I think cursive is faster if you’re using a fountain pen or a quill, but not necessarily with a ballpoint or pencil. I know that my cursive was always slower, and also completely unreadable. I stopped using it as soon as it was no longer mandatory, which IIRC was in grade 8, in 1972.
[QUOTE=jjimm]
A friend of mine didn’t believe in binocular vision. This came to light when I overheard her telling someone that it didn’t matter if you lost an eye, because you’d still see the world in the same way, and only lose about 20% of the horizontal span. When I said you’d lose 3D, she told me I was talking crap, and there was no difference. She absolutely refuted the difference. When I pursued the subject, it became clear she had no idea what 3D vision was.
I got out an encyclopedia to show her diagrams, but before I could present them to her, she got upset and told me I was talking shit, and that I always picked on her by correcting her (which was true - she did talk a hell of a lot of bullshit, sadly).
The weird thing: she was a stage designer. No idea how she managed. Or maybe her designs all looked a little flat.
[/QUOTE]
Having been one-eyed for several weeks (between eye surgeries), in general I agree with your sister. The world didn’t appear any different. I just had to turn my head more when I was driving to make sure I saw what I needed to. I had no difficulty at all figuring out where to stop and slow down in traffic, probably because I was taking cues from the apparent size of cars and pedestrians in my field of vision. I was quite surprised to learn there are no restrictions, in my state at least, against one-eyed drivers.
I would probably feel differently if I was doing more things that required finer hand-eye coordination, like playing catch or some other sporty-thing where a difference of an inch or 2 really mattered. But day to day, there was no noticeable difference.
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
Having been one-eyed for several weeks (between eye surgeries), in general I agree with your sister. The world didn’t appear any different. I just had to turn my head more when I was driving to make sure I saw what I needed to. I had no difficulty at all figuring out where to stop and slow down in traffic, probably because I was taking cues from the apparent size of cars and pedestrians in my field of vision.
[/QUOTE]
Quite right. There are lots of clues available through one eye to the “3-dimensionality” of the world. Perhaps the most useful is parallax - the way the foreground moves against the background. If you experiment by closing or covering one eye you find little difficulty in moving around and maniputating normal objects.
I think that no list of stunning ignorance would be complete without Jack T. Chick’s little bit of helpful information that the largest branches of Christendom are “basically the same,” except that the Eastern Orthodox Church in general is willing to coexist but Roman Catholicism “wants to control the governments” of the world, while the Othodox are “willing to coexist” with the state.
True Blue Jack
[QUOTE=matt_mcl]
Cursive is called cursive because you can write it more quickly than printing (currere, to run).
[/QUOTE]
No, it’s called cursive because of the things I’d scream when I’d try to decipher my notes at the end of the semester.
Block printing only for me, thanks.
[QUOTE=tdn]
Yep, I get it now. I’m right handed and left eyed.
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Lucky you: you’re “cross-dominant,” meaning either right-handed and left-eyed, or left-handed and right-eyed. Many of the best hitters in baseball are cross-dominant, because as you stand at the plate, your dominant eye has a better view of the pitcher and approaching pitch.
[QUOTE=Captain Carrot]
I can barely write in cursive, since I learned it in 3rd or 4th grade, and virtually never used it after that until junior year when I had to copy a pledge when taking the SATs. Cursive is simply not useful to me, and I’ve almost never had occasion to use it. Thus, the skill faded over the years.
[/QUOTE]
I’m utterly puzzled by this “cursive” discussion. How can writing in cursive script be something you have to “learn” or “remember” separately from writing individual “printed” letters? You just write normally but don’t lift the pen from the paper in-between letters. How is this a useless or arcane skill??? 
[QUOTE=Colophon]
I’m utterly puzzled by this “cursive” discussion. How can writing in cursive script be something you have to “learn” or “remember” separately from writing individual “printed” letters? You just write normally but don’t lift the pen from the paper in-between letters. How is this a useless or arcane skill???
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So is cursive just another name for joined-up writing??
[QUOTE=e-logic]
So is cursive just another name for joined-up writing??
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Yes. “cursive (adj) 1: of or relating to handwriting in which letters are formed and joined in a rapid flowing style.”
I don’t mean the stupid faux-copperplate writing like Charlie Brown writes his letters in in Peanuts. Just normal cursive writing. How can it possibly be quicker to print each letter individually?
[QUOTE=Colophon]
Yes. “cursive (adj) 1: of or relating to handwriting in which letters are formed and joined in a rapid flowing style.”
I don’t mean the stupid faux-copperplate writing like Charlie Brown writes his letters in in Peanuts. Just normal cursive writing. How can it possibly be quicker to print each letter individually?
[/QUOTE]
What you linked is exactly what I was taught in grade school. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I suspect most of them learned the same sort of cursive.
