That’s interesting and starting to make me feel old (which, I am into my middle age). Has writing things down really become that unusual? Whenever I need to take notes, or work something out, I need to do it on paper. If I’m watching a Youtube video to glean notes from it, I can’t do it on the computer, even though Wrod or TextEdit or Stickies is right there. I need pen & paper. (And specifically a blue ink Pilot G-2 1.0mm - medium point pen, if possible.) Last week I had a Zoom meeting with a bride and groom about their wedding – all my notes on paper. I also, like someone else mentioned upthread, just remember it better that way. When I was in the hospital last year for a few days, I journaled in my notebook. I can’t say I write every single day, but I do write something more than a post-it note at least once a week.
I may not have a laptop or tablet with me, but I’d be even less likely to have a pen(cil) and pad of paper with me, as I’m unlikely to ever actually need those. What I’m likely to have with me is a phone. And, in that unprepared a situation, recording audio is probably better. (Trying to type notes on a phone is a lot slower, and they don’t handle writing very well.)
The main issue I do have with taking notes on a laptop is that you’re mostly stuck typing words in sequence in like a text file. You’re not going to have time to put words in special areas or draw diagrams or pictures. What I usually wind up with looks more like an outline. But I do at least still try to reduce everything, so I have to actually think about it rather than just type what I hear: that is one reason I think retention is often lower.
Audio recording seems to me to be what you’d use any time you actually need to get everything word for word. I presume that’s what text journalists do–record it and then type out what quotes they need after the fact. Maybe they also take a note when they hear it, noting the time to make it easier to find.
But I bet they write that note in print.
Absolutely, recording is sometimes an option. And if there’s a need for an accurate word-for-word transcript of something, recording is the way to go. Or hiring a court reporter (who are actually using an extremely specialized form of mechanized writing – that’s a whole other discussion)
But sometimes it’s not. I guarantee you that announcing that I’ll be recording this meeting at work simply would not fly. And if I recorded it surreptitiously, and got found out later, I’d be fired. And rightly so.
But taking notes is almost always acceptable.
Your point about taking notes on a laptop forcing a certain format is well-taken. A paper notebook allows more freedom, sure, especially for non-verbal visual stuff. But then we’re moving away from writing of any kind, printing or cursive.
I still believe writing in cursive is a useful skill, and I’m glad it will be taught to my children. If their school stopped teaching it, I’d teach them myself.
Let us not conflate “declension” as in noun classification with “cases”, of which Indo-European had eight (or so) but Latin retains only seven and that is including the locative and vocative in the count. Finnish has 15.
To smooth it out, avoid sharp corners, and minimize the integral of the square of the fourth derivative? 
There is always going to be a spectrum between deliberately spare and deliberately ornamental penmanship:
Your description of “mixed” handwriting is consistent with there not being a sharp divide between cursive and semi-cursive and not cursive at all. Like you said yourself, regardless of what you were formally taught, you join letters when it “makes sense” or “depending on [your] mood”, and do not when it does not. And I not think it would be too idiosyncratic for someone (not necessarily you) to use more than one form for the same capital letter in the same document. [BTW I met someone whose handwriting was not always immediately identifiable as belonging to the same individual, depending on what her mood was when she wrote. She claimed she had to concentrate to keep her signature consistent.]
I do, in fact, have two different signatures where the form of the capital letter is different. One form takes the original Palmer method “P” which is what I learned, and then I also have a stylized “P” which is not maximized for efficiency so much as it’s distinctive enough and there are some practicalities to it (it is more recognizable as a “P” because it has a normal “P” hump on top as opposed to the middle-aged-beer-gut appearance of a Palmer P. ) And I unconsciously will vacillate, still, between the two.
I should hope that the journalist asks for permission before audio-recording a conversation. I also bet he or she often does not get it.
This article (2020) flatly states that 100 WPM shorthand is an “absolute requirement” for PA Media’s news reporters, and “any application without it goes straight in the bin.”
With all the vitally important things that a school needs to teach, taking the time to teach cursive writing would have to be pretty much the dumbest decision they could make. First of all, everything has either a mechanical or digital keyboard. If you do have to fill out some kind of form, they want you to PRINT; reason being that virtually everyone’s cursive writing totally sucks and is pretty much unreadable.
Well, if we taught it, wouldn’t that solve the problem? NO. In fact, it never did for one simple reason, and that is it just takes too damn long to write cursive neatly. That’s why cursive writing sucked even when it was being taught in schools. Your mind is racing ahead while your hand is moving at 20 words per minute. It’s too frustrating. People inevitably speed up and get sloppy.
Cursive writing? Good riddance to bad rubbish!
Speak for yourself. I can write legibly in cursive quite a bit faster than I can print. And my printing deteriorates with speed (and tends to turn into cursive anyway as I go faster) more than my cursive.
