your question, cursive writing is now coming back,
Speaker 3: and penmanship is now coming back into the school systems
Speaker 3: in some states. The last I heard, there were like
Speaker 3: twelve or thirteen states that have put that back into
Speaker 3: their educational system because it does build discipline, It builds
Speaker 3: self determination, builds all the characters that you can find.
Speaker 4: Now, when I get.
Speaker 3: A court case, my reputation in that area, feel that arena.
Speaker 4: That is a really heavy duty.
Speaker 2: And now tell me a little bit about the forensic
Speaker 2: side of it. What kind of cases do you get
Speaker 2: called in for?
Speaker 3: Oh, you know what, I get unfortunate. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of probate cases, which means when somebody dies, there's wills
Speaker 3: that are question, there's wills that show up that counter
Speaker 3: other wills. There's forged deeds of trust. There's a lot,
Speaker 3: and it splits families. I bet I will say to them,
Speaker 3: let's sit down at the table and discuss this. I'll
Speaker 3: tell the attorney get the other attorney, because this is
Speaker 3: going to cause a divide in this family that will
Speaker 3: never be healed unless we do it now. Some attorneys
Speaker 3: will look at me like I'm a bleeding heart. Others
Speaker 3: will say, you know, that's a good idea. Maybe we
Speaker 3: can get it settled. So when I come back with
Speaker 3: the true answers, they will usually come to some kind
Speaker 3: of agreement. And they don't always forgive one another unfortunately.
Speaker 4: But sorry, I didn't mean to do it.
Speaker 2: Does one person say well, I have a will and
Speaker 2: it's the latest will, and as someone else says, well,
Speaker 2: I have a will from nineteen seventy five, but he
Speaker 2: was in maybe a better state of mind here, or
Speaker 2: you don't you have.
Speaker 4: Medical records to back that up.
Speaker 3: It's called capacity, okay, if the person had capacity at
Speaker 3: the time they were signed in it, and if they
Speaker 3: do not have capacity whoever's there with them at the
Speaker 3: moment can influence them quite easily.
Speaker 2: So what else does Sylvia's job entail.
Speaker 4: That's just one part of it.
Speaker 3: I work with stocks or to right now, I have
Speaker 3: six cases, once with a fortune five hundred company on
Speaker 3: fraudulent invoices. One of them is with a artists that
Speaker 3: agreements were broken and he thinks that they've forged his
Speaker 3: name on something. It's just really interesting the different cases
Speaker 3: will's contracts. I've done athletic contracts that were forged.
Speaker 4: Really yes, And.
Speaker 2: How do you see when something is forged? Where do
Speaker 2: you even start?
Speaker 3: Well, you start by getting known signatures of the person
Speaker 3: that signature is supposed to be, and then you do
Speaker 3: the habitual patterns. There's people cannot help, but they have patterns.
Speaker 4: You write your name more than.
Speaker 3: Anything else that's true in your whole life, and so
Speaker 3: there will be patterns, habitual characteristics in your signature that
Speaker 3: you don't even see. You don't see it because it's unconscious.
Speaker 3: And so that's the first thing.
Speaker 2: She recalled. Another case that went down in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Speaker 3: I had the man's writing from for over six years.
Speaker 3: He was in his eighties. I had handwriting over sixty years. This,
Speaker 3: even though the writing changed as he got older, you
Speaker 3: could see how he came out of being a young
Speaker 3: man and got more serious and more efficient in what
Speaker 3: he was doing and came into his own and then
Speaker 3: you could see where his health started to decline over
Speaker 3: those sixty years.
Speaker 4: But the same habitual patterns were.
Speaker 2: There, and so was it a forgery?
Speaker 3: And so in that case it was a forgery. Yes,
Speaker 3: what's it like when the well they settled. I'm there
Speaker 3: in the courtroom after this long journey and they settled. Oh,
Speaker 3: when the opposing attorney looked at the report and looked
Speaker 3: at my illustrations. Next thing you know, they're back talking
Speaker 3: to the judge and it was all settled. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: And now what other kinds of things come up when
Speaker 2: you're doing forensic handering analysis? Like is there the type
Speaker 2: of paper is there? The type of ink is it?
Speaker 4: The hard these are all things, but they're there.
Speaker 3: Now. Our technology is about electronically lifted signatures, ye that
Speaker 3: have been manufactured from other documents. And it's amazing how
Speaker 3: much of our signatures are out there.
Speaker 4: I bet yeah.
Speaker 2: And now when it comes to electronic documents. How do
Speaker 2: you feel about things like docu sign where it's just
Speaker 2: essentially you sign a PDF.
Speaker 3: Oh, I know, I'm worried about We just bought a house. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we just bought a house, and yeah we got some
Speaker 3: final paperwork in the mail. Yeah, but it doesn't have
Speaker 3: any of our original signatures on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all electronic. That seems I just had to
Speaker 2: do a bunch of docu sign things too, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: this isn't even my handwriting, and all I'm doing is
Speaker 2: clicking a button. But that's how is that legit?
Speaker 3: They can check your where it's coming from, your IP
Speaker 3: Pewter and stuff like that, your IP address.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, and now what about signing the back
Speaker 2: of your credit cards? Should you do that or should
Speaker 2: you not?
Speaker 3: Well, if you don't, it's not going to be accepted.
Speaker 3: But what I do is I say, ask for ID.
Speaker 2: Okay. See that's a good tip from someone who is
Speaker 2: a professional forensic graphologist.
