Dear Boss penned in an American hand?

[MontagueJDruitt]

Id be very interested in the difference between US and UK English but can't see anything that indicates American in these letterd

[Abby Normal]

I recently refreshed my memory of this letter to the Evening News on Oct 8th 1888:

"Sir - I have been considered somewhat of an expert in handwriting, and having carefully examined the facsimile of the letter you published a couple of days ago, signed Jack the Ripper, have no hesitation in saying that it bears every evidence of being American - what is known in the States as the Spenserian [sic.] style - the capitals especially bear out this idea..."

Intrigued, I looked up Spencerian Handwriting on Wikipedia, where it's expllained that the style was widely adopted in America for use on formal documents, before the invention of the typewriter. The Wikipedia page gives an example of the Spencerian style, a snippet of which I attach below:



Here's an excerpt from "Dear Boss" for comparison:




Although Dear Boss is obviously not quite as "copper-plate" as the formal letter, I can see where the correspondent to the Daily News was coming from.

hi Sam
thanks for posting this. whereas I don't see that much similarity of dear boss style to this...the spencerian example you provided reminds a lot about burys handwriting style.

[etenguy]

I don't recall the Spencerian style of handwriting, and its prevalence in the USA, being brought up previously. Indeed, it was because I'd only just noticed (after all these years!) the reference to the "Spenserian" hand in the letter cited above that I started this thread.

Found this in another thread about the Dear Boss letter:

In the way it was used in the letter, 'buckled' was American slang meaning that someone's opponent is closing in on them; just like a belt buckle is the connecting devive that holds a belt or strap around something.

[c.d.]

I always thought "buckled" referred to being handcuffed. I could be wrong though.

c.d.