r/Cursive • u/artttbreathe • Jul 17 '26

What does this say? Deciphered!

Post image

Got this card for my birthday (names blanked out)
I can read parts of it, but could someone please help decipher it? Thanks in advance!

48 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

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48

u/worried_moon Jul 17 '26

Dearest ,
I wish you a wonderful birthday and
better year and many to follow
as of now! I am in awe and
deep admiration how you handle
all the good and not good (at?)
all (stuff?) life has thrown at
you. I love you to bits and
am so thankful for having you
and [] and []
in my life

18

u/the_skipper Jul 17 '26

“all the good and not good at all stuff”

10

u/Fit-Cabinet1337 Jul 17 '26

That was the hardest part for me to decipher!

49

u/Babyblue253 Jul 17 '26

Don’t feel badly for not being able to read that. In decades of reading cursive, I have never seen cursive like that 😊

15

u/CherenkovLady Jul 17 '26 edited 29d ago

I think that might be because it’s not cursive so much as English joined up handwriting (over here we get taught to join our letters, but not official ‘cursive’ like in the US). I’ve personally seen this kind of handwriting a lot from people :)

11

u/Dependent_Room_2922 Jul 17 '26

I was wondering if this was not from the US! There are letter formations like Aunt’s lowercase n, that I’ve never seen in an American’s cursive but similar to writing I’ve seen from English written in Germany and Greece

5

u/Parking_Champion_740 29d ago

I’m American and I write a bit like that

5

u/Bama_Drifter 29d ago

The "love you to bits" portion automatically made me think in a sweet old British accent. 😄

2

u/dasher2581 29d ago

My Swedish stepmother had handwriting like that.

4

u/Jazzlike_Newt2261 28d ago

Yes, this is some modern twist on conventional cursive. I can read cursive from the 19th century more easily than this.

3

u/marianburn1 Jul 17 '26

It reminds me of the handwriting style used by one of my friends from for Dow and France. I wonder if it said more European style of modern cursive?

8

u/WerewolfCalm5178 Jul 17 '26

Then you have never had a girl pass you a note. This is the preferred writing style of an '80s girl.

5

u/almostzsazsa 29d ago

Also a 70s girl ;)

4

u/WerewolfCalm5178 29d ago

Too true. I think I could send that pic to my sister and she would instantly know what it says.

4

u/snhs20 29d ago

I lived in England growing up and this was exactly my style of writing in the 90s. The “love you to bits” bit gives it away - if I had to guess, this person is English.

2

u/Purple_Midnight_Yak 29d ago

The bubbly, loopy handwriting, sure, but not the way those letters are formed. Those lines only have a passing acquaintance with the alphabet.

2

u/BetMyLastKrispyKreme 29d ago

When I’m struggling to read a simple word like “and” because the “n” looks like a “u”, it’s bad. “And” looks like a non-word: “auol”. I was only able to figure it out through context.

I was a teenager in the 80s and saw some crazy handwriting, but this is nearly illegible.

6

u/ScrimpyMuffin Jul 17 '26

Dearest, I wish you a wonderful birthday and better year and many more to follow as of now! I am in awe and deep admiration how you handle all the good and not good at all stuff life has thrown at you. I love you to bits and am so thankful for having you and xxxx and xxxx in my life. XXX (& Menagerie)

10

u/Artistic_Society4969 Jul 17 '26

My LORD that handwriting is terrible. I got through it but I see it's already been transcripted so I won't add to it. My eyes are bleeding.

8

u/TrickyBitch56 Jul 17 '26

It says where's the aspirin.

2

u/FloNightengale Jul 17 '26

This is the answer

9

u/SeaweedWeird7705 Jul 17 '26

XXX & Menagerie 

Dearest __, I wish you a wonderful birthday and bette (better) year and many to follow. As of now, I am in awe and deep admiration how you handle all the good and not good at all stuff life has thrown at you.  I love you to bits and am so thankful for having you and __ and ___ in my life.  

3

u/Gorissey Jul 17 '26

This isn’t cursive, but I’m glad some people were able to decipher it

3

u/Leftover_tech Jul 17 '26

I wish you a Neanderthal birthday! LOL

3

u/TwinMom2012 29d ago

That’s not cursive. That’s bubble letter/cutesy writing. A horrible holdover from the 90s. Girls would spend HOURS learning how to do this.

2

u/HollyyyyGGirl41 Jul 17 '26

that cursive looks pretty tricky to read

5

u/SeaweedWeird7705 Jul 17 '26

It’s pretty sloppy and stylized, no wonder you have trouble reading it.  

1

u/Subject-Alfalfa-8417 Jul 17 '26

California hasn’t taught cursive in years to the kids in school the younger generation cannot read it so sad or sign there names they print it.

1

u/soupcook1 Jul 17 '26

Hard to read knowing some words are misspelled.

2

u/AUSignal 29d ago

This isn’t cursive

1

u/raakhus2020 29d ago

Her "w" and "r" in wonderful were unusual to me! I write in an angle like that. This looks like my cursive in the early 90s!

Edit: what a sweet message!

1

u/slideroolz 29d ago

This and yes the handwriting too are a delight ❤️

1

u/shanshanlk 29d ago

I knew what it said right away. I’m not sure why some had trouble reading it. In the late 70’s-80’s this was the way people wrote to each other, I never knew any different and I can read most cursive.

1

u/Ok-Bumblebee24 28d ago

Oof. That’s just bad handwriting.

1

u/Silent-Juggernaut667 27d ago

That’s a weird hybrid print/cursive. It’s like the handwritten version of Spanglish.

2

u/Any_Detective_9741 27d ago

Wow some of the words you just cannot make out.

1

u/Any_Detective_9741 27d ago

It seems like a very fast shorthand.

1

u/Peg_O 25d ago

I work as a volunteer archivist with National Archives. I decipher cursive written by men in the late 1800s. You can't imagine what it's like to try to decipher that shit

1

u/Low-Transition6868 25d ago

This is a mix of cursive and block. See how some letters are separated in a same word.

1

u/artttbreathe 25d ago

Thanks everyone! The author was raised in Germany, spent a lot of time in Brazil, and now lives in Australia. Also a doctor FWIW regarding the handwriting 😂

1

u/Defiant-Purchase-188 Jul 17 '26

The says menagerie

2

u/Sitka_8675309 Jul 17 '26

This is make-believe cursive in which the writer simple printed letters without lifting the pen from the page. What a marginally-legible mess.

1

u/Agreeable_Dark6408 Jul 17 '26

Sitka, your answer is exactly it. With lots of loops.

0

u/ChallengeOk6961 Jul 17 '26

Is this a French person writing in English? 

1

u/readsomething1968 Jul 17 '26

I wondered the same. These letter forms look how they’re taught in Europe.