# Cursive Writing. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 26, 2005, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365 "2005-03-26T16:18:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/21 "2005-03-27T05:34:52Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I’m wondering if kids wouldn’t be better served by teaching them typing skills earlier rather than cursive writing skills. > > What say you? Wait, you want them to stop learning how to write cursive? Why, for Og’s sake? It seems like one of those skills like breathing, I mean it’s not so vital, but I can’t imagine a whole generation of kids growing up not knowing cursive writing. It just seems so…odd. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/22 "2005-03-27T05:42:03Z")
Wow…I had no idea how much I’ve forgotten about cursive writing. I don’t think I’ve used it once since grade school (20-odd years ago), but I thought I’d at least be able to knock out the alphabet… No such luck. I got as far as “B”. Writing an “A” was no problem, but I still can’t think of how a “B” goes (I _think_ it’s kind of like a backwards “D”, but it just doesn’t look right). It seems I also can’t remember how “F” goes, “M” and “N” look identical, and “U”, “V” and “W” just look like a 6-year old drawing the ocean. \…I type fast and print legibly…I’m fine with that. ---
**Author:** ![gfloyd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@gfloyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gfloyd)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/23 "2005-03-27T05:50:37Z")
I ALWAYS wrote in cursive until I came to college. In organic lab, I feared for my grade (and my life) if I continued to use my somewhat unclear script, so I went to tiresome, slow print. Now I use a mixture of both. I feel that it should still be taught in schools, if only for the fact I learned it in maybe a few days. I can write like the samples in the book, not fast enough for anything but letters, but I can. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/24 "2005-03-27T07:11:09Z")
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.,.?!" ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/25 "2005-03-27T08:11:12Z")
Teaching cursive is akin to teaching caligraphy; it’s a cool and artistic if that’s your thing, but completely divorced from real-world applicability. I consider teaching cursive to be equivalent to teaching pottery making. I wonder if teaching it is a standard practice now-a-days. ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/26 "2005-03-27T13:15:15Z")
If you live in a large urban area, where everybody has 24/7 access to computers and Kinko’s and ATMs…okay, forget your cursive. Where I live, the library closes at 9 pm. 5 pm on Fridays. And large portions of the county are a half-hour drive away from it. Not all of them have home computers; I’d go so far as to say most of them don’t. If they want to communicate with someone, it’s either call’em up or write a letter. Until five years ago, the 911 center where I work didn’t have computers. All radio and telephone logs were handwritten. I can name a couple of other agencies in nearby counties that still handwrite everything. My middle-school aged son’s printing is horrible. His cursive is readable. None of his teachers require that papers be typed, because they know that not all students have access to computers. AFAIK, it’s the same story at the high school. Of course they’re taught penmanship in elementary school; not teaching them penmanship, IMHO, is the same as not teaching them how to add and subtract without calculators. If they can’t physically shape the letters, how will the letters have any meaning for them? ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/27 "2005-03-27T16:06:41Z")
For most people, cursive is faster and more efficient than print (and besides, it looks more grown-up). I use it all the time–and my mom is jealous of my handwriting. 😉 Schools mostly all do teach keyboarding, and much earlier than they used to–I took typing in 9th grade, but now they teach 3rd-4th graders fairly commonly. (It’s not necessarily a great thing ergonomically to have small kids typing all the time, btw.) That doesn’t mean that handwriting is obsolete; the majority of adults are going to have to be able to read cursive and write on paper sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Ruby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/28 "2005-03-27T16:20:02Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I’m a little shocked by the blithe dismissal of the idea of penmanship here. I mean, yeah, I write in a sort of connected print, but… I mean… civilized adults (like my mother) have nice handwriting! Beautiful cursive writing is an art form. Isn’t reading and writing sort of the hallmark of civilization?! Sure, I type more than I write these days; a lot more. Essay exams in college hurt the hell out of my fingers because I was out of practice. But that dosen’t mean we should _give up_ on beautiful penmanship! > > [www.zanerian.com](http://www.zanerian.com) makes me weep. I’d love to have beautiful penmanship to go with my nice stationery. You guys seriously aren’t a little embarassed that your mom writes a far more beautiful thank-you note than you do? I have just spent the last hour drooling over your link, **Zsofia**. That is just, just…well for once, I’m speechless. I’m going to dig out that calligraphy pen and play later today. I feel like a fuddy duddy. I love cursive. My mom and I would spend our Sunday afternoons practicing our letters and writing styles. We were never fancy calligraphers, just regular penmanship. Even my dad had beautiful handwriting. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/29 "2005-03-27T16:22:42Z")
Writing things by hand connects you to what you are writing in a way that typing never will. You remember things better when you write them, you get physical contact with the medium (pen on paper, and the endless variations of both), you get to exercise your fine motor skills, and you are actually motivated to think about what you’re going to write before you write it. One isn’t a really good writer unless one can compose by hand. In-class essays were a weekly occurrence when I was in high school, less than ten years ago. Also, at my large midwestern university, most professors are violently anti-laptop in the lecture hall, so notes must be hand-written. It also makes more sense for reasons mentioned above–drawing diagrams, remembering what you’re taking notes about, etc. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/30 "2005-03-27T16:27:07Z")
