Can't Read A Letter

What makes individual letters illegible?

Secretary Hand letters
Learning lower case Secretary Hand letters is half the battle in Scots palaeography for the period 1500-1750. Remember the ones which are significantly different from their modern equivalents: 'e', 'c', 't', 'r', 's', 'h', 'k'. If in doubt go to the page About the Writing

Capitals
More than any other letters these are prone to corruption by the idiosyncrasies of the writer. Note the use of double letters as capitals, especially 'ff' for 'F', and the use of bold or stretched letters for emphasis.

Interference
Look for interference from descending letters from the line above or ascending letters from the line below. Take these strokes into account by imagining them absent from the word you are reading. 

Superscript marks
Look above the line for dots and dashes. Dashes normally signify abbreviations, but look also for a short superscript curl, which might signify a 'u' (see below under 'minims'). Dots should indicate an 'i' or a 'j', but be careful not to misread a blemish or ink-speck for a dot. Also look out for a dot appearing over the wrong letter when a speedy writer's momentum carries the dot past its proper place: if a dot appears above a series of minims it may be above the wrong minim.

Minims
Minims are vertical strokes in the letters 'i', 'j', 'm', 'n', and 'u'. When these letters appear close together the result can often appear like a series of minims. The effect can be accentuated when ink fades from the connecting strokes of the 'n', 'm', and 'u'.

Defunct letters
Look out for two obsolete letters. A letter that looks like a malformed 'Y' is an archaic letter, the 'thorn', representing the 'th' sound, as in ye ('the'), and yat ('that').

Another archaic letter, now obsolete, was the 'yogh', which looks like a 'Z' with a flourish beneath it. The yogh represented the 'gh' sound in Menzies and Dalziel.

Double letters
The 'double l' often stops novices in their tracks, and note that the 'w' is literally a 'double u', formed by a 'v' and a 'u' (the 'v' and the 'u' are variants of the same original letter).

Ligatures
Keep an eye out for ligatured letters, i.e. letters joined together with a single stroke of the pen. Commonly used ligatures were 'st', 'th', and 'ch'. Ligatures using the long 's' and descending 'h' are often the most difficult to spot.

Idiosyncratic letters
When a clerk left the schoolroom his basic handwriting deteriorated. Without the benefit of a writing master standing over him, the average clerk departed from the formal way of writing certain letters, much as people today write certain letters in a strange way. The result was the development of individual eccentricities in personal handwriting, so look at the way a clerk has written letters (especially capitals) and keep these in mind when you come across a letter you cannot read.

Interchangeable letters
Remember that 'u' = 'v' = 'w', and 'i' = 'j'. This may help you read a word which appears absurd, e.g. whomsoever may be written vhomsoeuer or uhomsowever.

Bad writing
Bad handwriting in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries is as annoying to the reader as bad handwriting today. There is little that the palaeographer can do with a case of very sloppy handwriting except deplore it.

For further help with palaeography, why not try the ScottishHandwriting.com website.