# What is cursive? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 19, 2022, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828 "2022-09-19T14:23:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2022, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/161 "2022-09-21T22:57:33Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > > [@Dinsdale](#): > > > > One final point - which isn’t all THAT important, but as I remember it, part of the allure of writing cursive was because that’s how ADULTS and BIG KIDS wrote. Now, it seems the maturing of young people is consistently delayed in many respects. Writing cursive is perhaps a minuscule aspect of this. > > That’s interesting to me, because I’ve never heard of such a concept. For me, adults used typewriters and, later, computer printers. Writing was for temporary stuff before typing it. Or mathematics. Adults wrote letters, grocery lists, recipes, checks, etc. And the “big kids” in school (i.e. those at least a grade or two ahead) certainly did a significant amount of writing. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/162 "2022-09-22T01:46:22Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I really don’t think “cursive = adult” in any way at all. Neither do I. Writing in pen instead of pencil, however… ~Max ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/163 "2022-09-22T02:46:32Z")
I do not know about “adult”, but— this is going to be more a personal anecdote/speculation than anything scientific— handwritten documents may be slightly more difficult to forge or alter. Once— **not** in the U.S., but yes in the current millennium— I had to submit an official petition for something to the governor. It was explained to me in no uncertain terms that the document had to be written by hand, in permanent ink, formally worded (and naturally everything had to be spelled correctly, etc.), in nice script (using a fountain pen would be OK but a ballpoint would be right out, and it went without saying it had better be legible), and everything otherwise had to be done just so. I have no idea whether this formality was all just to annoy the proles, but it is definitely “adult”. No sealing wax was used, though 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/164 "2022-09-22T14:57:00Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I spend a lot of time with college kids, and I’d be shocked if they can write cursive. Some of the kids I interact with can barely hand-write their own names. And I don’t mean that they write illegibly, I mean that they move the pen slowly and painfully, like a first-grader, and it hurts just watching them. These same kids are fast and accurate typists. I assume that kids are learning to write using a keyboard quite early. Isn’t all this sort of a tempest in a teapot? I mean, I was reasonably proficient at all three by college- printing, cursive AND typing/keyboarding. Granted, we were required to take a full year of typing in high school (it wasn’t keyboarding; it was taught on old IBM Selectric typewriters, and also involved how to do tabs, etc… on them). I think part of the problem, if it is a problem, is that kids are expected to learn stuff earlier and faster than we were, so there’s less room in the curriculum for extra stuff like printing, cursive, AND keyboarding. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Cursive does not accomplish what its proponents say it does; namely, increase the speed at which things are written. I totally disagree. Printing requires me to pick up my pen and effectively draw each character. A capital “A” takes 3 strokes of the pen- two diagonal ones joined at the top, and the crossbar. By comparison, a capital “A” in cursive is just a sort of oval with a downstroke that starts where the oval ends, and I’m ready for the following letter without having to lift the pen off the paper. For me anyway, it’s considerably slower to print. And with a fountain pen instead of a ballpoint, cursive is even faster. ---
**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:** [September 22, 2022, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/165 "2022-09-22T15:08:28Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I totally disagree. Printing requires me to pick up my pen and effectively draw each character. A capital “A” takes 3 strokes of the pen- two diagonal ones joined at the top, and the crossbar. By comparison, a capital “A” in cursive is just a sort of oval with a downstroke that starts where the oval ends, and I’m ready for the following letter without having to lift the pen off the paper. But pick another letter, the capital I. All I do is one vertical stroke and I’m off to the next letter, not the weird loops back and forth to make what I consider a standard cursive “I”. And I’m not convinced not lifting your pen from the paper is necessarily and improvement on speed. In cursive, you’re supposed to dot i’s and cross-t’s after you finish the word. It’s supposedly faster to dot and cross as you go along in cursive (once again, can’t find the study where I read it, though). I would like to see actual studies comparing speed. The only one I could find is one where speeds were measured of children who learned cursive(in French-speaking Quebec) first vs print first and found both no measurable differences between the two groups. Otherwise, it’s all just anecdotes and repeated notions of “cursive is faster” without any data supporting it. ETA: Now, I do personally use a mix of printing and cursive, taking what I’m best at in each, for my own note-taking that I feel is the fastest. But if I went with my straight printing vs straight cursive, I doubt there would be much difference, and my legibility would be much better if I’m speed printing vs speed cursive. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/166 "2022-09-22T15:11:39Z")
I’d bet it’s in the aggregate; while “I” in a vacuum is faster, writing “Italy” would be more stop-start in print vs. cursive, and therefore slower. Or maybe it’s not necessarily slower, just easier/less fatiguing. All I know is that printing my notes in college would have damn near killed my hand, while writing in cursive was sustainable for an entire lecture. ---
