It is often during adolescence that students assert themselves, particularly through their writing. Most girls form rounded letters, with circles on the i’s, instead of dots. A style that is passed down through generations and which already reveals their personality.
You have probably already noticed it during your childhood, in your school notebooks or those of your classmates, on the blackboard, or even today, if you know a young schoolgirl around you, who has a tendency to round off her letters or to put circles on the i’s instead of dots. This type of writing has a name: “Saint Mary” writing, a style that began in the 1980s and seems to be passed down from generation to generation. Moreover, it is mainly girls who use this writing which has become gendered and recognizable as “girl’s writing”. But writing roundly also has an explanation and reflects the personality of the students, according to Maryse Canovas, graphologist.
In an article in Le Parisien, the specialist explains that girls who write like this generally have a well-kept notebook. “Boys have less concern to please, to apply themselves. The line is more angular, the movement more rapid, like the affirmation of a combativeness. In girls, the line is softer. They are more in the control, less spontaneous and more in the search to fit into a mold to be better accepted,” she explains. Adolescent girls who write with circles on their i’s, sometimes adding hearts or flowers, are therefore rather diligent students, who want to do well.
This airy spelling is nevertheless different from the writing that our grandmothers used. In their time, the way of writing was more “tightened, more strict”. The writing style therefore evolves over time. For the specialist, these circles on the i’s are synonymous with a “structuring narcissism, which plays a role on the self-esteem, the personality” of children, in the positive sense. Note that as they grew up, the students who wrote with a very rounded style gradually left aside the circles on the i’s, which seems childish, like the calligraphy used by Disneyland Paris. “When I started working in a company, my writing style changed, naturally, probably because as we evolve in life, we also change our writing,” remarks Sophie, a former fan of circles on les i, now 35 years old.