Cursive/Script Writing

[SVD]

OK as far as legibility goes, but my spelling can get a little wonkey, a weakness enabled by the ubiquity of spell check when I type stuff.

And as you can see, I put capitals where they don't belong.

Aside from non-computer class notes and notes to myself, I dont pen and paper too much.

 

[T'Baio]

There's no "a" in "lessons."

 

[Kemaiku]

I always write cursive, I may not have the greatest handwriting but I do like to write more than type.

 

[melancholymecha]

I usually print, my cursive can be hard to read.
also, this is really weird & Im curious if it happens to others here: my writing style changes depending on what Im writing with and the paper Im using. Certain pens, pencils or paper texture will make me write neater(or sloppier) than other kinds. Does this happen to anyone else?

 

[Mary Ann]

There is no way in hell I could have kept up with note-taking in university lectures without writing in cursive. My printing is a bit neater than my handwriting but having legible handwriting is usually down to practice. I'm left-handed and was never taught how to write in a left-handed manner, so I have a bizarre pencil grip and my hand drags over what I've just written. As a result my handwriting in elementary school was awful but it improved in high school, and has been reasonably legible ever since. I usually have no problems reading other people's handwriting because I'm good at working out context if I can't decipher every word. Again, I put this down to practice.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

My cursive is legible, thankfully. But it hurts for me to do handwriting for long periods of time. When I was in the second grade, the idiots in my school district introduced a torture known as cursive italics. After one year, they switched back to the D'Nealian method which is less painful, but the damage was done.

 

[milo bloom]

...at the very least, not use it when other people are going to read it. See, to me, the whole "writing without lifting the hand thing" breeds in the person laziness...it is very, very easy for one to get lazy...it looked like how most cursive writing does after even a couple of years worth of non-conformity being enforced...No adult in the universe uses it correctly in normal practice because the whole system just breeds and courages laziness and does little to "force" the writer to define their letters completely...

Seriously? This sounds totally unlike you Trekker.

Because people are lazy and stupid, we should all change how we write? My cursive writing is flawless, thank you very much, so the concept that no adult in the universe does it correctly is most certainly flawed. I write a lot and I put effort into it, especially when others are going to read it. I consider myself an intelligent person, and because I know I'm viewed by how I communicate, both verbally and in the written form, I ensure I write very well.

But because other people are lazy and don't care how others perceive their communication and are possibly borderline illiterate and retarded, I'm supposed to dumb down my writing?

I don't think so.

I thought Trekker made a great point. I see "unreadable" cursive far more than I ever see neat cursive. And the idea of "laziness" makes sense to me. I'd imagine people just subconsciously letting their hand get a little more and more "loose" with the connections, letting the letters blur into each other more and more. And I'm guilty of it too. When I sign for credit card receipts or checks, it's damned near illegible, because I just rush through it.

I was told all the time while growing up that my terrible hand-writing would hold me back, and it hasn't done a thing. My printing isn't too great either, but its just for my personal notes. If I need to write something for somebody else (which is really rare), I know to take an extra moment and make it clear enough (and in print).

It's really one of those things that should quite honestly be phased out of schools. There are far more important things to be taught to our kids these days (like balancing a checkbook, or even how to scramble eggs for yourself so you don't starve to death).

 

[milo bloom]

I usually print, my cursive can be hard to read.
also, this is really weird & Im curious if it happens to others here: my writing style changes depending on what Im writing with and the paper Im using. Certain pens, pencils or paper texture will make me write neater(or sloppier) than other kinds. Does this happen to anyone else?

I've discovered that a really light pen (as in weight-light) helps, plus as fine of a ballpoint as you can get.

 

[M'Sharak]

Most people are taught this early in grade-school, I think they started teaching it to me in the third grade or so.

Fourth grade, at the school I was attending then. (Actually, I taught myself cursive writing when I was I third grade, but got told off when I handed in an assignment written in cursive instead of printing. "You're not supposed to learn that until next year!" or something like.)

