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Should we still care about cursive writing?
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I find it remarkable that anyone over 60 in this country can produce the exact same script on thank you notes, but nobody educated after 1964 does so.
Personally, I'm horrified by the lack of basic writing skills my college freshman display on their daily writing assignments. I can tell that this is a generation raised with word processors and spell-check.
I just have a terrible cursive writing. It is neigh on illegible.
We were coached from third grade on in my school. They insisted we write in cursive. They even had this silly rule. We couldn't use pens until fifth grade and then it had to be erasable pens. Do they still even make those? Then in high school, they only cared if it was legible. If you had to print to make it readable, that was okay. Same in college.It is so strange that they are ignoring writing as a basic skill.
Personally, my keyboarding is what's awful. My husband cringes every time he sees me typing something. And my handwriting isn't great unless I concentrate on being neat, which I can do with little difficulty. And I use mostly cursive.
Does anyone else remember denelian? Wow, my spell checker doesn't have anything close to that...I wonder if I spelled it right. It's a hybrid cursive-print. I remember them teaching that to use for what seemed like a year in preparation for cursive. It was basically print with little hooks on every other edge of each letter. Lol...I remember hating it and being so glad when we were finally allowed to just write in cursive...
Its funny you brought this up. I wrote something in cursive the other day at work and I was sorely disappointed in myself.
To answer the question: yes, we should still care about cursive. Its elegant when done well.
To answer the question: yes, we should still care about cursive. Its elegant when done well.
I was in the eighth grade when the homeroom teacher gave me a book called We Learn to Write. It was all about how to write cursive. I have a terrible cursive. It could be the fact that I hand write at about 300mph. Bad habit.It does count, but you only see it on wedding invitations, funeral books, etc.
Will we ever truly write snail mail letters again?
Should we care - probably
In the long run will it matter - probably not
There are too many things conspiring against it, first and foremost time. Do people want to take the time to figure out what was written, because not all cursive is easily legible, not so much anymore.
In the not so distant future we will probably be speaking into recording devices that will record digital images of both the spoken and translated into the written, with out having to lift a pen/pencil. We will even be able to choose the font we want. This will eliminate the need for cursive.
When I think about it, a lot of our fine motor skills may go away because we will be able to type computer commands to perform the task.
In the long run will it matter - probably not
There are too many things conspiring against it, first and foremost time. Do people want to take the time to figure out what was written, because not all cursive is easily legible, not so much anymore.
In the not so distant future we will probably be speaking into recording devices that will record digital images of both the spoken and translated into the written, with out having to lift a pen/pencil. We will even be able to choose the font we want. This will eliminate the need for cursive.
When I think about it, a lot of our fine motor skills may go away because we will be able to type computer commands to perform the task.
Anyone --- such as I -- who has done genealogical research (reading old, hand-written documents such as wills and census records) understands the value of clear penmanship. But then, those people are all dead ....
Will we end up like Baron Harkonnen in Dune? Brrr, the very thought.
I may be the odd bird in the bunch, but I LOOOVE my handwriting. I have great penmanship - I typically print, though, on official documentation. My cursive, if I'm not thinking about it, it a mix of both print and cursive. If I'm focusing on what I'm doing, it's well done cursive writing. I do think it's fascinating that one could cull a personality profile from one's handwriting and it's typically accurate. It makes sense - it's an unconscious form of personal expression.
Plus, there's something emotionally cathartic about being able to expunge one's anxieties on paper - doing it by hand is really the only way to do that. Typing it doesn't have the same effect.
BunWat wrote: "As someone who has also done some research in old records, some of those people did not have good handwriting and oh there were a few three tylenol days!"Oh yes.
in the old days (when my brother was in school)we (i meant they) had penmanship class. just rote exercises practicing penmanship and the art of cursive writing. he was a lefty and they tried hard to convert all lefties at an early age as lefties curled their arms funny and smeared what they had previously written (no, this was not using quill and ink pot). i appreciate good cursive writing as much as the next caveman, cubs shirt, boot wearing guy but i am not sure it has much life left in it. i don't use it because i cannot remember how to make an upper case Q or a proper lower case z
I have a horror story when it comes to cursive handwriting: I switched schools between the second and third grade and my old school taught cursive in the third grade and my new school taught cursive in the second grade, so I was behind. The teacher thought this was horrible and gave me a WEEK to learn cursive, and from then on out, I had to write everything in cursive. I'm sure some of you had the talk in the third and fourth grades that you HAD to know cursive because "You won't be able to print EVER AGAIN!!" I actually failed a number of assignments in the fourth grade because I printed the fill-in-the-blank answers.You need to know your own name in cursive but that's about it. I think good handwriting is a plus, and is needed, but does it really matter if it's printed or cursive, so long as it's legible?
