Cursive

[SOLROCK]

I noticed recently that in my High School nearly all of the students write in print. While I have no problem with this it kind of makes me sad in a way. Cursive is like a dying breed. I write mostly in cursive. Most of the older teachers I have write in it too. Most kids can write their names in cursive and thats about it. Just recently I was tutoring some middle schoolers and I was writing normally(in cursive) and they couldn't read my hand writing at all. In fact when I asked them about it I found out that they were never even taught how to write in cursive. Thats how I found out that cursive is out of the curriculum in my district. I mean its not like teaching it to the kids is a burden. If anything it should be taught to promote dexterity. Most of the kids in the younger generations have pretty bad handwriting. This kind of fits in together with the fact that most kids in my High School can't really do arithmetic either. Most can't do long division by hand or multiply numbers that are greater than the times table. It makes me kind of sad. But i guess this is just society moving on. Do any of you notice any other little differences in society from the time you were younger? This would be especially good to know from older members.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I remember having to learn cursive, it's funny that it isn't stressed anymore at higher grades. I never liked it though, Adults couldn't calligraph neatly if their lives depended on it.

 

[Auburn]

I've written in cursive ever since the third grade and unless people specifically ask for print, still do. I find it to be a lot more expressive, quicker, and just flows so much more naturally.

I went through a phase where I discovered and became fascinated by calligraphy. I check out a library book on it once and halfway through it I realized it was all written by hand. The entire book. Yet it looked like computer fonts. I was so amazed that I went to buy an ink pen myself and began practicing. Those were the days~

 

[Vrecknidj]

My wife's handwriting, in cursive, is beautiful. I like to read whatever she writes by hand just because her writing looks like art. My own cursive is rather crude. I prefer print because it's easier to read, but, that's me.

 

[Solitaire U.]

Do any of you notice any other little differences in society from the time you were younger?

Yeah...I learned printing, cursive, and typing...back when Jr. High Schools were still called Jr. High Schools. Not surprised that cursive has been axed though...it resembles a creative art too closely to have been allowed to survive.

I doubt it'll be missed much, since there are no cursive keyboards. Pens and paper in general are a pretty damned archaic concept, or so say my children...but they have difficulty reading anything that isn't plugged into an electrical outlet.

 

[Melllvar]

I learned how to write cursive in elementary school, and I assumed everyone did. I used to switch back and forth, using mostly cursive for a few years, than print, then back to cursive, etc. Now I just use print, for no particular reason. I've pretty much forgotten how to write anything except my name in cursive, although I could still pick it up again without any effort. Cursive is faster, but also harder to read. I don't think there's any real reason I went with print: it's just what I happened to be last using when I decided to quit changing.

Actually, it's very rare that I write anything these days, outside of math problems, equation solving or diagramming something. Pretty much everything gets typed on a computer.

 

[Jill BioSkop]

I'm not from America and find it impressive how fast some people manage to write in print. I find cursive much more intuitive.

 

[Bird]

I exclusively write in cursive.
If you cannot read it, because
you don't know how (not
because my writing is illegible),
that is not my problem. Just
hope it was not relevant to
your health.

 

[Meer]

No one knows how to read my printing.

They're all retards.

 

[zach]

Most government documents require print, so let's blame the government.

 

[EditorOne]

Nobody to blame. Cursive is fast writing, ie, the faster alternative to printing out each letter. But you can cursive all you want and you'll never clock 120 words a minute, which I bet most of us can hit on a keyboard these days.

 

[Cogwulf]

Cursive is good for writing things that you want other people to see (excluding forms etc.) But nowadays mostly all I write is typed.

A few months ago I bought a calligraphy set, I'll get round to using it one day...

 

[Ryan]

I learned to write in cursive back in 4th grade. My teacher was also pissy about how it's so important to learn cursive and that I'm going to be using it for the rest of my life. I haven't had to use it at all other then writing my signature since then and it's been 6 years.