Speaker 3: And if they if we're in a restaurant and the
Speaker 3: person the waiter, waitress, whoever, takes our credit card and
Speaker 3: comes back and they don't ask for it, I said,
Speaker 3: turn over that card and look at it.
Speaker 2: And even see some id And have there been any
Speaker 2: huge forgery cases in history that have really captured your attention?
Speaker 4: No? No, well I'll tell you why.
Speaker 3: I've studied some of those and I can't even remember
Speaker 3: their names, you know. I think probably one of the
Speaker 3: most famous one is the Howard Hughes diaries. They were
Speaker 3: all forged.
Speaker 2: Oh side note, if you're like, what okay, Howard Hughes, businessman,
Speaker 2: film director, pilot, wealthy person, became a recluse and in
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies a few scoundrels devised a scheme to
Speaker 2: have artists mimic his handwriting and they got this lucrative
Speaker 2: book deal so many dollars based on this autobiography which
Speaker 2: was totally fake, and they were found out and the
Speaker 2: main perp, a guy called Clifford Irving, went to prison
Speaker 2: for like a year and a half. But during that
Speaker 2: time he gave up smoking and he took up weightlifting,
Speaker 2: so maybe it was like a bit of a glow
Speaker 2: up for him. Then he wrote a book about it,
Speaker 2: and he made gobs of money. He was married six times.
Speaker 2: They made a movie called The Hoax starring Richard gear
Speaker 2: So yay, crime does pay, and after this whole scandal
Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies. Hughes died just a few years later,
Speaker 2: likely still very annoyed. Now, any other cases that Sylvia's
Speaker 2: been really taken by.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you something though, that this fascinated me. I
Speaker 3: saw some I'm a Marilyn Monroe's handwriting in one of
Speaker 3: Oprah's magazine years ago. And then I saw a letter
Speaker 3: that was sold at Southby's for some big amount that
Speaker 3: was not the same handwriting now, and I go, WHOA,
Speaker 3: I should really take the time to look into that.
Speaker 3: But nobody's asked me about that, or but I noticed
Speaker 3: it when I saw it.
Speaker 2: So little googling turned up two different sad letters supposedly
Speaker 2: in Marilyn's handwriting, one to her acting teacher Lee Strasberg
Speaker 2: on Hotel bel Air stationery, which was written in loopy
Speaker 2: cursive kind of slinted forward as if leaning into a wind.
Speaker 2: It read, my will is weak, but I can't stand anything.
Speaker 2: I sound crazy, but I think I am going crazy.
Speaker 2: It's just that I get before a camera and my
Speaker 2: concentration and everything I'm trying to learn leaves me and
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm not existing in the human race
Speaker 2: at all, so this cursive looks nothing like another one
Speaker 2: written to her psychiatrist, which was in print, saying, I
Speaker 2: guess I've always been deeply terrified to really be someone's wife,
Speaker 2: since I know from life that one cannot love another really.
Speaker 2: Sylvia says she'd love to sit down and compare them now.
Speaker 2: She didn't leave a note before her overdose of barbituates
Speaker 2: at thirty six, and it was ruled a probable suicide
Speaker 2: by corners. Sylvia notes that a slim percentage less than
Speaker 2: thirty percent by my research, do leave notes in such
Speaker 2: a tragic occurrence, And as your pod dad, just a
Speaker 2: reminder that folks are here to listen, and the National
Speaker 2: Suicide Hotline is there twenty four hours a day one
Speaker 2: eight hundred two seven three eight two, five y five.
Speaker 2: I'll add it in the show notes now. Another famed
Speaker 2: note left by Nirvana singer Kirk Cobaine has been the
Speaker 2: subject of widespread conspiracy theories. The last few lines raised
Speaker 2: a bunch of eyebrows for decades, but Dateline at one
Speaker 2: point passed it off to four handwriting experts who concluded
Speaker 2: that it was either in Kurt's own penmanship or it
Speaker 2: was inconclusive.
Speaker 3: I've had several cases that I knew or murder, we
Speaker 3: just couldn't get it. We couldn't get the attorneys to
Speaker 3: move forward with that, or we couldn't get it investigated properly.
Speaker 2: Mm hm oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: And it's heartbreaking. It really is heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting that something like handwriting can come in
Speaker 2: to speak for the person who's gone, you know.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely absolutely, And so I consider that part of
Speaker 3: what I do is I have to take a stand
Speaker 3: for the handwriting. The truth is always in the handwriting
Speaker 3: in the papers. So you get enough of those papers
Speaker 3: and enough of the handwriting, and you can figure it out.
Speaker 3: Anonymous writing hate mail.
Speaker 2: If we're texting and typing more than we're writing, are.
Speaker 3: We leaving behind evidence of your language patterns?
Speaker 2: Yes, you are, Oh really so. Our language patterns are
Speaker 2: something that means.
Speaker 3: Language patterns are something that I have looked at before.
Speaker 3: Another case I had it was about the known handwriting
Speaker 3: had never been more than maybe six or seven lines
Speaker 3: of a paragraph on a page, and then here's this big,
Speaker 3: long letter. It's indented, it's typed, but it's indented, and
Speaker 3: the language patterns are completely different than what the person
Speaker 3: used and that was on a harassment suit that got
Speaker 3: solved real quickly.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Well, here's a fun little confidence booster to
Speaker 2: remind you about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation.
Speaker 3: You get your image out of work, You get your
Speaker 3: image out of production, whether it's work in school or work.
