View Full Version : Is cursive obsolete?
I say it is. We spend so little time writing things by hand these days that a minuscule time savings at the cost of legibility is simply not worth any amount of time or effort. Most people who write in cursive are so bad at it that I can't even read what they write. At least with scrawled printing I can read what they're saying. And good-looking, legible cursive is not only a rarity but it's also almost as time-consuming to write as quick printing.
I could see spending a little time just to teach kids enough to be able to read cursive, but there's no point in teaching them how to write it, much less require them to write their papers in it. In third grade I was already typing up and printing out papers for my class, not writing them by hand.
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/education/2009/jan/Modern-Curriculum-Has-Little-Room-for-Cursive-Handwriting.html
Teachers maintain that the unending demands of modern education make it nearly impossible to fit cursive handwriting into the curriculum. Technology’s ever increasing presence requires that educators devote more time to teaching media literacy. Add to that the demands of No Child Left Behind, and there’s little time left for the beautiful, yet impractical ancient handwriting tradition.
Diane Desmond, a fourth grade teacher in Massachusetts, told The Boston Globe that the importance of test scores has led to a noticeable decline in students learning cursive. “Cursive was always taught in the third grade,” she said. “In the last four or five years, I've had more students who have trouble with it. … They have trouble reading it, too.”
The issue has some teachers and experts concerned. Susan Reimer of The Baltimore Sun writes, “There are real scholars on this subject who worry that the next generation will not be able to read the Declaration of Independence because it is written in something that looks like hieroglyphics to them.”
Furthermore, according to Reimer, cursive is still taught in Maryland elementary schools, but “testing required by No Child Left Behind and new state standards” leave little time for it. “Teachers are more likely to spend time on keyboarding skills, and they believe their students write more and write better when they type,” she reports.
The Globe reports that a 2007 Vanderbilt University survey found that though most U.S. elementary schools do teach script, only 12 percent of teachers were adequately trained to teach it.
Many see cursive's decline as part of a shift developing in teaching methods, and in the way educators relate to students. With the variety and complexity of demands facing teachers and students today, skills like cursive that are not considered marketable or progressive can easily be forgotten.
According to BusinessWeek, memorization is also not as applicable to students “now that a Google search delivers vast storehouses of information in seconds.” Research and analysis skills are more important, and educators may need to allow even more technology—mobile devices, for instance—to infiltrate the classroom “to further the educational mission of the school.”
pscates2.0
2009-04-06, 14:44
I've not written this way in ages. I remember hating it in school, all the looping and curly stuff.
"Can I just write regular?"
:D
I currently write in a weird half-print/half-scrawl (it's pretty awful, and gets worse the longer I write). But I type about 3,000 wpm, so...
:p
But it is kinda sad to know that traditional, old-school letter-writing and correspondence will go the way of the horse and buggy. Probably in my lifetime. Once my little niece and nephew (currently five- and three-years-old) reach their 20's or 30's, nobody will be left who does it "the old way". And people like me will be 65, rocking the 11th-generation iPhone and writing on my 35" iMac. I probably won't even have a pen or notebook in my house.
PKIDelirium
2009-04-06, 14:48
I only use cursive for my signature, and even then, I often get lazy and just scrawl it. I always hated it.
I say ditch it. To use the 'ability to read the Declaration of Independence' as a reason why it should still be taught is grasping at straws. It's not like you can't get it in type on the Internet in 3 seconds. And the last time I tried to read it in person was... um, never?
If someone wanted to learn cursive later in life, they should be able to tackle it in about a week assuming average intelligence. It's not rocket science.
As long as it's faster than block printing by hand, it has a use.
I'm firmly of the belief that typing something into a computer is a great way to keep a note about it, but *writing* it cements it in the brain much, much better.
My wife threw a fit when she found out our 9 yo was not being taught cursive in school. The teachers said they couldn't fit it in.
I said F' it. Cursive sucks and we have no need of it anymore. The teachers agreed.
My poor kid has to 'study' cursive at home now. LOL!!!
My teachers asked me to NOT write in cursive because I have such bad writing. Plus, I write super tiny
As long as it's faster than block printing by hand, it has a use.
I'm firmly of the belief that typing something into a computer is a great way to keep a note about it, but *writing* it cements it in the brain much, much better.
Given how little time we spend actually writing things by hand anymore, I doubt it saves enough time to offset the extra time needed to teach everyone how to read and write it. Also, it takes longer to read, completely offsetting the time savings. I learned cursive in third grade like most others yet I have major difficulty reading the writing from one of my coworkers and I often have to go to her and ask for clarification on several things when she leaves me notes. If her handwriting was equally bad but in print instead, at least I'd be able to read it. That's not the case with most people who write in cursive - most of my coworkers, being older, tend to use it as well, and I've only ever had a problem with this one woman - but it happens often enough that I think it's not worth it. I can't read my mom's cursive either.
