Bingo.
We must preserve cursive! Until our scientists can come up with an improvement on the quill pen cursive is the only means to prevent excessive smearing that occurs each time you lift the pen. I think perhaps in the future some kind of electric pen will be invented that no longer has this problem and perhaps then people can return to printing, but in the mean time in the interest of smear-free handwriting cursive must be continued.
You should consider that the cursive students are almost certainly self-selecting for having good manual skills in the first place. Cursive is harder to do - the people who could never get the hang of it have all dropped it by University, and they (sorry, WE!) are bound to bring the print-average-speed down. But they (sorry, WE!) were always going to write slow and get hand-cramps, no matter what writing style you force on us.
I was in a Christian convent till my first grade, and moved to a different city later. In the first school we were first taught cursive writing (no printing), whereas I believe that the second school did not teach or require cursive. As a result, my handwriting was always distinctive and appreciated in my school. My mother was also very proud of it.
My own feelings towards my handwriting were mixed. My handwriting always felt meticulous; it was, to quote my friend, neat but not beautiful. Of course cursive lettering flows better, but as I grew older, some letters, especially capitals, started feeling clunky and immature. Some letters like I & J make no sense either if you’re used to the printing style. I started deliberately throwing some printing style into the mix to get a more casual look.
To this day, my mother resents that I lost my precious handwriting. :rolleyes:
Cursive?! You’re talking about the death of cursive?!
I’m still using Gregg Shorthand. Tell me about dead technologies!
I don’t ‘force’ joined up writing or printing on anyone – I just want the damned work to be legible at the end of the day.
Why, yes, I’m about to start marking exams, the only hand-written assessment I have to do every year, and ughhhh. Merovingian chancery hand is more legible.
Yikes! If that were designed for computers, Egregious Condensed would be the ideal name ( that’s an interesting site).
I was born in 1976, so I entered kindergarten in 1981. We were never taught printing in school; instead, we were taught the D’Nealian method, which was developed to make the transition to cursive easier than with standard printing. Something I never understood was that it seemed like all the other kids somehow learned to print anyway, and preferred doing so over writing in cursive. I preferred cursive, since I felt my writing was much faster that way. Through college, I continued to write exam essays in cursive. Howver, in day-to-day handwriting in grade school, I had long since tried to avoid cursive in favor of whatever reasonable facsimile of printing I could make without actuallly ever having been taught it, based on my perception that cursive was considered “uncool” and “girly” by my peers.
I always wondered where my classmates learned to print, though. And I never really understood why cursive was considered uncool.
Born 20 years before you. I was never taught to print in the same sense I was taught cursive. There was no specific set of strokes to use. I did at some age realize that I could print as fast as I could write cursive and it was more legible, that was the end of using cursive for me.
I could write perfectly legible cursive on an Etch-a-Sketch, so that proves beyond argument that cursive is better.
Figured I’d post this in an old thread, imagining it might get the attention of those interested.
My daughter was over for dinner the other day. She is a youth librarian, in a suburb of Chicago. We were talking about the library’s programming, and she said the most popular program they offer is cursive writing. Quickly fills up every session. Suggests there remains at least SOME interest.
I often needle my daughter about the library deaccessioning books - the main thing I use a library for. And I’m not thrilled at the schools’ abandoning some things that I believe are necessary aspects of education. But I’m beginning to appreciate the flexibility and creativity me) libraries in filling the gaps, and being resources for various segments of the community.
As I said in this thread during its original iteration, I’m all for people taking evening classes in order to learn cursive. If people want to write cursive as a hobby, that’s great!
But there’s no point in cluttering up the elementary school curriculum with it any more. Writing in cursive has ceased to be a necessary or important skill to learn.
I’d like to disagree with you, but realized I was having difficulty remembering the last time I really benefitted from writing cursive. On RARE occasions, I take notes in cursive, but my day-to-day note-taking needs to be possibly legible to others, so I print (or type). Don’t know if I handwrite 5 letters a year. So, other than the occasional greeting card…
I still use cursive every day, but I’ve given up this fight. Now my linguistic bête noire is capitalization and punctuation - I’d accept the death of script if people would just stop writing I luv justin bieber! (Or whatever.) Capitalization is important, people! It’s the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse!
Apart from it being a much faster way to write, you mean? Or do pupils no longer have to write essays in exams? Make notes quickly? Etc.
I would like to see a cite that it is a “much faster way to write.” The Palmer method I learned as a kid is slower than printing for me. As I said in this thread a year ago, for me, a mix of printing and writing is fastest. Most of the cursive styles that were taught at least when I was in grammar school in the 80s had needless ornamentation and inefficient strokes that slowed you down.
I can write much faster than I can print.
I can write faster than I can print. I’ve recently returned to college after a 15 year hiatus (age 39) and I’m pretty sure that my professor does not read my assignments. Because I write them in cursive. She’s younger; she may just not have practiced it much.
I still have that “printing is babyish” mental complex, but I’m trying to switch.
Cursive is SO dead.
I’m sure plenty people can, but I’m sure plenty of people are the other way. If you weren’t taught the stupid Palmer method and learned some more efficient form, I’m sure it’s true. Like I said, my fastest method is print writing–I combine some cursive letters with print letters, going for efficiency and lack of extra strokes or ornaments, which Palmer has a bunch of, and dot and cross as I go along.
Almost all the things that once were done with pencil and paper are now done with digital technology. Rather than teach my kids cursive, the time would (IMO) be much better spent teaching them to touch-type. It’s a far more efficient means of recording information.