Speaker 3: It's not about the pay. It's about the accomplishment. That's
Speaker 3: where people get their confidence. It's not something that just
Speaker 3: comes down of the sky and blesses you. You get
Speaker 3: it from You become confident by doing things and that
Speaker 3: builds the confidence. So sometimes people will say to me, well,
Speaker 3: I want to have more confidence, And I said, so,
Speaker 3: what kind of person would it make you if you
Speaker 3: had a lot of confidence and you didn't listen to feedback, right,
Speaker 3: which we have a lot of those today, don't we?
Speaker 2: Yes, we do. And now what do you think about
Speaker 2: the daily habit of journaling or doing morning pages, of
Speaker 2: just connecting pender pencil to paper. What do you think
Speaker 2: that does?
Speaker 3: I think it's a wonderful one. It's wonderful. Not only
Speaker 3: is therapy, it's wonderful to focus. It's wonderful to have
Speaker 3: that time for yourself to really get your thoughts down
Speaker 3: on paper, and when you go back and read that
Speaker 3: years later, you go, oh, my goodness, that is so
Speaker 3: interesting because you can see it in your you know,
Speaker 3: I can see it in my handwriting over the years.
Speaker 3: How it's changed.
Speaker 2: Any movies about forgeries or handwriting that you like movies?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: You know, there's been a lot of movies where CSI
Speaker 3: you can peep. You know. The thing about going to
Speaker 3: trial now is a jury expects all of it to
Speaker 3: be like CSI Declaration of Independence, and it's not always
Speaker 3: like CSI. Sometimes they'll say things and I'll go, that
Speaker 3: is not true.
Speaker 4: How can you say that? Who wrote the script?
Speaker 3: You know? And I've had several people that are writing
Speaker 3: books that have contacted me with different handwriting questions, and
Speaker 3: I've given them information about what they could do, or
Speaker 3: where they should look, or that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: One time I had a case and the attorney told
Speaker 3: me he couldn't get any handwriter. I said, well, then
Speaker 3: we're you're going to lose his case. And I said,
Speaker 3: I can tell you from what I have this man
Speaker 3: has been a real scrapper. This is a small town.
Speaker 3: Go down to the police station and ask him if
Speaker 3: he's ever been arrested. That's public information. You're an attorney,
Speaker 3: Get out of your office and go down there and
Speaker 3: get me some handwriting. Well, sure enough, Yeah, he had
Speaker 3: been arrested three times for assault in bars.
Speaker 4: And here it is.
Speaker 3: Just exactly what I needed to prove that that was
Speaker 3: his signature. It was really an interesting case. What was
Speaker 3: he guilty of? Conspiracy to defraud a bank? Wow?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: Single.
Speaker 2: And now I have questions from listeners. Can I ask
Speaker 2: him from our susteners? Yeah they know I got listeners. Yeah, okay, patrons.
Speaker 2: Before we get to your numerous excellent questions, a few
Speaker 2: words from sponsors that I like. And these sponsors make
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Speaker 2: Okay your questions. There were one hundred and ninety three questions,
Speaker 2: so I'm not going to ask you all of them. No,
Speaker 2: we'll run through. We'll just rapid fire. Sure, we'll get
Speaker 2: as many lightning round as we can This next question
Speaker 2: was also asked by Ariel Emmab and Ira Gray. Liza
Speaker 2: Elizabeth wants to know how accurate is forensic handwriting analysis
Speaker 2: and is it a reliable source of evidence?
Speaker 3: It is if you have someone that's well trained them
Speaker 3: well qualified. Okay, you have to prove your case. You
Speaker 3: can just write a report. You know that happens a
Speaker 3: lot where they write a report. It's my opinion.
Speaker 4: Well that and what two bucks?
Speaker 2: We can go get a cup coffee. Jessica Bailey wants
Speaker 2: to know is it true that people will slap your
Speaker 2: handwriting tend to have a higher IQ not necessarily. Okay,
Speaker 2: so there you have it. This has been a known
Speaker 2: fact for decades, and one nineteen eighty four study published
Speaker 2: in Human Learning, the Journal of Practical Research and Applications
Speaker 2: states it is concluded that the lack of a significant
Speaker 2: correlation between handwriting legibility and IQSC clearly disconfirms the popular
Speaker 2: stereotype of illegible writers as unintelligent. Boom So Lacy Gilbert,
Speaker 2: Lisa Burbridge, Katie Spino, Danielle Rivera, and Deli Dames who
Speaker 2: also asked about that, and maybe have terrible penmanship but
Speaker 2: sharp minds. Breathe easy letter slobs. You're all good now.
Speaker 2: The following folks all had a similar question to Jenny
Speaker 2: Bergstrums Caitlin Carter, Jessica Beard, Raykasha, Madeline Rogers, Irony and Rosaria,
Speaker 2: and Nera. Jenny Bergstrom asks, does handwriting change over time
Speaker 2: because your personality or interests or maturity changes.
Speaker 3: All of it changes, physical, emotional, spiritual, all of it changes.
Speaker 2: What about when people dot their eyes with hearts? What
Speaker 2: do you think about that?
Speaker 3: There's something about them they want that's called an idiosyncrasy,
Speaker 3: and that means there's something about them that's really different,
Speaker 3: and they're kind of into the love, you know, sweetness
Speaker 3: and love and all of that. You know, I'm a
Speaker 3: romantic like that.
Speaker 2: Michelle Grondline Michelle Grondine wants to know what's the most
Speaker 2: commonly forged piece of writing.
Speaker 4: Oh, I would have.
Speaker 3: To say, let's see, most commonly forged piece of writing.
Speaker 3: That's a very good question. I would say probably will's
Speaker 3: So the most common OH, checks would probably be Yeah.
