# Do they teach thumb typing in schools now? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 12, 2017, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-teach-thumb-typing-in-schools-now/801414 "2017-11-12T08:28:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2017, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-teach-thumb-typing-in-schools-now/801414/41 "2017-11-14T21:59:48Z")
> [@caligulathegod](#): > > The United States Constitution is written in cursive. I was watching a local PBS show that was looking into why a local neighborhood was called “Little Oklahoma.” They traced census records from the early 20th Century to find any local residents who had migrated from Oklahoma. The Census records were all in cursive. I would hate to think that our history will be relegated to obsolescence, as though it were on a floppy disk. Don’t worry; the computers will be able to OCR cursive just fine 😉 ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2017, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-teach-thumb-typing-in-schools-now/801414/42 "2017-11-14T22:26:28Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > See, this is the part I don’t understand. If you know how to write in cursive, why wouldn’t you? The whole point of cursive is that it’s _easier/faster_ to write, because you aren’t lifting your pen from the paper after each letter. Because the keypunch operators will hunt you down and punch you in the keys if you use cursive on the[coding form](https://speccoll.library.arizona.edu/fortran-coding-form). Other than that, I had almost literally no use for hand-written communications, so drafting block letters (the basis of my printing hand) is good enough for everything. The “cursive efficiency” advantage is wildly overstated. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-teach-thumb-typing-in-schools-now/801414.md?page=2)