> [@Bill H.](#): > > Teaching cursive is akin to teaching caligraphy; it’s a cool and artistic if that’s your thing, but completely divorced from real-world applicability. I consider teaching cursive to be equivalent to teaching pottery making. > > I wonder if teaching it is a standard practice now-a-days. I support it if only for the ability to read someone else’s cursive handwriting. Among other jobs, I work with lawyers and you’d be surprised how many of them still hand me motions written in cursive on yellow legal pads to type up. Also, I find that it helps me to take quick notes. I don’t use the Palmer method (which I think is silly, too), but an efficient amalgamation of print-writing. This combined with a technique called “ABC Shorthand” or “Stenoscript” makes note-taking at least 5x faster than printing. I also think teaching cursive (although, as I said, I would teach a more efficient method than Palmer) is useful for children’s development of fine motor skills. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/31 "2005-03-27T16:41:42Z")
I am a teacher an write in script or block print depending upon my evil intent at that moment. I like to use script as it is the equivalent of having a letter-quality printer at the end of my right arm. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/32 "2005-03-27T18:38:28Z")
In addition to the joys of lovely penmanship, I think most modern people’s writing goes something like this: you learn to write by printing, you learn cursive and don’t use it again after the fifth grade or so, and for the rest of your life you combine the two by writing in some version of connected print. If you didn’t have to learn the cursive you probably wouldn’t get to “connected print”. I’ve seen some people who don’t connect at all; it’s like watching an overgrown second grader write. I keep meaning to try to go back and learn really nice penmanship, but it’s amazing how the habit of your writing is so ingrained! In fourth grade or so, they actually taught us calligraphy. Wish I’d kept that up. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/33 "2005-03-27T18:51:57Z")
I work in the pharmaceutical industry and about 99% of my work is hand-written into lab notebooks or transcribed onto analytical reports. It is actually illegal for me not to do so. I tend to write as a combination of print and cursive, but when I have more time, I tend more towards cursive as I think it looks nicer and it makes it a LOT easier for the reviewers and technical writers to read my work. Others in the labs tend to print, but that seems to be mostly the younger (under 30) male population, IIRC. Most people have a combination writing, as I do. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Violaceous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Miss\_Violaceous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Violaceous)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/34 "2005-03-27T18:52:38Z")
I use cursive for my handwriting. It looks less chicken-scratchy. It gets used regularly in household lists and labels and such. I also use it to write letters to my boyfriend once a week. We met on the internet, but I write the weekly letters to make the long distance easier to bear. I could easily write the same content in e-mails, but it totally wouldn’t be the same. Cursive has its purposes. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Fanny\_May](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3be4f8/32.png) [@Fanny\_May](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fanny_May)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/35 "2005-03-27T19:30:15Z")
I don’t know why they bother with printing. It’s not easier, it’s a lot slower, and so only slow people like to use it. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/36 "2005-03-27T20:05:50Z")
The only cursive script I use is for my signature. One of most humiliating tales from school comes when I was learning how to do cursive. I’ve never been able to hold my pencil “correctly”, despite the exasperation of all my teachers. My second grade teacher was constantly scolding me about my “style”. She was always connecting my bad handwriting to the way I hold my pencil. One day, during a penmanship lesson, she said aloud to everyone in class that I would NEVER learn how to do cursive. For some reason, this absolutely crushed me. But I did learn. I have to really think to do cursive now. Qs and Zs are especially frustrating. ---
**Author:** ![Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirror_Image_egamI_rorriM)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/37 "2005-03-27T21:46:20Z")
I learned cursive in 3rd grade and was required to use it exclusively in 4th and 5th grade. I stopped the second I hit 6th grade when I found out that cursive wasn’t required. It was never easy for me, I always had to think about how the letters joined together, and I would always spend more time on the shape of the letters than what they were saying. It’s a good thing to know, though, just in case you need it. (When I took the SAT, there was a section where you had to write a statement that said something like this was all your work and you were the person whose name was on the papers, and it specified “no printing.” I swear, it took me longer to write that statement than it did to fill out an entire page of bubbles.) ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/38 "2005-03-27T22:10:48Z")
I only use cursive for my signature, and even then, my initial (T and F) get printed. It looks a little more assertive ad distinctive, and besides, cursive Ts look like Js. I print much faster than I write, but it’s basically irrelevant - I type far, far faster than either. ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/39 "2005-03-27T23:28:10Z")
> [@Podkayne](#): > > I am all in favor of kids learning joined-up handwriting. > > _Cursive_, on the other hand, by which I mean the Palmer method or whateve they’re inflicting upon schoolkids nowdays, sucks. > > It’s a very unnatural way to write. Those who do it well can turn out beautiful script, but I think most writers would be better served by italic handwriting. It’s equally attractive whether the letters are separate or joined up. > > I had illegible printing and cursive, but my handwriting is much improved since I retrained myself using an italic style. I think I’m having a problem here with the difference between joined-up handwriting and cursive - I didn’t know there was a difference. IIRC the method of handwriting I learned (I’m 40) was the Palmer method, whereas my daughter (15) learned D’nealian (sp?). My mother writes in a beautiful but completely illegible Palmer hand; my usual handwriting is a jumble of print and cursive together, but it’s very readable. My daughter’s is just a mess. ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2005, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365/40 "2005-03-27T23:46:38Z")
I didn’t even know there were different methods, I thought they were all the same and the differences came later as people developed their own preferences for writing. Looking at samples, apparently I learned the Zaner-Bloser system. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cursive-writing/296365.md?page=3)