What is cursive?

In My Humble Opinion
81

I agree with other Americans. Script = cursive = a style of handwriting designed to let you write word without lifting your pen. The examples of the “Palmer Method” are pretty close to what I was taught.

I rebelled against cursive in elementary school, and reverted to “printing” (writing each letter individually, in a style that looks similar to a simple sans-serif printed font) as soon as I could get away with it, which was before I left elementary school, although I forget which year it was.

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.

I am left-handed, too, and perhaps that’s why I hated cursive so much. It’s all designed to optimize for right-handers.

Ironically, I now use “swype” to enter text on my phone, which is a method of “typing” that allows you to write without lifting your finger as it flows from letter to letter within a word. Despite my low accuracy (you may have noticed that I produce a lot of swypos) I find it a lot faster and easier than pecking out each letter individually. I pretty much only do that for passwords, or unusual words that my phone just refuses to recognize.

I have no opinion as to whether kids these days can READ cursive. I think it takes more than half an hour to learn, but agree that learning to read it is a lot easier than learning to write it. The kids I interact with seem to be able to read my handwriting (which isn’t cursive) fine, despite their difficulties writing by hand.

As to exams – my professional society recently moved from written exams in booklets to computer-based testing, where the candidates type long answers with a keyboard, and can use an excel-like environment for the math parts. It’s a whole lot easier to grade, and the candidates seem to prefer it.

82

I learned Palmer. There are simpler connected styles, but I think connected writing is better. If students are expected to do all their notes and texts on a computer, what will they do with
\int_a^b \frac1{1+x^2}dx={\rm Arc\, tan}\,b-{\rm Arc\,tan}\,a

That took me a couple minutes and I am pretty familiar with TeX.

83

How are math classes even relevant at all, here? In a math class, most of the answers are going to be numbers, and even in algebra and further courses where there are a lot of letters, they’ll have numbers interspersed, and be arranged in ways that aren’t suited for the same writing methods as written language. If I’m writing x = \frac{-b ± \sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}, then it’s not going to be “cursive” no matter what technique I use for making my a, b, c, and x.

Last year, I had a student whose handwriting was very bad, but for some reason (probably because he pursued it as a hobby on his own initiative, instead of being forced to by others) he wrote very neatly and legibly in Elder Futhark runes. On the few occasions that it mattered, I let him do so, because it wasn’t really all that much extra effort for me to read, and in any event it was at least unambiguous… but it was almost never relevant.

84

the integral from a to be of (1/1+x^2)dx = Arctan b - Arctan a

(I have an integral sign in some software, but not here.)

85

I had decent writing (cursive) in school, but when I went into the Air Force it was basically print legibly and not in cursive (and black or dark blue ink).

So for the past 40 years I’ve written in block lettering.The only time I write in cursive is when I sign a check.

And since the stroke 3 years ago, I am able to print again and sign my name, but it takes me a tad longer to sign in cursive so it’s not so sloppy.

86

That is a nice story! Some teachers are better than others and accept their pupils’ spleens. Looking at how this runes are written I guess there is no way to make them cursive according to the US meaning of the term, that is, without lifting the pen.

87

Speak for yourself. I find straight vertical lines to be about the fastest and most accurate thing to write, closely followed by circles. I, A, M, V, W, etc. are all super fast to print. It’s all the weird curly versions in cursive that take forever.

I think it’s probably accurate that left-handers have an even more difficult time. I also tend to write very compactly, which in cursive becomes unreadable quickly, whereas small print letters are easy to produce and read.

88

I have seen 'em in seminars, clicking away in what looked like raw TeX, or at least pseudo-TeX. If you go that route you had better be able to put together a line in less than a couple of minutes, however.

The subject is not relevant, except that it is a matter of students being allowed (or forced!) to type their exam responses instead of writing them on a piece of paper. I would personally find it faster to write complex notation (mathematics, chemistry…) than figure out how to typeset it under time pressure.

Once I took a language class in Japanese. As beginners, there sure was a lot of writing practice (no attempt was made to teach explicitly cursive styles of handwriting, however, even if it would have eventually been faster to write and moreover is what is actually used in real life). They also made sure we learned how to type Japanese, and certain compositions had to be turned in that way. The in-class exams were written by hand, of course (and spelling mistakes most certainly counted against you :slight_smile:

89

Arabic is also joined-up, by the way, but “cursive” handwriting seems to be introduced around the sixth grade (?) rather than immediately. I mean like Ruq’ah versus Naskh.

