TNAG-1101-FCO40-1351-Legislation-on-homosexuality-in-Hong-Kong-including--Report--1981 — Page 248

259

SEREK DAVIS

PAGE

6

Hong Kong Commission.

Report 750809

there are the structure, slant,

movements

-

formations

Secondly,

speed and fluency

accidentally.

www

-

which

can

be modified

at will.

pressure, size,

tendencies

which

may

vary but

normally remain relative but can be altered intentionally or

Neither the 'formations' nor the 'tendencies' are reliable on

their own for identification of handwriting;

it is the

personal

idiosyncrasies

habits

that should be used.

The habits are subconscious and constant, remaining So

because they are not seen by the writer; nor by those

looking normally or even closely at handwriting. They are

minute unconscious decisions unknown to the writer;

therefore becoming consistent.

As an example of these personal idiosyncrasies (habits) it

would be unusual if a person knew, without either reflection

or physically reproducing the movement, in which direction

he writes a capital '0', clockwise or anti-clockwise; or,

which stroke of a capital 'T' is written first, whether the

vertical or the horizontal, and which stroke is the last used

to produce a capital 'E'. Similarly, there are minute

subconscious decisions as to where in the text a writer

stops to cross a lower case 't' or dot an 'i'; at which

points of writing continuous words does

the pen, instinctively and consistently. | have used the

English language as an example because of the material in

question but the same dicta apply consistently in the minute

unnoticed detail of all languages. These are a selection of

the many types of personal idiosyncrasies that occur in any

person's handwriting which should be found by the expert

and recognised when demonstrated.

he pause to lift

Continued