Trace Lowercase Letter m

Three lines down and two arches, and the pencil never leaves the paper. The model's start dot is at the left, on the middle line, above an arrow that points down. The first line goes to the baseline. The pencil travels back up it, over an arch that reaches the middle line, and down again. It climbs that second line, makes another arch the same size, comes down a third time and goes out to the right in a flick.

It is a long way to go without a lift, and m tends to come apart at the second arch, which shrinks or goes missing so that the row fills with n's. Going back up each line before the arch is what holds the letter together. If you were taught plain print, the one surprise is the flick, since a plain m stops dead on the baseline.

Count the lines as they land on the baseline: one, two, three. A hummed "mmm" lasts about as long as the letter takes to write, and it leads straight into moon, milk and monkey.