Technology killing handwriting

[Undertoad]

Washington Post: The Handwriting is On the Wall - Researchers see a downside as keyboards replace pens in school

Cursive handwriting is no longer taught.

I wrote this 7 years ago:

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Cursive handwriting is no longer taught.

I welcome this particular change. What I miss is having shoeboxes full of letters you can go back and read.

[Flint]

Synchronicity. I was going to start a thread where people post bits of their hand-writing. (I'm obsessed with mine...)

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Flint

Synchronicity. I was going to start a thread where people post bits of their hand-writing. (I'm obsessed with mine...)

Please do! I love looking at people's handwriting. I think it's a great insight into character.

Very clear handwriting by the way UT.

Ummmm - I assume cursive simply means joined-up handwriting....?

[Stormieweather]

My handwriting changes dependant upon my state of mind at the time of the writing. When feeling confident and poised my letters are rounded and girlish with almost no tilt. During stressful times, my handwriting is all over the place, letters leaning right and left without consistancy. And when I'm confused or struggling mentally/emotionally, my cursive leans backwards (left). The actual formation of the letters also changes based on varied circumstances.

Yes, I'm fascinated by cursive handwriting and what it can tell about the person who wrote it.

Stormie

[Bullitt]

I had to learn how to write three times throughout school.. first there was print, then denealion, then cursive. Denealion (or however its friggin spelled) was like a mix of cursive and print. Loopy disjointed letters that look like you took cursive and cut it up, yet not because the letters were sometimes different in cursive.
Pretty much sucked.

[Zombie]

Originally Posted by Stormieweather

My handwriting changes dependant upon my state of mind at the time of the writing. When feeling confident and poised my letters are rounded and girlish with almost no tilt.

Hey, hey, hey... Are you trying to say that if I don't write all nice and rounded then I'm not properly girlish? :P

I'll have you know that I write in all capitals. That's right. I have permanent capslock on. My shift key is glued down. Well, it got stuck a few years back, actually, in a freak accident involving a overzealous jelly doughnut.

I also write with a Pilot Precise V5. That's got a super-fine tip for super-small writing when I need to. My text tends to vary in size and "roughness" of letters. I can be super neat and nice with uniform spacing and clean lines, or I can just stab the paper four times to make an "E" and be done with it.

I've got a moleskine notebook, one of those small pocket-size ones, and I draw little comics in it. They're stick figure, sure, but I detail everything but the people. That's mostly because I just can't draw people too terribly well. Anyway, the point of this is that I draw out something I could easily create on the computer and I handwrite all of the dialogue in order to impart a piece of myself into it.

I write and draw to clear my head and typing things out just doesn't do it as well for me. Typing things out helps to sort out my thoughts, but it doesn't let me clear my mind.

Anyway, I'm glad cursive has gone out the window. I actually had to learn that crap just so I could get my state ID. Apparently the government doesn't like when you neatly print your name in the space where it says, "Signature here" and government employees seem to completely lose any semblance of intelligent thought when you try to explain to them that that IS your signature. They then tell you that "That's your name printed. It is not a signature." and you respond by explaining that your signature IS your name printed because that is how you ALWAYS write your name.

Maybe I can finally stop having to remember how to spell my goddess forsaken last name in freaking cursive every time I need to "officially sign" something.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Cursive handwriting is no longer taught.

Actually it still is and my daughter hates it as much as I did. I took some exams recently which required cursive handwriting samples, I guess for ID purposes. I totally blanked for a moment, how the heck do I write "I" in cursive? Outside of my sig I probably haven't used cursive writing in 25 years.

[bbro]

I ALWAYS write in cursive. As soon as we learned it, that was all that we were allowed to use. I can't stand printing, it takes too much time for me. It would take me at least 2 to 3 times longer printing than with cursive.

The only thing that I would wonder about is when these kids get to college. As far as I know, you can't take a computer in to do the essay tests.

Maybe I am confused, is it just cursive they aren't teaching? Or has the teaching of printing gone down, too?

The other thing is that people don't care about writing. One quote from the article (paraphrased) is that all important things that are turned are typed so what does it matter. But if I want to write a quick note, I am not going to go to the computer and print one out. I am just going to jot it down...in cursive. Why do I feel so ancient right now??