**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:** [September 22, 2022, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/167 "2022-09-22T15:16:12Z")
> [@bump](#): > > ould be more stop-start in print vs. cursive, and therefore slower. My intuition is the stop-start is not as big a deal as folks are making it out to be. Your pen is still travelling while printing, just not touching the page. So you do have extra micro-motions of lifting and dropping, I suppose, but left-to-right flow continues, at least in my writing. And I feel cursive has a lot more back-and-forth changes of direction which seem inefficient to me, as well. Depends on the letter. That’s why I’d like to see a study, as I think there are a multitiude of factors involved. Your point about fatigue makes sense to me, though. Cursive has less pen-on-pen-off motions, and that could make it more sustainable for long stretches. Like I said, I do a mix of both, so I do see some things cursive does much better – at least for me. (One example for me, is for “th” combinations, I start the “t” with a vertical downstroke, as in printing, but use the crossbar as a ligature into a cursive “h,” which feels faster to me than just printing, or just doing the cursive thing where you curve in and out of the stem and then cross when you’ve finished writing your word. You have to go all the way back for no good reason at all, when you can just cross as you do it, and those leading and exiting strokes are unnecessary.) ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/168 "2022-09-22T15:19:30Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Isn’t all this sort of a tempest in a teapot? I guess i don’t see the tempest. I observe that kids aren’t learning cursive, and think, “times have changed, that makes sense.” ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/169 "2022-09-22T19:42:42Z")
IMO also contributing to the “speed” of cursive is that with many words, you don’t need to form ALL of the letters. Put the correct first couple of letters, maybe clearly cross a “t” or dot an “I”, and include the appropriate number of tails up and down, and the rest can essentially be approximately the correct number of bumps. Harder to do with printing. My writing isn’t HORRIBLE, but it slows down significantly - and I tend to make mistakes - when I try to form every letter “correctly.” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/170 "2022-09-22T19:55:03Z")
> [@bump](#): > > A capital “A” takes 3 strokes of the pen Uh, what? It’s two strokes. Up-down to make an upside-down V, then the crossbar. It doesn’t slow me down at all to lift the pen. In fact I’m hardly even lifting it, just reducing the pressure slightly; at least with a ballpoint, it doesn’t leave a significant mark just being dragged across the surface lightly (and on the occasion that it does, I don’t really care). > [@bump](#): > > All I know is that printing my notes in college would have damn near killed my hand, while writing in cursive was sustainable for an entire lecture. Completely the opposite for me. Producing the accurate curves required for cursive means a great deal of pressure on the writing implement. But print is largely segments of straight lines, which don’t need nearly the same level of accuracy to be legible. So I can hold the pen more loosely and still produce readable results. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/171 "2022-09-22T19:59:27Z")
As I’ve said before in another thread, my cursive is faster–if what you want is a series of completely indecipherable loops and squiggles. If you want to actually be able to read it later, it takes at least twice as long as it would to hand print the same text. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/172 "2022-09-22T21:02:58Z")
I suspect that which is faster—cursive or printing—and by how much will depend on several factors, many of which have been mentioned in this thread. Some of these are more speculative than others: - What kind of writing implement you’re using - How much practice you’ve had at writing cursive vs printing - How neat and legible you’re trying to be - Your degree of manual dexterity or fine motor skills - How old you were when you learned how to write cursive - The (perhaps unconscious) attitude you have toward cursive - How much or for how long you have to write ---