Speaker 2: One, is it better to write a check in sharpie
Speaker 2: so that no one you.
Speaker 3: Can actually buy pins now that they cannot bleach out
Speaker 3: the writing. One of the you know, I want to
Speaker 3: encourage everybody to get a locked mailbox or make sure
Speaker 3: that their mail is secure, because one of the common
Speaker 3: easy accesses is to go along a line of mailboxes
Speaker 3: that are just regular mailboxes. Palm down goes through the mail.
Speaker 3: If there's checks going out, they take those. If there's
Speaker 3: birthday cards or cards look like they're cards of some
Speaker 3: kind that might have money in them, they take those,
Speaker 3: open them up, take the checks, bleach them, and honestly
Speaker 3: they will still pass those checks.
Speaker 2: For more on how bleach does that? Just hit that
Speaker 2: old disinfectiology episode from a few weeks ago. Bleach not
Speaker 2: just for toilets and pools, It's also great for mail fraud.
Speaker 2: Just kidding, don't do that.
Speaker 3: So so get a locked mailbox, get a locked mailbox,
Speaker 3: and get up a You can get the pins at
Speaker 3: any of the stationary stores.
Speaker 4: That's for forgery.
Speaker 3: I've actually had people call me up and asked me
Speaker 3: if I could come and forge a document that they
Speaker 3: needed somebody's name on a document.
Speaker 4: Could I come right away?
Speaker 1: What you say?
Speaker 3: I said, sure, where do you want me to come?
Speaker 3: I got the address and then I called the police
Speaker 3: and told them that.
Speaker 4: They were expecting me.
Speaker 2: Nice, You're like wrong person to can.
Speaker 3: With us.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, this is interesting. What kind of document is that?
Speaker 3: I told him?
Speaker 4: You know, the scam scam scam busting crimes.
Speaker 2: Speaking of crimes, Stephanie Brokeyes and Derek Allen also had
Speaker 2: a similar question to Sophie's coming up. Sophie Beer wants
Speaker 2: to know what's your favorite crime that was solved with
Speaker 2: the help of handwriting experts?
Speaker 4: What is the one?
Speaker 2: What was your favorite crime that's been solved by the
Speaker 2: help of handwriting experts? Anything historical?
Speaker 4: Historically? I think probably the Hughes Diaries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh is one son your car pedic? Cool? Question?
Speaker 2: Is handwriting gender related at all? Even though you know
Speaker 2: gender's fluid and gender schmender? But why do boys typically
Speaker 2: tend to have less neat handwriting than girls?
Speaker 3: That's that is a broad generalization, because I have in
Speaker 3: my files handwriting of men that has all the flourishes,
Speaker 3: even more flourishes, and you have more Claire than you have.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: Sylvia had taken a peek at my little binder earlier
Speaker 2: and decided, based on my flair that I am inquisitive
Speaker 2: with perfectionist tendencies, but that I am not moody, and
Speaker 2: I did not have the heart or the bass to
Speaker 2: tell her that I am moody as hell. And I
Speaker 2: can get bummed out for hours just after seeing a
Speaker 2: dead bee.
Speaker 3: And in your writing, and so there's three things that
Speaker 3: you cannot tell from handwriting. Everything else is open. So
Speaker 3: the three things are whether it's a male or female,
Speaker 3: whether it's right or left handed, or how old they are.
Speaker 3: You cannot tell exact age those three things. Everything else,
Speaker 3: if you have enough handwriting and you're trained well enough,
Speaker 3: you can figure out a complete profile on the person.
Speaker 3: Even though lefties do a little smearing, they know wow. No,
Speaker 3: that is a misconception that's across the board. Another misconception
Speaker 3: is like if you're going to if you're going to
Speaker 3: forge something, you better make it different. Because you cannot
Speaker 3: write your name the same way twice in your entire lifetime.
Speaker 2: Oh, so you can have similar patterns.
Speaker 3: There's habitual patterns of variation. And so this is why
Speaker 3: it takes so long to study this. This is not
Speaker 3: just something that you pick up a book and read it,
Speaker 3: and yeah, you can get.
Speaker 4: Gather a lot of information that way.
Speaker 2: Tyler Ke wants to know when was the first case
Speaker 2: of a ransom letter being written with newspaper clippings, And
Speaker 2: is that to fool people so that they can't be traced.
Speaker 3: I don't know. He'd have to google that. That's why
Speaker 3: we have Google, is because we don't know. I don't
Speaker 3: know about the ransom notes.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll look that up. This, as it turns out,
Speaker 2: is an excellent question because it pulled back the curtain
Speaker 2: to reveal a big flashing neon sign that read in
Speaker 2: curly script flim flam. So apparently people don't even ransom
Speaker 2: note like that, according to design historian doctor Arden Stern
Speaker 2: in her thesis the ransom note effect, cut and pacee
Speaker 2: typography in American visual culture, the imagery of a note
Speaker 2: penned by a criminal with cut and paste letters originated
Speaker 2: from the Sherlock Holmes crime novel The Hound of the
Speaker 2: Baskervilles from the early nineteen hundreds. But before you go
Speaker 2: doing evil with the written word, be warned that your
Speaker 2: printer might be secretly encoding its own signature via tiny
Speaker 2: yellow micro doots that show up under blue light, and
Speaker 2: it's on everything you print. Oops, so don't go crime in. Also,
Speaker 2: y'all know I'm not a big true crime lover, please
Speaker 2: see Get Sad about a Dead Bee. But many of
Speaker 2: you brought up a certain famous handwritten ransom note involved
Speaker 2: in the nineteen ninety six death of a small child.