Example of familial willful ignorance:
I was talking on the phone with my sister, and she mentioned that my nephew was playing a lot of tournament tennis and other outdoor sports. I casually mentioned something about how I hoped he was using sunscreen, to which my sister proudly replied that neither of her children ever used sunscreen. She didn’t believe in it. :rolleyes:
Our mother was a dermatologist. Her children were made well aware of the risk of melanoma and other skin cancers due to sun exposure.
While I didn’t press the matter, I suspect my sister’s attitude is related to some form of health quackery, rebelliousness, or both.
[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
While I didn’t press the matter, I suspect my sister’s attitude is related to some form of health quackery, rebelliousness, or both.
[/QUOTE]
Probably something about absorbing the chemicals through your skin and becoming a glow-in-the-dark mutant.
[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
Probably something about absorbing the chemicals through your skin and becoming a glow-in-the-dark mutant.
[/QUOTE]
Sheesh. What an idiot.
Everyone knows that you can’t become a glow-in-the-dark mutant without either exposure to radiation or sewers.
[QUOTE=Li’l Pluck]
Recently, in one of my classes, the professor asked if there were people in the class who didn’t write in cursive script. The number of hands that went up was astounding! It’s been almost 30 years for me, but don’t they still teach you how to do that in grade school?
[/QUOTE]
Note: “don’t”, not “can’t”. I wouldn’t write anything in cursive if I thought anyone else was going to have to read it- that’s cruel and unusual punishment. I’m not even sure I should call my handwriting cursive any more- it is joined-up writing, but it doesn’t bear much resemblance to the cursive writing they teach in elementary school. I don’t even write in cursive if I think I’m going to have to read what I’ve written later when it’s out of my memory- most likely, I won’t be able to read it.
It’s a skill that I’ve lost over time, because I don’t practice it- that happens with most skills. And it’s not a skill that I think would add much to my life if I did work on it. I much prefer email to letters for correspondence, because email doesn’t require that I find where the envelopes and stamps are. Plus I have a lot of trouble reading cursive writing, even good cursive writing (I usually have to get Mr. Neville to read handwritten letters to me. It’s rather strange, and extremely frustrating, because I can read type really fast…), so I would have a lot of trouble exchanging handwritten letters with anyone. It wouldn’t be a useful skill for my career. There are many other skills that would be more useful and more enjoyable for me to acquire.
[QUOTE=Colophon]
Yes. “cursive (adj) 1: of or relating to handwriting in which letters are formed and joined in a rapid flowing style.”
I don’t mean the stupid faux-copperplate writing like Charlie Brown writes his letters in in Peanuts. Just normal cursive writing. How can it possibly be quicker to print each letter individually?
[/QUOTE]
Wait, what kind of cursive writing is there that doesn’t look like the writing in the above link? That’s what I was taught in grade school.
[QUOTE=Colophon]
Yes. “cursive (adj) 1: of or relating to handwriting in which letters are formed and joined in a rapid flowing style.”
I don’t mean the stupid faux-copperplate writing like Charlie Brown writes his letters in in Peanuts. Just normal cursive writing. How can it possibly be quicker to print each letter individually?
[/QUOTE]
Uhm… I was always under the understanding that what you just showed WAS normal cursive. That’s the exact style I was taught in school. The letter Z is a fucking bitch to write, incidently.
Yeah, that’s what my teachers made me do. What is cursive supposed to look like, Colophon?
[QUOTE=Colophon]
Yes. “cursive (adj) 1: of or relating to handwriting in which letters are formed and joined in a rapid flowing style.”
I don’t mean the stupid faux-copperplate writing like Charlie Brown writes his letters in in Peanuts. Just normal cursive writing. How can it possibly be quicker to print each letter individually?
[/QUOTE]
Practice. I gave up cursive years ago.
[QUOTE=Raguleader]
Uhm… I was always under the understanding that what you just showed WAS normal cursive. That’s the exact style I was taught in school. The letter Z is a fucking bitch to write, incidently.
[/QUOTE]
Okay… Continuing the hijack for a second.
I thought I printed everything. But my pen never comes off the paper (other than for the dots of “i” and “j”). Is that “cursive”? I thought it was just slurred, messy printing.
I also learned “cursive” in school as the Charlie Brown example above.
ETA: In school, all my notes were in my own form of shorthand anyway. It’s not like I was writing everything out longhand as if the prof was dictating.
[QUOTE=shy guy]
Wait, what kind of cursive writing is there that doesn’t look like the writing in the above link? That’s what I was taught in grade school.
[/QUOTE]
My alleged cursive. Every other sample of cursive writing I’ve ever seen that was written by anyone outside of grade school.
People develop their own distinctive styles of writing cursive once they’re not graded on doing it the recommended way any more.
Someone should make sunscreen that does make you glow in the dark- it would mean that a lot more kids would actually use the stuff…