The bad news is that I have to retrain myself to hold a pencil. It's so flippin' hard but if I want to learn how to do calligraphy or even be able to study and write in the Tibetan language, I have to do it.
Why do you have to retrain yourself to hold a pencil, Angabel?
I hold my pens and pencils with them leaning on my ring finger, instead of with the tripod thing where you use your pointer and middle finger. I don't care if this is how I write in English, but if I want to study Tibetan, I'll have to learn the harder scripts, and they're basically calligraphy scripts, and it's *super* important to hold the pen the right way to get the letters to look nice.
Angie wrote: "I hold my pens and pencils with them leaning on my ring finger, instead of with the tripod thing where you use your pointer and middle finger. I don't care if this is how I write in English, but if..."Ahh, I had a few friend who wrote like that. I always wanted to try it, but I felt like I couldn't control the writing instrument like that, so they almost always eventually rolled back over my middle finger.
Cursive ain't all it's been cut out to be.
RandomAnthony wrote: "tinfoil-hatted again?":)
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I love cursive writing... I'm sad about how crappy my writing can be after years of mostly typing.
janine wrote: "I write in half-cursive."First half cursive, second half printing?
First part printing, second half cursive?
Every other letter?
Just write half of each word or letter and we get to guess the rest?
How does this work?
I probably stopped writing in cursive around 4th or 5th grade. My cursive is not legible even to me. The only time I write in cursive now is my signature. Though I will admit to cursive handwriting envy. :)
A few years ago I purchased,
Spencerian Penmanship~Platt Rogers SpencerI also bought,
The Palmer Method of Business Writing: A Series of Self-Teaching in Rapid, Plain, Unshaded, Coarse-Pen, Muscular Movement Writing~Austin Norman Palmer
I wouldn't recommend this particular Palmer book as the pages seem to be photocopies.
I should mention I've yet to crack open either book and start practicing. :(
I would happily settle for being able to make my signature look nice.
I purchased the Spencerian Penmanship book too! We found some letters that belonged to my great-grandma and that is how she wrote EVERYTHING. It's amazing.I also have yet to crack open the book. Maybe tonight!
Jim wrote: "janine wrote: "I write in half-cursive."First half cursive, second half printing?
First part printing, second half cursive?
Every other letter?
Just write half of each word or letter and we ge..."
It's a hybrid form.
I enjoyed the heck out of learning cursive. I could not wait to get to school and practice rows and rows of letters and words in that pretty, loopy writing. My daughters both brought home TONS of cursive homework in grade school and we learned that neither of them held their pencil correctly.We spent hours at the kitchen table practicing cursive and nagging them to finish their cursive homework.
I think cursive is pretty important and all kids ought to know how to do it, computers can't replace everything! I didn't start learning until I was 12 but I was also home-schooled and spent the next 5 years perfecting my writing (not that my writing is perfect but it is legible and pretty darn close!)
a handwriting related question for those of you with kids - at what age does a kid's handwriting no longer look childish?
I deal with hand written documents and forms a lot in my job, and I am surprised at how childish writing from high school kids looks. It not the kind of loopy embellished handwriting I remember from high school. Its looks much more erratic, like a lack of motor control.
My husband is 51 and his handwriting looks childish. He usually prints.
What my handwriting looks like depends on my mood and some other factors. I'm sure it looks childish sometimes.
Pat wrote: "a handwriting related question for those of you with kids - at what age does a kid's handwriting no longer look childish?
I deal with hand written documents and forms a lot in my job, and I am su..."
My daughter used her computer for her assignments and to type her essays . I guess these days handwriting doesn't get much of a workout.
Her handwriting isn't as messy as her bedroom.
Terminalcoffee
Books mentioned in this topic
Spencerian Cursive Copybook Set Plus Theory (other topics)Authors mentioned in this topic
A.N. Palmer (other topics)Platt Rogers Spencer (other topics)
What do you think?
My cursive is awful, by the way.