 

[GottabeKB]

I remember when I learned cursive in elementary school (I think, I have a terrible memory), the teacher would not allow us to write with a pen until we had learned cursive sufficiently enough (to her standards of course). So I wound up being one of the last ones to write in pencil because I couldn't stand that my teacher was forcing me to do something. Oh how passive-aggressive I was. At the same time I really did want to write with a pen because it made writing 'flow' much more easier. I find writing with a pen provides more dexterity, but anyways that's besides the point. So after being forced to write cursive for a year in that class, about a year or two later I dropped writing in cursive like a rock, probably mostly in angst. I bet you if my teacher didn't force me to do something and just taught me to write differently I would see it as a novel way of writing and would have enjoyed it. But alas I probably will never write cursive again since I have become so accustomed to printing (and typing of course).

 

[shoeless]

i'm a senior in high school now, learned cursive in elementary, still use it, and people still bitch about my handwriting.

alas.

 

[Zionoxis]

I ALWAYS write in print. I learned to write in cursive, but for some reason, I always found it to take a longer amount of time. My hand also hurt much faster when writing cursive. I get to claim the award of black sheep once again.

 

[Bird]

I remember having to learn cursive, it's funny that it isn't stressed anymore at higher grades. I never liked it though, Adults couldn't calligraph neatly if their lives depended on it.

Mmm boy, my cursive is beautiful and about the only way I write and I am an adult (;

 

[Cavallier]

My 4th grade teacher required that we write in cursive all the time. I don't know why people wouldn't be able to read it. The letters look almost the same for the most part. "Z" is a little weird but you can figure it out from context what the letter is. Seriously, if somebody claims they can't read cursive it has got to be because they are being intentionally thick.

I prefer to print because I like long upper zone and lower zone lines that don't have loops involved. They look more graceful to me. Though, I often use the cursive version of letters for capitalization. I think my handwriting is a bit eclectic. If I see a letter written a certain way that I like I copy the shape in my handwriting.

 

[jzono1]

My cursive is so bad it makes people laugh. I basically need to write with a fine fountain pen to be able to write something that can be read by others people.

It's efficient for what I use it for though, and that's what matters.

 

[EmergingAlbert]

I never write in print unless I must (like on forms and such). I learned cursive in third grade, and we had to write in cursive throughout the whole year. I remember in fourth grade, my classmates would always ask the teacher, "Do we have to write in cursive?" She would always say "yes," but I never understood why they didn't want to write in cursive. I enjoyed cursive not only because it was a fun and new way for me to write, but also because it made more sense to me [you don't have to lift up your pen(cil) until you're done with a word, and it's more efficient]. Once I started fifth grade (first year of middle school), the teachers no longer cared whether we wrote in cursive or print, so practically all of the students except myself started writing in print. I constantly wondered, "You just learned cursive...why the heck would you want to waste that learning experience and go back to printing like a second grader?"

Now I do most of my written communication through typing, but on the rare occasion that I do write (e.g., taking notes when I haven't access to my computer, signing my name, or writing a letter), it's always in cursive.

 

[INTPAnalog]

My third grade teacher, like many others it seems, made us write in cursive for the entire year. I was immediately confused. Why would you start teaching us how to write one way for two years, then switch? It didn't make much sense to me and I spent more time wondering about it then actually trying to learn it. I think the turning point for me was when a substitute teacher made me redo an assignment 3 times because my cursive wasn't good enough (due to afore mentioned reasons). I went back to print but soon found that my mind went to fast and I needed a faster way of writing, so I integrated cursive into my print. This didn't go so well. It sort of turned out to be mostly illegible. My writing now is the bane of pier editing and note revision, however I can usually get by without rewriting something.

 

[^_\\]

Doesn't that put them at a disadvantage in timed tests?

 

[thoumyvision]

Cursive is an archaic leftover of a non-technological age. There is certainly a particular art and beauty to well written cursive, but to teach all elementary students the art is a waste of time.

