Cursive Writing

[Sgt. Pepper]

whats safety rules? I am reminded of this:

Spoiler: some cussing

I laughed a lot at it. I remember using a metal slide as a kid and the jimmy go splat(merry-go-round)

I look at playgrounds now and shake my head, thinking, "Sheesh!" There was no padded equipment or padded ground when I was a kid. So, scraped knees, sprained wrists, jammed fingers, bloody noses, getting the wind knocked out of you, and broken bones were all part of being a kid back then.

 

[mangalavara]

In my country it's taught in school, starting at 4-5 years old usually. People use cursive or not later in adulthood as their choose to, but it's taught and used at school for everyone

I’m a millennial who learned cursive in school. Being able to write in cursive is a skill that I value to this day.

One reason that I value the skill is that writing in cursive is easier than printing, as @Clizby Wampuscat mentioned. I find that if I write in cursive rather than in print, the task of writing is accomplished quicker and even feels more satisfying.

Another reason that I value this skill is that I know how to sign my name on documents. In the case of legal documents, there is always a field where one’s name is printed and another field where one’s name is to be signed. Being able to print and sign my name reveals that I know and respect the differences.

A third reason that I value being able to write cursive is that being able to write in more than one way is a bit impressive. If you’re not able to write in a script other than Roman letters, at least being able to write Roman letters in more than one way (print and cursive) shows that your writing skills (apart from literary writing) are not the bare minimum.

Somebody might say, ‘Oh, mangalavara, haven’t you listened to the news on YouTube that people these days are hardly picking up pens but instead are tapping letters and words on their smart devices? Kids therefore don’t need to learn cursive, and eventually everybody but you will no longer be able to write in cursive or even print. You don’t want to feel left out, do you? Nobody wants to feel left out!’ To that person, I would answer that research shows that writing in cursive optimizes learning conditions for students. Further, in children who learn cursive, reading acquisition is better facilitated. Lastly, as all educators know, we learn better by writing because we tend to remember what we write by hand. To shift from pen and paper to keys and screens is thus to lower the quality of learning.

All in all, I value being able to write in cursive because it is easier and faster than printing, I can both print and sign my name on documents, and it is a bit impressive to know how to write Roman letters in more than one way. Other than those advantages, writing in cursive is beneficial for young students because it optimizes their learning conditions. For that reason, it is a great idea to teach children to write in cursive.

 

[Revoltingest]

I once had a tenant tell me that my signature is illegal because it’s readable and not cursive.
Dint stop’m from leasing the place.

 

[Sumadji]

I suppose that the basic education provided by the three R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic) is to equip a person with the basic abilities to function in society, and cursive writing is no longer a part of that. It’s probably more important for basic school education to impart a degree of computer literacy in the 21st Century.

*Basic school education could also teach youngsters how to do a little research on what they pick-up on the internet before accepting it as factual. And also learning how to avoid being scammed.

Latin and Greek are probably subjects for higher education, in medical and legal and historical fields. Probably trainee doctors will still need to learn illegible cursive writing, lol

*(edited to add)

 

[RestlessSoul]

I went to 5 different high schools. This was due to a lot of mental health circumstances outside of anyone's control. The elementary private school Academy of Moore was where we had a teacher wanting us to learn latin. She also taught us a lot of stuff regarding southern culture and NC like shag dancing: This Is How To Shag—And Why You Should Learn The Dance (I know folk abroad are going to laugh at the name I promise it's not what you think. It's legit the name of a southern dance.). Hee I still remember her picking one the kids to dance with and how embarrassed he looked.

It's an outdated dance most southerners wouldn't know it but my teacher back then insisted on teaching us a lot of southern cultural things that other schools didn't teach in North Carolina.

There was a radio DJ in England called Tony Blackburn, who had a lot of fun with the song Shagging by Ceelo Green. I guess you know what shagging means in England? Was a great tune btw

 

[SalixIncendium]

Joined-up writing? (Had to look it up!)

Kids still do this in the UK. Doesn't everywhere?

It appears they do not.

 

[Sumadji]

It appears they do not.

HTML is probably more useful

 

[SalixIncendium]

Cursive writing is quicker than printing out individual letters

Not for me. But that may be because I'm just out of practice in writing cursive.

And for me, typing is much faster than both.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Is cursive writing a thing of the past? Are we bringing in a generation that won't be able to read the script unless their parents teach them?

I was taught it and used to regularly write allthroughout school. But today? I've had to look up how write certain letters for art projects because I just don't use it anymore. Other than signing my name (and even then that's more stylized than cursive) I don't believe I've really even used it much ever outside of highschool.
It is definitely on the way out from our culture. But that stuff happens. I'm sure someone will make an app to decipher the dated script.