[Flint]

Originally Posted by bbro

As far as I know, you can't take a computer in to do the essay tests.

Student Fills In New Essay Portion Of SAT With All C's

[rock9995]

Originally Posted by bbro

As far as I know, you can't take a computer in to do the essay tests.

from Retief: "Before we all either mourn or celebrate the death of Cursive, I'd like to question the evidence here. At least one piece of it seems to be the low percentage of essays on the SAT done in Cursive. Every school, book, or website that gives tips or training on doing well on the SAT includes heavy emphasis on legibility. Along with 1. have a thesis, 2. give examples, and 3. use connecting phrases, comes 4. Make It Legible. The SAT essay isn't a sample of high school students' handwriting, it is a sample of what high school students produce when told that legibility is paramount and that if the graders can't make out a word in less than one second they will ignore it. So reports of its death may be premature.

That said, whether you write cursive or print, the ability to write longhand quickly and reasonably legibly is clearly an advantage in many post high school situations. Which, of course, is the point of cursive. When it is done right it is basically sped up printing."

Now that I live in a foreign country, I always carry a little pocket notebook and jot down info--language, names, etc.--in a fraction of the time it would take to do it electronically on some thingamabob.

Whoever said above that they missed those old boxes of letters reminded me of my grandfather's beautiful script. He was taught the old Palmer method in the early 1900's and it was just amazing to look at and read. Probably pretty slow but, combined with his flowery prose, he got a lot of chicks writing like that. I guess I should say "thank God".

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I learned the cursive, but abandoned it after a year because my own style was already faster and more fun to me.

For those that print, no prob, just print fast, however cursive is faster still.

It's interesting to note the fascination that the people here, especially, have with their own handwriting. Whether y'all (sorry, I'm "Southern") like or dislike your handwriting is not so important as the fact that there is an interest, however keen or morbid, with the finished example of the complex (hand, eye and brainwise) task of producing an imprint of one's individuality for the world to see. I mean, there's no such thing as "graphoanalysis" on a keyboard-produced document. The fact that people who are more interested in self-expression--yes, I mean right here in the Cellar-- have more of an interest in the life or death of Cursive than those who know the minutiae of shallow pop-culture, i.e., who so-and-so celeb is dating or just a wee bit too sports-crazy (watching, not doing) gleaned from too much f****** television.

In several posts above, people talk about the individuality of each person's handwriting--no two are alike, right? and indeed mood-dependent--and a certain sublament about the loss of this (ahem) Window to the Soul. I type blazingly fast without a singtnle maisthtke and I guess we have to in order to communicate so much to so many in the course of the day. Still, I hope the current trend of losing the art of Cursive will slow, then stop, then start creeping back...hopefully.

And, finally:

Originally Posted by Flint

Synchronicity. I was going to start a thread where people post bits of their hand-writing. (I'm obsessed with mine...)

What a cool idea! Underscoring the point that anybody that likes Frank Zappa has got SOMETHING going on...

oh, yeah, interesting article:

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/...709225,00.html

Okay, I'll shut up now. <collective sigh of relief>

[lumberjim]

i happen to possess a collection of some dwellars handwriting. the funniest by far is sycamore. it's like a 13 yr old girl's. all loopy and stuff. if he used hearts to dot his i's, the illusion would be complete.

[Shawnee123]

I've always written in a combination of cursive and printed letters...sometimes an individual letter will be either way depending on what letter came before it or after it.

[KinkyVixen]

I've never actually analyzed my handwriting, other than to say it's not very pretty, nor is it girlie...it's more along the lines of chicken scratches, literally. I've always been jealous of those with pretty handwriting though. Is it because I learned early on to be lazy about my handwriting? I've heard that with practice you can change it...but i've never actually tried, so maybe I am just that lazy.

So I wouldn't say that I'm obsessed with handwriting...but it's definitely fun to check out the differences...so i'm all about posting people's handwriting. I'll even post mine, for ridicule sake...
Mine is a lot like Stormie's though...depends a lot on the circumstances surrounding my writing...

[xoxoxoBruce]

I should have been a Doctor.