"Schools are now being encouraged to give senior pupils handwriting lessons amid concerns that an over-reliance on computers and mobile phones is sending the handwritten word the way of the dodo. This is a bit like suggesting we teach pupils how to use logarithms in a bid to compensate for their over-reliance on the calculator, or that we teach them how to ride penny-farthings to make up for the dominance of the mountain bike. "
-Writing is on the wall for Long-hand.

Who here has needed cursive at all since they entered the workforce? Apart from my signature, which is an unintelligible scribble, I haven't used cursive in over a decade. This tells me it's an unnecessary skill. Yes it's very sad we don't need it any more blah blah blah.

"Every generation has its techno-fear. Three millennia ago it was handwriting. Socrates warned that writing would replace memory and that the human soul would dissolve if translated into “ambiguous inscription”. How do we know this? Plato wrote it down."

 

[JoeJoe]

I'm from Germany and we handle it a bit differently here. I went to Kindergarten and first grade on a private school in the USA and I learned cursive there. Then I went back to Germany and learned another type of cursive. There are a few differences: Our cursive is probably more easy to read, because the letters resemble print more closely. I especially find the capital letters of American cursive often make little sense. However we do not have such a strict "policy" of "only lift your pen after you have finished a word", which I found confusing at first, because I thought that was all that cursive was about. From what I have read in this thread, I have the impression, that Germans learn cursive earlier and are expected to use cursive as their main form of writing from then on. Practically everybody I know used cursive at least up to grade 8 or something like that. Those who switched back to print, myself included, only did so because their writing was unintelligible. However, I have also heard that some primary schools have stopped teaching it, which I find reasonable, seeing how many switch back to print anyways as it gives time to teach other things. It's actually quite a problem for some teachers, who have to read the unintelligible cursive writing of somebody who won't switch to print because it's much slower, seeing as they never used it.

Also, I can read black letter fluently...

 

[BirdValiant]

I write almost exclusively in cursive. Besides computers, I think that ball-point pens made cursive so rare. Compared to fountain pens, you need to press harder, which favors the use of short strokes, not long, extended ones.

So I write in almost exclusively in cursive, almost exclusively with a fountain pen, except with carbon-copy notebooks and things that need to be erased, like anything mathematics-related.

 

[Gematria]

I write in a cursive/print hybrid; it seems to make writing so much faster. But it definitely is not an art form when i write it.

 

[EditorOne]

I am struck by the number of posters asserting illegibility. I am naturally trying to figure out why so many on an INTP forum have illegible handwriting. I'm pretty sure there's more than one cause for it, and lack of motors skills is only one of them. Impatience with an inefficient tool might be part of it too.

My handwriting is quite legible when I know someone else is going to read it, less so when it's just for me, taking notes or whatever. My wife is just the opposite: Nobody can read her writing, except her. Perhaps that's her goal. She's also one of the few people I know who is adept at shorthand, the formerly popular notational system used in lieu of writing out full words. She may have been one of the last people ever to have learned it in school, it was already old-fashioned when we were kids. However, her shorthand is so indecipherable that even another shorthand expert would be left clueless.

 

[TheHmmmm]

Cursive sucks and wastes time. Barely legible too.

My handwriting is crap, but I can read it and so can anybody who needs to.

 

[xbox]

i can barely read my handwriting when im tired. after I feel awake, that time is frustratingly spent decoding my own stuff..

but I too write in a print/cursive hybrid.

 

[digital angel]

For the most part, I write in cursive. I do however, have a hybrid type of writing from time to time. Meaning, I do write in cursive/print sometimes. It can make it hard to read for some but, it could be worse.

 

[lenon01]

I tend to use a kind of cursive/print hybrid style when I write. It's not nearly as showy as cursive, but not so bland as print. Whenever I do write in cursive, it comes out sloppy and eventually I got so sick of having such crap cursive skills that I gave up and wrote in print, albeit one that cuts a lot of corners and even has some of the strokes that cursive has; whenever I do some letters next to each other, I just flow from one right into the other.

It's not funny. I hate my signature too.