undecipherable address? the postal service’s handwriting detectives are on it

Snail mail carries a special kind of charm — you can see it in the unique handwriting, uneven lines, and occasional pen smudges. But when it comes to pinpointing the intended address of a piece of mail, these perfectly imperfect human touches can present quite a challenge for post office machines. That’s where a U.S. Postal Service team comes in to do what machines cannot: decipher chicken scratch.
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In Salt Lake City, handwriting experts known as “keyers” work around the clock at the Remote Encoding Center to parse out illegible or hard-to-read addresses, usually sent to the center as digital images for human interpretation. Last year, the keyers processed roughly 1 billion pieces of mail, Ryan Bullock, the site’s operations manager, told CBS News.
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While the Postal Service once had 55 remote encoding centers nationwide, the Utah center is now the only such facility left, making it an essential part of the efforts to ensure handwritten notes reach their destinations — personality-filled penmanship and all. As the service continues celebrating its 250th birthday, watch the handwriting detectives at work.

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The phrase “chicken scratch” originates from the visual resemblance between a chicken’s foot marks and messy, illegible handwriting. Chickens, while scratching at the ground to find food, leave behind marks that look like a series of haphazard, uncoordinated lines and dashes. This imagery was then applied to handwriting that was difficult to read, hence the idiom “chicken scratch”.

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‘the only thing most people do better than anyone else is read their own handwriting.’

-john adams

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source credits: cbs news, Justin Sullivan, Getty images