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Is there any phrase for describing when someone writes extremally illegibly?

In Poland it's called "physician's script", or there's an idiom "pisać jak kura pazurem", which literally means "to scribble like a chicken with claw".

It's very popular in Poland. Well, at least I've heard it on every occasion.

Danubian Sailor
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4 Answers4

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The English equivalent is similar: chicken scratch.

This would be a noun phrase to describe the writing, not the person, though, so an example would be:

"I can't read a word of John's chicken scratch. Can you translate it for me?"

Roger
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    You beat me to it! I was typing almost exactly the same thing. :) +1 – Jolenealaska Mar 21 '14 at 13:20
  • Urban Dictionary: "Incredibly messy handwriting that is nearly impossible to read. Usually the only person who can read it is the person that wrote it. Sometimes not even they can read it after a while.". Yeah, it's me :D – Danubian Sailor Mar 21 '14 at 13:21
  • Also known as hen scratch writing. Presumably it comes from the randomish strokes left on the ground as a chicken attempts to unearth some morsel just under the surface. – Phil Perry Mar 21 '14 at 17:01
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I'll try for the term and not phrase. It is cacography

cacography - Poor handwriting. Cacography is from Greek κακός (kakos "bad") and γραφή (graphe "writing").

Sample of Cacography

And, if you are looking for a person with poor handwriting (the question before your edit), it can be derived from the same word - cacographer. Though I'm not sure whether it's accepted worldwide.

Edit: Okay, Wiktionary has it - cacographer

Maulik V
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    It's not an everyday word (or even a manyday word), but I don't think that's reason enough for someone to downvote. I upvoted to bring it back to zero. (It might be worth noting that cacography can also refer to poor spelling.) –  Mar 21 '14 at 13:43
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    As a fairly well-read native English speaker, I don't think I've ever heard this word before. "Chicken scratch" however is a very common phrase. – swbarnes2 Mar 21 '14 at 16:11
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    @swbarnes2 being a native does not make us a dictionary. I'm a native Hindi speaker and I don't know all words in u.3 language. It happens and we learn. – Maulik V Mar 21 '14 at 16:16
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    I know, but the purpose of communication is for people to understand you. If you use a word that no one understands, you haven't actually communicated. I think a language student ought to know the difference between a word/phrase they just didn't know, but that most native speakers do, and a word/phrase so vanishingly rare that virtually no speakers use, or even understand it. – swbarnes2 Mar 21 '14 at 19:02
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    I agree with the comment left by @swbarnes2 - this is NOT an everyday word, and, given the purpose of this site, an English language learners ought to be informed of that. Most people on the street (since you've grown to loathe the word "native" in your comments) would look at me with a blank stare if I used it. – J.R. Mar 21 '14 at 19:02
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    @J.R. nevertheless, word worth knowing, and German people, for example, would understand it even hearing it first time in life, I suppose :) – Danubian Sailor Mar 22 '14 at 07:07
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    @Łukasz - cacophony is a related word, applied to bad sounds, instead of bad handwriting. You can see here that one word is relatively common compared to the other. I agree with you that cacography may be a word worth knowing, but I also think there's more value in knowing a word and knowing how it gets used (or, as in this case, how it doesn't get used). – J.R. Mar 22 '14 at 10:12
  • @swbarnes2 While I believe that your first point is true in theory, I also believe that it has no practical application. Consider "Finnegans Wake" as an extreme example, an entire book full of "words that noone understands": there are still enough people who claim some level of understanding of the book for it to still be in print. On the other hand, I fully agree with your second point. – BobRodes Mar 22 '14 at 21:01
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    @BobRodes - I suppose it depends on what folks are looking for. Given that the question says, "It's very popular in Poland. Well, at least I've heard it on every occasion," I think this answer may interest the community at large – yet doesn't really answer the mail for the O.P. Had the question been, "I want a more formal word for 'chicken scratch' – what are my options?" then this would have been a great answer, as opposed to an interesting side note. – J.R. Mar 29 '14 at 10:36
  • @J.R. My note was supposed to address the statement "If you use a word that nobody understands, you haven't actually communicated." I entirely agree with the rest. – BobRodes Mar 29 '14 at 23:04
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In the US at least there is also the stereotype that doctors have horrible handwriting as well, and you can tell someone they could be a Doctor with that handwriting, or something to that effect.

Benjamin Scherer
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In Scotland we say "like a hen pissing in snow", but I wouldn't recommend using it in polite company!

Garry Cairns
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