Variation in how people write: thoughts.

One of the things I 've noticed as I prep different posts to drop on different platforms for existing vocabularly words and whats out there, and for my own attempts, is the potential for variability.

I think there has been an assumption in the groups by a lot (I'm projecting so maybe not) so far that there is only one real way to write each word, or at least its highly restricted. And this makes sense to a degree. If the word is wrong, its wrong. If the thumb is going the wrong direction or you forget the vertical indicator, or if you use a hinge when you need a flutter, this isn't variability. Its confusion. Chaouse in the streatz, sukeye rayning kats and dewgs.

But recently (by recently I mean the last 6 months) watching some dialogue in the (now defunkt) facebook group I've been coming to terms with variability. Its not just variability in someone's handwriting style, I can see between handwriting and typing there are restrictions; what you might be able to do with drawing, you really can't do with typing, but typing has helped open up the writing system to more people than I think its really obvious publicly.

For example, when it comes to presumptions of rightness and wrongess, a certain writing view (I don't know what its called, I should look it up), like profile, front view, unanchored view, might be favored, by some, but for others the side view might be the thing

I favor front view for "Why", but I saw someone comment "Why?" using sideview recently during the fb group collapse.

In fact, that was my brain connection moment.

I went, thats not the official way to right "why", and then I went, but a) I completely understand them and b) they were actually using the writing to communicate, and the person they were asking it of responded back (in English) with complete understanding. ASLwrite was being used to communicate about something other than "did I write this right" or "how does this fit into the topic of language", (which there is nothing wrong with; still the whole point of asking if you wrote something right, is so you can use it correctly to communicate something later).

The response was in english not ASLWrite, but I really saw that what happened with the "why" is communication.

So did I need to nitpick side profile "why" in favor of the official front profile "why" when it actually served its purpose?

I'm beginning to form a much more flexible opinion of the variation of certain signs, while a more rigid opinion of the rejection of pther variations, and most of it is based on pronounceability by the hands (manual replicability?) or of the mind into virtual hands.

So this is a new metric for me; whats really affected my sense of how to "spell" or form written signs is now: do I understand it, and do I understand it in spite of or because of how its formed?

If I understand it in spite of how its written, there is something I can learn about writing it better, like fixing a thumb direction (thumbs are hard people).

But if I understand it because of how its written, then thats what matters to me; I'll count it as an acceptable variation until a larger volume of use shakes something out.

Did you use a flutter and a flutter worked? Did you use a B hand when someone else uses a 5 hand, but they both produce the sign? Then, I think that's the whole point of being able to write.

I think in looking for "The Word" or the one undeniable right way to write a word, like we do in a dictionary, we can lose site of actual writing, and the lovely variability that can occur. Eventually down the road those variations will either collapse into a singular preferred way of writing something or will solidify into multiple accepted version and create an accent in people's writing that is valid and uniqueifying (is that a word? what word am I looking for).

Kaos in the streetz, skai reigning catz and dawgs.

But it also comes at the risk of people who aren't quite there yet deciding for themselves that anything goes, which could result in some very proudly wrong assertions of competence, possibly announcing a very wrong way of writing something which other people run with because there are so few examples, and so somehow becomes solidified when it shouldn't. A language thorn that will be difficult to remove and bloody things up down the line.

I think thats what I fear - I will think I am too competent than I am in my confidence, but also that I will restrict myself too much and not be able to write anything in the search for perfection, with the the suspicion of this being a thing for others in the writing community as well.

anyway, I guess that's why this page exists in part (not just a documentation and spread the word thing), so that I can try and be cool with failing, and then make sure to mark it as such.