90

Chances are most people don’t write them as perfect verticals and perfect circles, so there’s no reason they should have been taught that way. Of course I could be wrong in your case, but I would be surprised if your handwriting were a perfect reproduction of printed letters with geometric verticals and (x−h)^2 + (y−k)^2 = r^2 circles. The purposes of printed letter shapes and handwritten shapes are different, so they should taught as being different. Even going back to Roman times, no one wrote like they were carving letters into a marble plinth. Even their handwriting didn’t look like Roman capitals. Handwriting is its own thing, so its letter shapes should be their own thing. If you look at the example I posted the italic cursive is simple shapes that can be easily connected for speed and are comfortable flexible, not based on geometrical perpendicularity, right angles, and circles. Maybe you’re an outlier, but I don’t see many people whose handwriting is actually perfectly square, so perfect squareness shouldn’t be the base standard.

91

Oh, sure, a lot of math is done on paper (even if it’s not what you turn in, your scratch work probably is). But the orthography used in math is so unlike any orthography used in written language that I think that any comparisons are meaningless.

For what it’s worth, when students are entering math notation on a computer (such as most of the homework my students do, because it’s much easier on everyone involved that way), it’ll usually be in a context where there’s some sort of WYSIWYG editor that’s optimized for the sort of math that the students are doing (there will be buttons for things like fraction bars and square root signs and integral signs, and so on).

92

No, but it is close. My capital I is just a single downstroke, like any sans-serif font. I can’t think of any letterform that’s easier to print. It doesn’t matter if it’s a few degrees off. Cursive forms vary in their loopiness, but I don’t know of any style that’s as simple as a single downstroke.

Not all of my letterforms match typical sans-serif fonts, of course. They’re a bit optimized for the hand. For instance, my lowercase a is more like 𝓪. A lowercase e is a little more rounded.

93

Actually it does matter. Recognizing that your handwritten forms aren’t going to be perfectly square should be the first principle.

I think you have a very narrow sense of what cursive—or rather what handwriting—is or can be—I don’t know whether you were taught handwriting in an American school, but that would definitely be something you would share with the average product of American education.

94

My handwritten equations use both block and cursive symbols. But not joined-up symbols; maybe that’s what you meant.

95

Writing in cursive was no faster for me than printing. I was told that it was faster than printing and believed it for a while until I saw someone printing fast. It’s not that hard, you don’t lift the pen up entirely, a ball point can skate over paper without leaving a mark if you don’t put pressure on it. Characters will tend to lean as in cursive but.they’re still easily readable. At some point in elementary school handwriting instruction stopped, maybe 4th or 5th grade, and at that point I stopped using cursive altogether. It will be forgotten for the most part soon. I think even when I was a child learning cursive there must have been people questioning the utility of cursive, unsuccessfully obviously, because it’s difficult to end traditions even when they no longer make sense.

96

I learned Palmer cursive in school (I am an American in my mid 40s, and this would have been the 80s that I was taught). I’m glad that I learned it, though I don’t use it often. I mostly use it if I want to write something formal, and my legal signature is primarily cursive. Also, if I ever write a check (which I very rarely do anymore) it is all written in cursive.

I don’t think it’s very important though, and don’t care if my kids know how to write in that style. It’s pretty obsolete and antiquated at this point.

And I write much faster with print. Cursive has so many extra flourishes that it just seems far less efficient than standard writing, and it’s a lot harder to read. I would say that it’s objectively inferior for anything other than aesthetics.

97

Doesn’t it help prove fraud when someone signs someone else’s name on a document? Handwriting analysis is helpful.

98

I assume those concerned with maximizing speed+accuracy (journalists, secretaries) use some form of shorthand rather than try to write words out fully (in any style).

An old-school secretary told me that, to get the job, they had to demonstrate both shorthand speed and typing speed.

99

A printed signature will be just as unique as one written in cursive. Handwriting identification is done with printing. If there’s any other value to handwriting analysis it ought to work with printing too.

100

I can’t fathom what kind of point you’re trying to make here. We’re talking about making squiggles with a stick squeezed between meat-tubes. None of these squiggles are going to be “perfectly” anything.

It’s possible, but I have seen many forms of cursive and none of them have a single vertical downstroke for a capital I.

Cursive does not accomplish what its proponents say it does; namely, increase the speed at which things are written. The cost of this non-improvement is a reduction in legibility and precious classroom hours.