Here is Palmer’s book, in case anyone is interested:
Note that on page 50, there are already examples of variations on the capitals, and starting on page 70 ornamental writing is introduced, with all kinds of variations (e.g., the “L” on page 77 (“By the late L. Madrasz. Nothing better has ever been written.” is a bit different to some of the others and even to the “L” in Madrasz’s own signature. Also check out page 105…)
Actually, I can speak for many. I taught for ten years, so I’ve seen the good, the bad, and plenty of ugly.
I taught for two years at the high school level, and two years, as an adjunct, at the college level. Believe me, I feel your pain.
That said, the whole point of the development of cursive writing was to enable faster writing. It was something clerks did, when making a transcript, taking dictation, or otherwise recording something in a timely fashion.
It can still work for that purpose. Granted, some people do it badly. To some extent, that’s because it’s not taught as well as it once was (I’m in my sixties, so the emphasis on learning cursive was probably greater in my time than it’s been for the last couple of decades).
It’s also true that the invention of the ballpoint pen has rendered obsolete some of the useful features of cursive – i.e., not having to lift the pen from paper with every character. The much older pencil also dealt with this issue effectively, though, and writing cursive (when done right) with a pencil is and was still faster than printing with a pencil.
I guess it comes down to this – if we’re not going to teach cursive, then yes, it will become obsolete. If we do teach it, and teach it right, not in a cursory (see what I did there? 
) fashion, it will remain a useful tool.
My comment about recording was specifically about situations where the journalist is quoting. So what I was thinking about were the quotes I usually see, where the person is speaking “on the record,” and I would expect they would allow them to record that.
I hadn’t considered situations where they might need to quote something else. Nor did I think of courts or other locations that might ban recording altogether (even those never published). In that case, I could see shorthand being relevant.
Still, my point was that I don’t see why they would need to use cursive. Either you’re taking notes and can write in print, or you’re transcribing, where shorthand would be far more useful. (And even then I’m assuming situations where just typing is not practical or allowed.)
It just doesn’t seem to me that journalism is a good argument for teaching cursive, either.
It’s not, in and of itself. The argument for teaching cursive writing is that it’s generally useful. Obviously the argument for devoting a significant amount of early childhood educational time to cursive because it’s useful for a very small number of professions, which a very small number of children may grow up and enter, doesn’t hold water.
That said, I think it is, in fact, generally useful. I see that a significant number of posters here disagree with me. No problem. I’m still glad the school my children attend teach cursive. And if that school didn’t, I’d teach it to my children myself.
Plautus on cursive:
PS. Mos tibi geretur. sed quid hoc, quaeso?
CAL. Quid est?
PS. Vt opinor, quaerunt litterae hae sibi liberos:
alia aliam scandit.
CAL. Ludis iam ludo tuo?
PS. Has quidem pol credo nisi Sibulla legerit,
interpretari alium posse neminem.
CAL. Cur inclementer dicis lepidis litteris
lepidis tabellis lepida conscriptis manu?
PS. An, opsecro hercle, habent quas gallinae manus?
nam has quidem gallina scripsit.
CAL. Odiosus mihi es.
PSEUDOLUS
[taking the letter.] Compliance shall be given you. But, prithee, how’s this?
CALIDORUS
What’s the matter?
PSEUDOLUS
As I think, these letters are very loving; they are climbing on each other’s backs.
CALIDORUS
Are you making sport of me with your foolery?
PSEUDOLUS
I’ faith, I really do believe that unless the Sibyl can read them, nobody else can possibly interpret them.
CALIDORUS
Why speak you unkindly of those sweet letters-- sweet tablets too, written upon by a hand as sweet.
PSEUDOLUS
Troth now, have hens, prithee, such hands? For certainly a hen has written these letters.
CALIDORUS
You are annoying me.
I always thought the written S was kind of ugly given the (modest) difficulty.
I appreciate the history of the Maryland flag, and the link showing use of the pattern is neat. But I do not much like the clashing colours. At least it is not another bulk blue background.
I think one of the issues with teaching cursive is that most schools seem to have taught and still teach Palmer. Palmer sucks for actual writing. Something like D’Nealian might be better.
I don’t follow you at all. I’m not “hinting” at anything. I write more quickly in non-cursive. I don’t write in block capital letters. I was taught regular writing and then cursive. Cursive was slower and awkward for me.
No reason to think Palmer and Spencer are optimal. Some “vintage” writing may be even more legible; compare this neat Spencerian
to Walt Whitman
George Washington
and even earlier
Anyone that enthusiastic about cursive writing can purchase cursive writing workbooks with various lessons. It can be taught at home very easily. Schools shouldn’t have to do it.
I’m not quite in the same boat. I’m a natural left-hander, forced to write with my right hand in first grade. I struggled a bit at first (I’m told that my writing tended to come out mirror-image, but I don’t really remember), but then got the hang of writing.
And then cursive, in second or third grade (can’t really remember - that was back in the mid-sixties). I got the hang of that fast enough.
I still write in cursive faster than I can print. It’s still legible… And I still think that being able to write quickly is a useful skill. Glad my children will be learning it.