Cursive/Script Writing

[Trekker4747]

Most people are taught this early in grade-school, I think they started teaching it to me in the third grade or so. Supposedly it's supposed to better and faster because one can keep writing and not have to lift their hand off the page to start the next letter as in cursive all of the letters are strung together by loops and squiggles.

My school stopped "enforcing" this when I moved to a new town and started seventh grade teachers at the new school just didn't enforce it and said to use whatever writing style you were most comfortable with. Short of my signature I've not used cursive since.

And you should too. Or, 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 and the letters are so soft, curved, and flow together so nicely it is very, very easy for one to get lazy and just make random vaugely "letter shaped" forms.

One of the front-end girls asked me to help her read something on an order someone had placed for a pick-up delivery, the person who had written the order had used cursive writing and, well, it looked like how most cursive writing does after even a couple of years worth of non-conformity being enforced. We couldn't make heads or tails of it and I suggested she just call the customer and double-check the order to ensure you get it right and to reccomend to the other girls who take the order to write in standard, block, readable letters.

Cursive writing sucks. 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. It's almost impossible, not completely impossible mind you, to make block, "print" letters un-readable so long as they're not mushed together too much.

Write in print. Help people reading your handwriting understand what you meant.

 

[Miss Chicken]

This how we were taught to write in school

This is how I write now

No-one has ever complained that my writing is hard to read.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

^ I can read your handwriting just fine.

I on the other hand am very guilty of writing letters that just have a vague general resemblance to what cursive letters actually look like. So my cursive style is actually fairly nice looking, you just can't tell what letters I am using.

 

[scotpens]

It's almost impossible, not completely impossible mind you, to make block, “print” letters un-readable so long as they're not mushed together too much.

Anybody's handwriting, whether manuscript or cursive, can be impossible to read if it's messy enough. If much of today's cursive handwriting is illegible or nearly so, blame the educational system. The beautiful Spencerian style of penmanship was taught in American schools well into the 1920s, and the simpler Palmer method for decades after that. Nowadays, handwriting has been “dumbed down” like every other subject.

 

[RoJoHen]

I write in cursive all the time, and I have no intention of stopping. I have always had very neat handwriting.

 

[SeerSGB]

I was taught cursive before I was taught manuscript. I used to pride myself on my cursive writing, but a few years, a car wreck, and a degenerative neurological disorder...well you can see for yourself

 

[RoJoHen]

^I've seen far worse.

 

[scotpens]

^I've seen far worse.

So have I. Especially on doctors' prescriptions.

Really, most doctors have such bad handwriting, it's a wonder pharmacies don't make a hundred times more drug errors than they do.

 

[Canadave]

Yeah, I learned cursive in grade two, but by the time they stopped making people use it (around grade six or seven), I was more than happy to return to printing. My handwriting is nearly illegible (I've always had poor fine motor skills), and my printing, while still chicken scratch, is at least readable.

 

[backstept]

I learned D'Nealian before cursive

 

[Marten]

I haven't written a sentence in cursive since our teacher stopped forcing us. Which was almost ten year ago. But on the other hand, we rarely wrote cursive more than once a week.

 

[Eyes]

I have a habit of writing cursive. My handwriting often looks terrible as a result.

It's either I try and print, and it looks ok, or I use cursive slowly, and it looks ok, or I'm trying to write at a decent pace and I use cursive naturally, and it becomes near illegible if I'm not careful.

This is why I much prefer typing.

 

[Bloodwhiner]

Handwriting is fast becoming an afterthought. Once students get the basics down by second grade it is forgotten. Students get sloppy and lazy, the writing gets worse and often illegible.

I tell my students on the first day of class that I am not a cryptologist, nor do I read hieroglyphics. If I can not read their writing then whatever they wrote is wrong. It is quite amazing how well they can write after they discover I am not bluffing.

 

[Deckerd]

My handwriting's crap because I hardly ever write.

 

[B.J.]

I hardly ever write anymore either, except for notes here and there. My handwriting really depends on the situation now. If it's something I'm just scribbling down really quickly, it's going to be messy cursive. For things that other people are going to have to read, it'll be either neater cursive or print. And my engineering notes are pretty much all print (although a few of my letters seem to be a print-cursive hybrid now).

 

[Shaytan]

I'm so arrogant that I love my handwriting. I'm a desperate case

 

[kathryn i am]

I tell my students on the first day of class that I am not a cryptologist, nor do I read hieroglyphics. If I can not read their writing then whatever they wrote is wrong. It is quite amazing how well they can write after they discover I am not bluffing.

I take this approach as well. I don't actually care if they are printing or writing in cursive, so long as it is legible!

 

[Kestra]

My handwriting's crap because I hardly ever write.

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:

 

[Starbreaker]

I learned cursive in third grade. They scared us with "oh, you'll use this every day in high school" "your teachers won't accept anything that's not in cursive."

Too variable. Teachers shouldn't have to stop and decipher every word. Sometimes just reading print is hard enough.

 

[T'Baio]

...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.