It took my grandkids telling me they couldn't read my bithday cards to realize cursive was no longer taught.
To be honest I think cursive is beautiful. So they can read the cards I now use the University of MN School of Architecture lettering. Which probably isn't taught anymore either.
I have a super-difficult time reading hand-writing. Took me a long, long time to realize it's the same thing that makes it hard for me to read graphic novels.
On a serious note, is cursive a thing due to the quill technology or what? I’m really curious how and why it came about. Aesthetically, because I can read and write it, I like it, but rarely use it exclusively. Whenever I take notes I do a hybrid cursive/print thing depending on which feels faster.
My understanding based on stuff read years ago is that cursive is indeed an artifact of the writing technology. You can't push down that hard and it's difficult to draw a hard stop to a line (because ink will still drip off), so the better method is a bunch of sweeping, looping movements.
It's also less tiring to the writer to no have to repeatedly pick yup the pen and place it down exactingly over and over for each word. And Spencerian script particularly also had very little wrist movement.
The problem isn’t this stuff, it’s the people who had absolutely horrible henscratch handwriting. Especially when it’s on microfilm that isn’t of the best quality itself.
My father had terrible handwriting. He thought it was funny that secretaries would cry when they had to transcribe his documents. My father was a jerk.
Cursive doesn't really work for left handed people. I should learn to write mirror reversed.
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There's some prop person who is just flinching when they sign some chicken scratch signature at the bottom of their beautiful work.
If I can't do this, is there really anything it can do?
To be honest I think cursive is beautiful. So they can read the cards I now use the University of MN School of Architecture lettering. Which probably isn't taught anymore either.
My father had terrible handwriting. He thought it was funny that secretaries would cry when they had to transcribe his documents. My father was a jerk.
Cursive doesn't really work for left handed people. I should learn to write mirror reversed.