[Ads-l] Write vs. Sign

James Landau 00000c13e57d49b8-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Wed Nov 4 16:49:35 UTC 2026


Yesterday I was a poll worker (New Jersey Linwood Ward 2 District 3).  For in-person voting New Jersey requires the voter to sign his/her name in cursive twice,  once on a computer (for signature verification) and once on hardcopy.
Several times when I asked a voter to "write your name" the voter replied "do you want me to write or to sign?"   I eventually found out that to these voters "write your name" meant to PRINT your name" and "sign your name" meant to put it in cursive.
I never heard of this distinction before.  Has anyone else?"
For those of you interested in statistics, out of 938 voters registered in Linwood 2-3,  110 voted early, 106 voted by mail (the computer system listed these as "absentee"), and 313 voted in person yesterday.   This is 56.4% of eligible voters voting, which is pretty good for a midterm election.

James Landau
jjjrlandau at netscape.com

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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