Speaker 2: And there's plenty of media spotlight on this case already,
Speaker 2: so I'm sure I don't have to name it. But
Speaker 2: before today I didn't even know that there was a
Speaker 2: ransom note involved. But an overwhelming percentage of forensic handwriting
Speaker 2: analysts agree that the ransom note is in the mom's handwriting,
Speaker 2: and either way that life was still lost. Now, what
Speaker 2: about life savers out there? This next question was also
Speaker 2: asked by Nikki d Abigail Manlin, Kate Chapman, and Michael Satambuka.
Speaker 2: Sera Terry and a lot of other people asked what
Speaker 2: is the old or is the old stereotype true that
Speaker 2: all doctors have sloppy handwriting? Where did that even come
Speaker 2: from in the first place?
Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness, Every doctor that I've ever seen has it.
Speaker 3: I can say that they.
Speaker 4: All have it. I think.
Speaker 3: I think where it comes from, though, is speed and
Speaker 3: acceleration when a doctor goes through the residency. It's completely
Speaker 3: insane what they put doctors through. I have several friends
Speaker 3: that have told me horror stories about working. You know, yes,
Speaker 3: all those long hours. I'm doing double shifts and they're
Speaker 3: grinding all the time. It's very stressful, and when you
Speaker 3: get stressed, you tend to make more of the mountain peaks.
Speaker 3: Do you imagine that? Yes?
Speaker 4: And Donald Trump's.
Speaker 3: Handwriting is a really good example of that. He shows
Speaker 3: his signature all the time and it's just pure mountain peaks.
Speaker 3: Donald's is like his stubbornness shows up because they're like tepis.
Speaker 2: Okay, So side note, I Google image searched the president's
Speaker 2: signature and it did not It didn't remind me of
Speaker 2: anything related to indigenous people's culture. It's more like a
Speaker 2: few people standing at the forefront of a big crowd,
Speaker 2: but they're all wearing hats, but like pointy ones. Any
Speaker 2: who's all So A bunch of people had this next question,
Speaker 2: including Laura Shelti, Lawrence Ashra Coulhech, car Robin Cohen, Robin Cohen,
Speaker 2: and Charlotte rudrig taren Haik asked, there's such a rise
Speaker 2: in mobile devices that they seem to sign their name
Speaker 2: more with their finger than an actual pen these days,
Speaker 2: and they don't think it looks anything like the real signature.
Speaker 2: So does the method of finger signing capture really hold up? Like,
Speaker 2: what do you think done?
Speaker 3: I've done a couple of drug cases where the where
Speaker 3: they were serious drug cases on narcotics and where people
Speaker 3: were selling prescriptions and the signatures that they gave me.
Speaker 3: It was amazing that you could see the patterns in there.
Speaker 3: It wasn't perfect, but you could see the handwriting, the
Speaker 3: habitual patterns that I mentioned. You could see those on
Speaker 3: the ones that this one person had really even on
Speaker 3: a finger swipey even on and it's it was on
Speaker 3: where you just write out your name with your finger.
Speaker 2: Timothy Dikes asks what is the best way to train
Speaker 2: your handwriting both in print and cursive?
Speaker 3: To get a go online and get a penmanship print
Speaker 3: out and make sure you have on on the cursive writing,
Speaker 3: make sure that you have your upper loops, your lower loops,
Speaker 3: and your your middle zone loops.
Speaker 2: Oh how many other people asked about different handwritings. So
Speaker 2: many of yous, including Jenny Bergstrom, Kaitlyn Carter, Jessica Beard,
Speaker 2: Ray kash At, Madeline Rogers I, Renee Rosaria, and Aira
Speaker 2: Sonia Karb Graham, Tedtersall, Rachel Wahlberg, Troy Clarkson, Caleb Patten,
Speaker 2: Don e Wald, Emily Hobin, Kelly Bradenthal, Cody Albert, Wayne Brantley,
Speaker 2: Mma Fiory, Jen Athenas and Casey Arden had a great question,
Speaker 2: why the heck do I have eighty seven different handwritings?
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's so neat it looks like a typeface. Sometimes
Speaker 2: it's illegible. Sometimes I have a curly letters, sometimes not.
Speaker 2: What is up with this? Jen Anathos says, yes, what
Speaker 2: she said.
Speaker 4: Well, that depends, you know. That's something I would have
Speaker 4: to look at.
Speaker 3: But generally speaking, people will tell me they have different handwritings,
Speaker 3: and all it means is sometimes it's sloppy, and sometimes
Speaker 3: it's neaterter, sometimes.
Speaker 4: It's bigger and bigger.
Speaker 3: If we are real scattered, if our energy is real scattered,
Speaker 3: and we have too many balls in the air, so
Speaker 3: to speak, then our handwriting will be large and.
Speaker 4: Sloppy. Generally speaking, Now, one way that you can calm.
Speaker 3: Yourself is to write a sentence and then just keep
Speaker 3: making it smaller and smaller and smaller, and you will
Speaker 3: actually feel internally, you will feel a sense of focus. Wow,
Speaker 3: it's like meditation. It will bring you into focus very quickly,
Speaker 3: just as long as it takes you, you know, like
Speaker 3: a few minutes just to write three or four sentences
Speaker 3: and making it smaller. Your mind knows what to do
Speaker 3: with these things. It's really cool. And like you could
Speaker 3: have a child. If you have a child that's having
Speaker 3: a fit or tantrum, you can have them draw a
Speaker 3: line and then draw another line a little shorter, another
Speaker 3: line a little shorter, and even if you're directing their hand,
Speaker 3: they will still calm down.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great tip. I love this question from jen Anathas.