 

[Secret Chief]

It appears they do not.

Good grief.

 

[SalixIncendium]

I'm sure someone will make an app to decipher the dated script.

It appears someone already has.

‎Handwriting To Text Recognizer

‎Best handwriting text recognizer and optical character recognizer app. It is absolutely free for you. You can handwritten text notes, list or any form of text from paper to editable text in your device in just one click. FEATURES: - Supports Dutch, English, French, German, Italian...

apps.apple.com

PenToPRINT Handwriting to Text - Apps on Google Play

Handwritten Notes OCR & Cursive Reader - Scan and convert image to text

play.google.com

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It appears someone already has.

‎Handwriting To Text Recognizer

‎Best handwriting text recognizer and optical character recognizer app. It is absolutely free for you. You can handwritten text notes, list or any form of text from paper to editable text in your device in just one click. FEATURES: - Supports Dutch, English, French, German, Italian...

apps.apple.com

PenToPRINT Handwriting to Text - Apps on Google Play

Handwritten Notes OCR & Cursive Reader - Scan and convert image to text

play.google.com

Doesn't surprise me.

 

[Tamino]

Cursive? Might as well try to teach our kids Latin while we are at it

You say that like it's a joke... here in Germany, Latin is still a common option as 2nd foreign language. And yes, we teach them cursive in primary school.

I went to school in the 90es, I learned English and Latin at school, and starting with English was considered the "modern" option. Cursive was the required script to use at school until about 6th grade. Later on, anything legible was accepted.
And we learned some calligraphy styles in Art class.

I can write the latin script in print, modern cursive, Fraktur, Caroline minuscule and Roman alphabet... and I feel bad about the fact that my knowledge of old German Kurrent is rather basic.
I can also read and write Futharc, Hieroglyphs and Arabic and I can mostly decipher Greek and Coptic script, but it's spotty. Learning Mandarin is my next project.

How can ANYBODY live in a world with just a single language? And then even knowing only one style of writing it? Isn't that incredibly limiting?

 

[an anarchist]

How can ANYBODY live in a world with just a single language?

Well, it’s English.

 

[RabbiO]

This might be a discussion that our new member @KateGladstone perhaps has insights to share.

 

[Sumadji]

I wonder if schoolchildren still have to 'write lines' as punishment?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I went to 9 schools in 8 years and I feel your pain. I did a whole mix of public and private schools. I think I went to ten schools total. My high school was a public high school in Georgia and I attended it for three whole years and thought it was great. Actually it was very average but hey, it was mine! I remember my senior year we only tied, zero to zero, one football game, our homecoming game. The rest we totally lost!

My junior year the football team was great but everyone graduated that year.

I was lucky. All my highschool was at the same private, all-male boarding school. At the time, the school, which went from grade 7 to 13, had just 155 students, which means only 20 students per grade (not per class). Yet they still offered a full slate of programs, so you can see that the level of individual attention was tremendous. My Latin classes, for example, never exceeded 10 students.

 

[Kathryn]

I was lucky. All my highschool was at the same private, all-male boarding school. At the time, the school, which went from grade 7 to 13, had just 155 students, which means only 20 students per grade (not per class). Yet they still offered a full slate of programs, so you can see that the level of individual attention was tremendous. My Latin classes, for example, never exceeded 10 students.

We had 220 in grades 9-12 so it wasn't bad but it wasn't terrific. I thought it was though!

 

[RabbiO]

@SalixIncendium -

Actually I wasn’t trying to be funny. Our new member's field of expertise is, in fact, handwriting

 

[Vinayaka]

I'm watching a replay of a live stream of one of my favorite YouTube channels that took place a few days ago and one of the kids on the channel is in junior high school. They were looking at a fan letter written in cursive, and the dad asked the kid if he knew how to read cursive yet. He responded saying they didn't teach that in his school.

I know I was doing cursive in grammar school, and though it wasn't as emphasized when my girls went to school, they can still read it.

Is cursive writing a thing of the past? Are we bringing in a generation that won't be able to read the script unless their parents teach them?

I like it now almost as an art form, and I appreciate the handwriting of the generation before me. I had several aunts who taught, and a letter from one of them to Mom was a thing of beauty. Personally, I enjoyed it and still do on rare occasion. My Guru also wrote all of his personal notes to devotees in cursive. His style was unique, whereas most of the ones I saw in my youth were quite similar. In fifth grade I won 2nd prize at a local agricultural fair for it. At the time it went to the ego of course.