# The old handwriting only survives here as a scribble

> A grocery list starts in cursive, gets struck through mid-word, and finishes in plain block capitals — the only hand this house's notes get written in now.

August 22, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-handwriting-that-changed-to-block-capitals

One torn scrap of notepaper, pinned dead centre on a kraft brown tee. Near the top, a single word
is struck through so heavily in looping cursive that no letter survives. Below it, a short list
runs down the page in plain block capitals — MILK, EGGS, TAPE, SOAP — bigger and heavier than the
scribble above it.

That word is the last thing this house's notes were ever written in cursive. Everything below it,
and everything since, gets written the way anyone in the room can read it without slowing down.

## What's actually printed on the shirt?

A single sheet, pinned at the top, torn along the bottom. One line near the top is a dense loop of
crossed-out cursive with nothing legible left in it. Underneath, a short list sits in even block
capitals, each word larger than the ruined one above.

Nothing else is written on the page. No heading, no name at the top, no date — just the failed line
and the list that replaced it.

## Why cross the word out instead of starting the note over on a clean sheet?

Because the point isn't a tidy note. It's the moment the old habit got caught mid-word and
abandoned on the spot.

A cursive hand is fast because it doesn't stop to think about who's reading it — which is exactly
the problem, on a note meant for a kitchen counter. The word gets struck through where the switch
happened, not erased, because the correction is the more useful fact than the clean version would
have been.

## Why does an adult change their own handwriting for something as ordinary as a shopping list?

Because a note left on a counter gets read by whoever's in the kitchen next, and cursive is a
private hand that was never built for that.

Block capitals don't require the reader to already know the writer's particular loops and slants.
A list in cursive is legible to one person; the same list in plain capitals is legible to anyone in
the house, including someone still sounding out letters one at a time. That's a different job from
[a child's own signature caught mid-development](/stories/the-way-they-sign-their-name), where
the unevenness is the whole point — here, evenness is the whole point.

## How is this different from a list written out in a child's own spelling?

The hand doing the changing is the other way round. There, a child's spelling is kept exactly as
they wrote it; here, an adult's own handwriting is the thing that got retrained.

[A grocery list spelled out phonetically, in felt-tip, exactly as a child said the
words](/stories/the-list-they-wrote) records a young voice before it corrects itself. This one
records an adult correcting themselves on purpose, mid-list, for someone else's benefit rather than
their own.

## Whose handwriting is this, and does it need clearing with anyone?

The household's own — an invented word, an invented list, in nobody's copyrighted typeface or
trademarked hand.

There's no artwork borrowed from anywhere and no real product named on the page. The only person
with a claim on this particular scribble is whoever wrote it, and they're the one asking for it to
be printed.

## Does this design work for a note that isn't a shopping list?

Yes — any short, everyday note works the same way: one line struck through in the old hand, a short
replacement in the new one, pinned or taped flat.

A note left [under a magnet on the fridge](/stories/fridge-note-and-the-magnet) works the
same way a list does — it's read fast, by whoever's nearest, and the switch to block capitals holds
for both. What matters is keeping one failed line in view rather than cropping it out.

## Isn't switching handwriting for a shopping list overkill?

It would be, if it stayed on shopping lists. It didn't — the block capitals are how this person
writes everything now, notes nobody but them will ever see included.

The change started as a decision made for someone else's benefit and turned into the only way this
hand writes anymore. Nobody announced it, and nobody switched back once the original reason for it
had passed. That's the part worth printing: not the list, but how completely the old habit lost out
to the new one.

## Does it print well?

Yes — the contrast between a dense cursive scribble and clean block capitals is exactly the kind of
hard-edged, flat mark that [survives fabric without turning to mud](/stories/bold-shapes-survive-fabric).

One dark ink is enough for the whole page; a second, lighter tone for the paper itself keeps the
scribble and the list reading as one object rather than two. Keep the crossed-out line dense rather
than trying to render individual loops — at fabric's scale, the mass of the scribble is what reads,
not any single stroke in it.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the note at [JustOG](/) — what the list says, and which word got struck through in the old
hand. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to
order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Nobody has written a note in cursive in this house for years. The scribble is the only proof one
ever did.