Speaker 2: She says, why does it seem some kinds of pens
Speaker 2: make my handwriting nicer and some are not as good
Speaker 2: for my handwriting? And is there an ultimate pen?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: What is the most expensive pen, what's the nicest? What
Speaker 2: do you have a preferred pen?
Speaker 4: I have a preferred pin.
Speaker 3: I use a uniball okay, and I only sign I
Speaker 3: only sign documents important documents.
Speaker 4: With blue ink okay.
Speaker 3: And I use a Uni ball rolling writer and I
Speaker 3: never use ballpoint pin. Ballpoint pin will seep into the
Speaker 3: fibers of a paper. In a few years, I discovered
Speaker 3: that when I was going through some original checks that
Speaker 3: had been written in ballpoint pen?
Speaker 2: Are ballpoint pens bad for writing checks?
Speaker 3: What the fuck?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: I looked into this and apparently most ballpoint pens are
Speaker 2: die based and they're easy to wash using a solvent
Speaker 2: of matching polarity like nail polish remover. But uniball and
Speaker 2: other gel pens are pigment based and you can't remove
Speaker 2: pigments without destroying the paper. Also, so text your crush
Speaker 2: cut bangs, get yourself a nice gel pen live for today.
Speaker 2: What about point size? Are you a point five? Are
Speaker 2: you fine?
Speaker 4: I like five to seven?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: What do you think I hold my pencil on my
Speaker 2: third finger. I think we're supposed to hold it like this.
Speaker 2: Is there a best way to hold your pens? It's, however,
Speaker 2: is most comfortable for you? Yeah? I think I Yeah,
Speaker 2: I do it on the third And.
Speaker 3: To answer her question, each person will have a preference
Speaker 3: for what kind of pen and paper. I love papers.
Speaker 3: I have more paper at my house than you can imagine.
Speaker 3: And I love pins, pencils, And I don't like those
Speaker 3: erasers on there that blur. I like the white gummy
Speaker 3: erasers that get it cleanly swept off.
Speaker 2: So many maybe lefties had the same question, including Jack
Speaker 2: kellaher Katy Halverson, One Way, Ariel Bruce, Katie Chavez, Wayne Brentley,
Speaker 2: don Edwald, Michelle Grondine, Sophie Cosno, Nathan Elgrim, Jessica iron A,
Speaker 2: and and a lot of people had this question. Hannahleise
Speaker 2: asks why is the right hand considered to be the
Speaker 2: proper hand for writing? Does it have a practical or
Speaker 2: religious background? I know my sister went to Catholic school
Speaker 2: and then nuns wouldn't let her use her left handy.
Speaker 4: Isn't it?
Speaker 3: You know we program our children by where we put
Speaker 3: their silverware. Oh, really, think about that for a moment.
Speaker 3: We were always taught that this is how you set
Speaker 3: the table.
Speaker 2: Sylvia pause here to get a cough drop. In a
Speaker 2: Catholic school, they would come and smack you because sinistra left.
Speaker 2: You know, the hand of the devil.
Speaker 3: I know, it's just superstitious stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
Speaker 3: Most things are being developed for right handed people because
Speaker 3: of that very fact that we were forced to write
Speaker 3: with our right hand, or program based on where our
Speaker 3: silverware was.
Speaker 4: So I recommend that if you're with your children, you've
Speaker 4: just put the silverware in the middle of the plate
Speaker 4: and let them decide which hand they want to use.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 4: Isn't that a good idea?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Do you know what a hagfish is? A hagfish is
Speaker 2: a kind of a slimy eel like fish that doesn't
Speaker 2: have a backbone, and it exudes just gallons of mu kiss.
Speaker 2: But they coil into a little coil, and some of
Speaker 2: them coil one way and some of them coil the
Speaker 2: other way. They have right handed and left handed preferences.
Speaker 2: Isn't that cute, these little hagfish at the bottom of
Speaker 2: the ocean. I think that's wonderful.
Speaker 4: And so if you look in nature, that's the same truths.
Speaker 3: And so even back in the cave dwellings, back in
Speaker 3: Caesar's time, he would select his people by their handwriting.
Speaker 2: He would.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what he told me.
Speaker 4: Anyway back in the day.
Speaker 3: That's something that I read in one of my historical
Speaker 3: books about handwriting.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that surprises me. So back then, soide note,
Speaker 2: there were people who acted as assistants and then they
Speaker 2: just take notes as orators orated. They were called a menuensis,
Speaker 2: which sounds a lot like a medical condition that I
Speaker 2: don't want. What do you think of celebrities who are
Speaker 2: asked to give autographs. Are they giving away their signature
Speaker 2: to everyone who asked for it? Is there any security?
Speaker 3: Ahoman? Not really.
Speaker 4: Well, it's going to be probably.
Speaker 3: It probably gets pretty sloppy as it goes along, because
Speaker 3: I've watched them sign these autographs and they do it
Speaker 3: just you know, there in a hurry. Some of them
Speaker 3: will actually have different pins for them to use and
Speaker 3: then they take the pen back. So I think that's fine.
Speaker 3: I don't think that there's a problem. That is where
Speaker 3: the most fraud is committed, though, as in memorabilia, So
Speaker 3: be very cautious about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if you have some scribbled on poster halle Berry,
Speaker 2: how do you know that she actually signed it.
Speaker 3: You don't unless you have some of her known signatures,
Speaker 3: and there can be natural variation. It could be that
Speaker 3: she had a signature for her public and a signature
Speaker 3: for her own personal account.
