I have atrocious handwriting. I’m right handed, but I write like a lefty, and it all just comes out bad. And it goes beyond print writing. Upon looking at my signature on an ID card, a friend of mine recently asked “were you drunk when you signed this?” It really is that bad.

So that’s why I was glad to see that Keynes had horrible handwriting too. In fact, most of it is downright illegible. We went to the King’s College archives today, and got to see his drafts, notes, and revisions for his General Theory. I managed to eke out a few words, but most of it was just impossible to decipher. Maybe I too can become a genius that no one can read.

Maybe even better is the fact that Keynes wasn’t a very good writer. His original drafts have large sections crossed out by himself and other editors. He liked to put in lots of fluff, even resorting to bad humor. One reader wrote back that he thought Keynes would offend people and no one would listen to him.

Given how fond Alicia has been of complaining about my writing style lately, it’s good to know that even Keynes wrote cliché, fluffy and irrelevant stuff. He just wasn’t as lazy when it came time to edit it. So let’s skip the extra step. Please direct any comments on my writing style straight to the Carleton archives.

Note: I really do value comments. Feel free to hurt my self-esteem.

Posted on July 13th, 2004 by Lee
Tagged: Cambridge, Economics, Studyabroad