**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:** [September 22, 2022, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/173 "2022-09-22T21:08:41Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > How old you were when you learned how to write cursive The one study I found on this has found that not to be the case. It’s only one data point, but at least it’s an actual study. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/174 "2022-09-22T21:37:38Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Your degree of manual dexterity or fine motor skills I kind of wonder how much that’s a determining factor. I have a good friend who doesn’t write cursive, and prints a sort of chicken-scratch style. He also types via hunt-and-peck, instead of touch typing. And he’s got atrocious fine motor skills in general. I, on the other hand am a pretty fast typist, write almost exclusively in cursive, and have pretty good fine motor skills. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/175 "2022-09-22T22:28:16Z")
> [@bump](#): > > He also types via hunt-and-peck, instead of touch typing. Last time I tried standard touch typing, my rate was about 12 words a minute. If I type in the style I usually do (using almost entirely my right index finger), my rate is about 40 words a minute. I know where the letters are, I just have sub parr dexterity. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2022, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/176 "2022-09-22T23:00:19Z")
Even if writing in cursive was faster than printing it would still be inefficient because it’s more difficult to read, and will only be written once while it will be read more than once on average. ---
**Author:** ![BobR\_421](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@BobR\_421](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobR_421)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2022, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/177 "2022-09-23T04:58:31Z")
The correct question is, Have the blue blood schools also discontinued the teaching of cursive writing. Prior to the introduction of standardized government schooling, the public elementary education included Greek and Latin so the youngsters could read the classics in the writers own hand vs trusting to someone’s translation. And a liberal education used to mean exposure to everything so that a kid could discover where his own talent and interest lay. Algebra calculus trigonometry, physics literature, polity were all taught at the elementary level. This intensive curriculum is still taught in the blue blood schools where money does not allow entrance without connection. In standardized education, the curriculum has been gradually and continually curtailed and stripped of value since inception. No language requirements. Dick and Jane replaced McGuffie’s Reader. McGuffey replaced reading directly from the classics. Little house on the prairie had an episode where little Laura was “writing in diary”, calculus is really hard but I like the Latin. (Might have been vice-versa). Remember, Laura writing in diary was actually Laura reading from the diary on which the show was based. Cost a library and ask have they copies of readers used in various eras beginning with 1850 and very 40 years thereafter. The liberal education today is mocked as college courses in underwater basket weaving and such. Read the forefathers description of the liberal education. Again the founders said democracy cannot survive without an educated populace. The education they espoused was the liberal education. And repeating myself, the definition of liberal is generous. That is A generous exposure to available subject matter. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2022, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/178 "2022-09-23T13:20:01Z")
It is true that, if we consider New York as an example, for diploma requirements all foreign language exams, including Latin, have been dropped relatively recently “as the curricular emphasis trended toward comprehensive examinations rather than the singularly focused tests of the past”. So were exams in subjects like agricultural science and salesmanship. We should not be singularly focused on standardized examinations, though. A better question might be concerning what, in practice, schools teach. (And, while there are certainly poorly performing schools, I doubt anyone is suggesting on paper that liberal arts like mathematics, science, literature, and the creative arts are passé, though if you have information on that it could be interesting.) Back to exams, we can certainly understand schools’ urge to utilize “technology”, namely the submission of exam responses digitally instead of collecting and managing thousands upon thousands of pieces of paper, and this is hardly a brand-new trend. Again, though, taking standardized exams should not be the _only_ activity taking place in schools, and I daresay students may find they need to write something down at some point. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2022, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/179 "2022-10-11T19:17:27Z")
Bumping this with an interesting Twitter thread that my wife sent me. I’m a real cursive skeptic, so this definitely confirms my preconceptions, but it’s still really interesting; the author is an historian who specializes in old forms of writing, i.e., a paleographer. (Edit: click on her name for the paleographic thoughts; if you click on the link-in-a-link it’s not as interesting IMO) > > > Josh Marshall @joshtpm ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2022, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828/180 "2022-10-11T20:13:13Z")
And within that thread is a link to this article suggesting that cursive can be helpful for kids with dyslexia, which I found interesting: > **[How cursive can help students with dyslexia connect the dots](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/connecting-dots-role-cursive-dyslexia-therapy)** > > Students with dyslexia have difficulty learning to read because their brains associate sounds and letter combinations inefficiently. But cursive can help them with the decoding process because it integrates hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-cursive/971828.md?page=8)