Speaker 2: Do you have any autographs from famous people that you treasure?
Speaker 3: Well, James Taylor. I actually James Taylor signed a guitar
Speaker 3: for me. One of my good friends took me to
Speaker 3: see James Taylor and got a picture of me with
Speaker 3: James Taylor. He's who always been one of my favorites. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and he's signed a guitar for me.
Speaker 2: What do you think of a signature?
Speaker 3: Didn't pay much attention to it, truthfully.
Speaker 4: No, people think I look at everything. No I don't.
Speaker 3: I have had people's personal diaries that had all kind
Speaker 3: of stuff in it, and I'm just looking at the
Speaker 3: characteristic Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then when I took.
Speaker 3: It back, the guy said, well, what did you think
Speaker 3: about all of that? And I said, oh, what I said,
Speaker 3: you didn't read it? And I said, no, I don't
Speaker 3: read the content. Usually now in forensics, I have to
Speaker 3: read the content.
Speaker 4: But it's just funny.
Speaker 2: It's just funny when it comes to, you know, leaving
Speaker 2: behind a will or something. I talked to a panatologist
Speaker 2: who is a grief counselor, and she said that written
Speaker 2: wills in an envelope just saying yo, this is my will,
Speaker 2: those are legit. Do you think people should write those
Speaker 2: in their own handwriting instead of typing them?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 4: Okay, anything that's typed has doubt on it.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: And if you write it out as call a holographic will,
Speaker 3: and each state has different rules on it, jot it
Speaker 3: down to watch piece paper it's I think it's terrific
Speaker 3: to have one typed by an attorney or a law
Speaker 3: firm and signed and witnesses. And then I also think
Speaker 3: that on your personal stuff that you want to give away,
Speaker 3: if you have that in your handwriting and includes your handwriting.
Speaker 2: With it, oh good idea, you.
Speaker 4: Know, letters and put the evidence there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, makes your job easier.
Speaker 3: Well, it makes the job for the errors easier too,
Speaker 3: because I have seen families just say I can't find anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, so leave it with just leave it behind.
Speaker 2: That's a great idea, you know. I think we always think, oh,
Speaker 2: with a will, you've got to type it up and
Speaker 2: have a notarye prace. But it better have something than nothing.
Speaker 3: Well, the notaries are always suspect to these days because
Speaker 3: not everybody keeps a notary. Log I have one case
Speaker 3: where the man, let's see, his first wife died, he
Speaker 3: got married the second time. She had three children, he
Speaker 3: had two. They were married for like thirty years. The
Speaker 3: man dies and he leaves everything to his wife. If
Speaker 3: she's deceased, then it's to go to the children. So
Speaker 3: here's what happens. He dies, she gets everything, and then
Speaker 3: she lives quite a long time, maybe ten years longer,
Speaker 3: and then she leaves everything to her kids and rules
Speaker 3: out his and each one of those girls lost a
Speaker 3: million dollars.
Speaker 4: Oh boy.
Speaker 3: And it came primarily from his retirement. But because of
Speaker 3: the way it was written, it wasn't spelled out.
Speaker 2: You'd think the step kids would be like, we know
Speaker 2: this is rightfully yours. You would think with that much money, yeah,
Speaker 2: he has stepsisters.
Speaker 3: Indeed, I saw the will of the mother and someone
Speaker 3: had written over it in written over her say it
Speaker 3: was a fraudulent will, the signatures on it, and yet
Speaker 3: they couldn't do anything about it because so much time
Speaker 3: had passed it.
Speaker 2: I mean, they should just do a CSI handwriting and
Speaker 2: you should be the producer of it.
Speaker 4: Well, sure, absolutely, and just show me the money.
Speaker 2: Okay, and then you'll show you the signature on the check. First.
Speaker 2: What do you dislike about your job? What sucks about
Speaker 2: your job?
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's stressful because everything seems to come at one time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I had.
Speaker 4: These five cases.
Speaker 3: It all came this week, and that doesn't count what
Speaker 3: I've got on the back burner waiting. And so sometimes
Speaker 3: it'll it'll come all at one time, and it's with
Speaker 3: heavy deadlines and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: But I wouldn't even say I hate it. It's distressful. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I love my job.
Speaker 3: I love the fact that I can do it, and
Speaker 3: I feel very competent in doing it, and it's just.
Speaker 4: A lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's your favorite thing about what you do or
Speaker 2: about handwriting?
Speaker 3: Helping an attorney solve the case, whether it's in probate
Speaker 3: or helping a family that's got a problem child and
Speaker 3: they don't know what to do. And I can't tell
Speaker 3: you how many gifted children. I can think of three
Speaker 3: right off the top of my head where they were
Speaker 3: in trouble at school, but it's because they were bored.
Speaker 4: Out of their head. They weren't turning into homework. They
Speaker 4: were quite gifted.
Speaker 3: And one little boy, he was eleven years old. I
Speaker 3: insisted that the parents take him and get his IQ
Speaker 3: tested and he was off the charts in math. And
Speaker 3: here he is just suffering. I mean school was like
Speaker 3: prison to him. Yeah, and he was just bored and
Speaker 3: there's just yeah, he was just bored.
Speaker 2: So helping people, helping families, making a measurable difference, yea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, things that I can results.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do people write you handwritten thank you notes, because
Speaker 2: they should not very often they should they but they
Speaker 2: will usually send me emails. They'll send me emails and
Speaker 2: they'll express their gratitude.
Speaker 4: And that's sweet.