Since high school, I've used either printing in all caps or a sort of cursive/printing hybrid (the former when I'm writing for others to read and the latter more often when I'm writing things down for myself.)

 

[RoJoHen]

I had the fun experience of learning cursive twice because I moved to a new town. My old school taught it in 3rd grade, while my new school taught it in 4th grade. Same with long division. 4th grade was annoying for me because I felt like I was being forced to repeat 3rd grade. I got shoved into the Gifted Program pretty quickly.

 

[Rett Mikhal]

I have horrible memories of my anachronistic Middle School that didn't allow typed assignments but did force you to use cursive on all papers (from 1 page to 10 pages) in cursive in permanent black ink. ANYTHING LESS WAS UNACCEPTABLE.

So, because our cursive skills had atrophied thanks to the magic of the keyboard, everyone had to do it in pencil, then go over it in pen, effectively writing everything twice (or four times, if you did a rough draft). For the 10 page papers (like book reports, remember those?) it would take probably three hours. I can type 10 pages in less than five minutes.

We tried to fight it every time, some kids even 'sold' papers when they discovered a cursive simulator.

Point is, we hated cursive and it was an evil thing. In this day and age it is obsolete. Writing by hand is only used when typing isn't applicable.

Imagine doing math and engineering problems with cursive variables. That would be absurd and a waste of time, but the same could be said for all applications of cursive.

 

[Trekker4747]

I'll admit to using a similar "print-cursive" hybrid where I some of the letters are looped together fairly naturally while also keeping their mostly block forms. (I, for one, hate the capital cursive "Q.")

If I'm writing short-hand I not only use a more extreme form of this hybrid but I also write in a bizzare short-hand that'd make stenographer's head explode.

 

[RoJoHen]

By the time people are in high school, I'd guess they've developed a more natural print/cursive hybrid that works for them. Cursive is good because it teaches you ways to connect letters that you might not think of if you've only ever been taught to print, but formal cursive is definitely obsolete. As long as your writing is legible, who gives a damn?

 

[Trekker4747]

In high school I did use an "all caps" form of printing, and I still use it from time-to-time today where the "lower case" letters were just shorter forms of the uppercase counterparts.

 

[RoJoHen]

So you wrote with Copperplate font.

 

[Vanyel]

Mine too, is a mixture of cursive and print. I usually print the first letter of every word and I tend to print my lower case a like this "a". My signature looks like a squiggly line with a dot over it, and it's usually not over the right place.

My mother and older sister have beautiful penmanship, in either cursive or print.

 

[scotpens]

I love writing, and I'm doing it more now since I'm back in school. I've also taken to writing more handwritten notes and letters, which I enjoy quite a bit.

I typically do print. Here's a sample I posted on TBBS the last time we had a thread about this:

I LOVE your handwriting. It's clearly legible, yet it looks free and easy, with some of the style of architect's lettering.

Not that I put much stock in determining personality traits from handwriting, but have you ever had your writing looked at by a graphoanalyst?

 

[SVD]

... but my spelling can get a little wonkey, a weakness enabled by the ubiquity of spell check when I type stuff.

There's no "a" in "lessons."

I realized that after I posted it.

My e's flow into the next leter half the time, especialy if the next letter is m or n.

I've got a perfectly legible cursive signature.

And speaking of all caps and engineers, my grandpa, a former construction inspector, writes like that.

 

[Count Zero]

I'm surprised that so many seem to learn cursive later on, in third or fourth grade. We learned only to write cursive in primary school, from first grade. Later on, most people switch to their own brand of cursive-print hybrid. Mine's more print than cursive, though. I've written exams like that and noone has complained, yet, so it must be relatively legible.

 

[Holdfast]

Holy shit, this thread AGAIN? Didn't we just do it?

Anyway, I always use joined-up writing ("cursive"). Sod anyone else who can't read it.