Speaker 3: It's it is sweet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And do you write HANDWRT? Think you know?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Of course you do. Of course I do. And if
Speaker 2: nothing else, all of us listening should just remember how important.
Speaker 3: Go buy some nice notepaper and think of somebody that's
Speaker 3: been important to you and just write them a nice, little,
Speaker 3: sweet little note that says you're so important in my life,
Speaker 3: thank you for all the things. I have a friend
Speaker 3: that I was struggling with my oven racks, scrubbing them meticulously,
Speaker 3: and I could not get them clean, and I was
Speaker 3: just ready to There were an upper there's an upper oven,
Speaker 3: and the lower oven. There's six racks altogether, and I'm going, God,
Speaker 3: I'll never get through with these. And I'm not a
Speaker 3: domestic goddess anymore. I just can't do this. And so
Speaker 3: I was complaining to my friend, and she said, put
Speaker 3: him in your dishwasher on the highest temperature and put
Speaker 3: two pods in there and it'll be just fine. And
Speaker 3: they were.
Speaker 4: So young. People have a lot to contribute to us.
Speaker 2: Do you write her thank you note? You gotta write
Speaker 2: her think, Oh yeah I did.
Speaker 3: I wrote her a thank you note from Brian Andreas's collection.
Speaker 3: He's an artist that does these quirky things and I
Speaker 3: love his work.
Speaker 2: Ps. I looked up the stationary and I expected to
Speaker 2: find like an ornate, cream colored paper, maybe with gold
Speaker 2: foiled Venetian floral motifs. But no, his work very bold
Speaker 2: colors with sketchy modern drawings, very cute.
Speaker 3: And so I said, You've helped me with so many things,
Speaker 3: but those oven racks, that was off the chart.
Speaker 2: What's her name?
Speaker 3: Her name is Roxand Brand and she's in Warwick, New York.
Speaker 2: Well, now, Roxanne Brand is gonna help a lot of
Speaker 2: people with their oven racks. There's a lot of people
Speaker 2: that are be like, but I'm in the dishwasher for
Speaker 2: two pods. So thanks for hot temperature. Okay, hot hot
Speaker 2: two pods. Yeah, thanks Roxanne of Warwick, Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for being on. This is amazing, You're welcome, This
Speaker 2: is so much.
Speaker 4: For coming to Nebraska.
Speaker 2: Absolutely worth it. Thank you so ask smart people stupid
Speaker 2: questions and maybe treat yourself to a stationary store. Write
Speaker 2: someone in a letter, Get yourself a little notebook, Wake
Speaker 2: up early, let your mind dribble out of a pen.
Speaker 2: No judgment Now. To learn more about Sylvia's work, She's
Speaker 2: at Forgery Deetection Experts dot com and more links will
Speaker 2: be up at aliwar dot com, slash ologies slash Graphology.
Speaker 2: We're at Ologies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at ali
Speaker 2: Ward with one L on both. I'm also on the
Speaker 2: CBS show Innovation Nation every Saturday morning, and I host
Speaker 2: my own science show on the CW called Did I
Speaker 2: Mention Invention? And I'm on the Netflix kid series Brainchild.
Speaker 2: You can get Ologies merch at ologiesmerch dot com, tag
Speaker 2: itt ologies merch on Instagram and we'll repost that photo
Speaker 2: look at us. Thank you to Shannon Felts and Bonnie
Speaker 2: Dutch of the podcast You Are That for managing the merch,
Speaker 2: and thank you Aaron Talburn and Hanle Lippo for adminting
Speaker 2: the Facebook group full of wonderful people. If you're not
Speaker 2: on Facebook, you can also join the subreddit Ologies podcast
Speaker 2: to chat about episodes and science stuff there. Thank you
Speaker 2: Jared Sleeper of the mental health podcast My Good Bad
Speaker 2: Brain for assistant editing and helping with some extra research
Speaker 2: this week, and of course to the penman who keeps
Speaker 2: it all in shipshape, Stephen Ray Morris of the podcast
Speaker 2: s Jurassic Right and the per Cast for stitching it
Speaker 2: all together every week. Nick Thorburn wrote and performed the music,
Speaker 2: and he's in the band Islands and they're a great band. Now,
Speaker 2: if you stick around to the end of the episode,
Speaker 2: you know I tell you a secret this week. The
Speaker 2: secret is I got a dog at Long Last. I've
Speaker 2: wanted one for like ten years. She's a gray little
Speaker 2: rescue poodle mix with giant ears. She looks like a gremlin,
Speaker 2: and so her name turned out to be Gremy. But
Speaker 2: before naming her, I asked all the folks on the
Speaker 2: Patreon page what their aunt's names were, because I wanted
Speaker 2: to name my pups somehow after them. Just for making
Speaker 2: the show possible, It's totally changed my life. It's given
Speaker 2: me the guts to finally get a dog. And so
Speaker 2: her name is officially Gremlin gr em Ly and n
Speaker 2: aka grem Linda because I crunched the numbers and Linda
Speaker 2: and Lynn were some of the most popular ants names
Speaker 2: that y'all had, so part of her name is named
Speaker 2: after y'all on Patreon, So thank you Patreon. I have
Speaker 2: a dog. Now I get to keep making this podcast
Speaker 2: every week. It's the best job ever. Also a granola
Speaker 2: for dinner while writing this, but I had like three bowls.
Speaker 2: I feel so sick now, but.
Speaker 1: I was so good.
Speaker 2: Okay, bye bye pacodermatology, hobbiology or doo zoology, lithology, new technology, meteorology, metatology, menthology, seriology, elinology,
Speaker 2: and now we're going to talk about loops.