Handwriting is still important, but maintaining two writing systems is unnecessary. Saving 1-2 seconds when you write a note in cursive vs. printing isn't worth the hassle.
pscates2.0
2009-04-06, 15:09
It's been a while since I've actually attempted to write in that cursive style I learned in school.
Here are the terrifying results, starting on line three... (http://homepage.mac.com/pscates/mockups/writing.jpg)
:D
The first line is my normal, quick-note-taking. Only I can read it, after a few paragraphs. The second line is me slowing down...that's about as neat as I can get and still write with any sort of speed or efficiency.
The third and fourth lines are me realizing I've forgotten how much loops, swoops, tails and "ligatures" to make, where they go, etc. It was quite funny, as I was writing (notice my "w" has about three lower arcs).
Given how little time we spend actually writing things by hand anymore, I doubt it saves enough time to offset the extra time needed to teach everyone how to read and write it.
And yet we whinge and wring our hands over milliseconds saved on computing tasks...
Also, it takes longer to read, completely offsetting the time savings.
Huh, what? Not unless someone's writing is horrible. At which point you're in a circular argument: because we don't teach it, quality drops, which means we shouldn't teach it.
I learned cursive in third grade like most others yet I have major difficulty reading the writing from one of my coworkers and I often have to go to her and ask for clarification on several things when she leaves me notes. If her handwriting was equally bad but in print instead, at least I'd be able to read it.
Sorry, that makes no sense. If it's unreadably bad, it's unreadably bad.
That's not the case with most people who write in cursive - most of my coworkers, being older, tend to use it as well, and I've only ever had a problem with this one woman - but it happens often enough that I think it's not worth it. I can't read my mom's cursive either.
So because two people can't be bothered, we should all ditch it? Sorry, don't buy that either. :)
Handwriting is still important, but maintaining two writing systems is unnecessary. Saving 1-2 seconds when you write a note in cursive vs. printing isn't worth the hassle.
It is when it's a lecture you're trying to keep up with. Computer entry absolutely sucks for mathematics, graphics, and a multitude of other information types that are necessary for basic education. Writing is critical for data retention in such cases, and speed is similarly critical. Therefore, ergo, and QED: quick writing styles should be taught, and cursive is the most common and a good solution.
And I say this as someone whose cursive is pretty bad - the vast majority of my notes are in about 6pt block print. 0.5mm mechanical pencil FTW. I can whip out something that looks like architect blueprint font *almost* as fast as cursive - but I kick back into cursive when I need raw speed.
Dorian Gray
2009-04-06, 15:21
That's probably as good as mine, pscates2.0. :D
There is a good deal of sentimentality attached to cursive handwriting (we called it joint writing in my primary school), but I don't see it as having much more practical value today than knowing how to use a slide rule (which also has its beauty). Frankly, even when I was in primary school (I'm 27) it wasn't considered terribly important. I emerged from primary school with a semi-cursive writing style that I still have today.
Kickaha, if speed is so important perhaps we should all learn stenography?
And speaking of speed, typing is faster than any handwriting, if you touch type well. Yet at least in the UK the average kid emerges from high school with woeful self-taught typing skills, lots of bad habits, and maybe 50 or 60 words per minute on a good day. Surely touch typing is more important than cursive handwriting?
Writing personal letters is another thing that is clearly falling out of custom. I suppose my generation is really the last one to keep bunches of letters in shoe boxes. Even the average twenty-year-old has written only a handful of letters in his or her lifetime.
Huh, what? Not unless someone's writing is horrible. At which point you're in a circular argument: because we don't teach it, quality drops, which means we shouldn't teach it.
I was taught cursive in third or fourth grade and had to use it (despite my poor handwriting. Some teachers made me turn in 2 papers -- one in cursive and a copy in print) through college.
I find ANY cursive, and I don't care how nice your handwriting is, to be almost unreadable. It takes me 4-5 times longer to read anything in cursive than it does in print.
Kickaha, if speed is so important perhaps we should all learn stenography?
Not a bad thought, and one I considered learning myself, when an undergrad. Would have come in handy.
And speaking of speed, typing is faster than any handwriting, if you touch type well. Yet at least in the UK the average kid emerges from high school with woeful self-taught typing skills, lots of bad habits, and maybe 50 or 60 words per minute on a good day. Surely touch typing is more important than cursive handwriting?
I dare them to type a calculus lecture, or a physics lecture. :) As I said earlier, paper and pen/pencil isn't going to go away for certain types of data. At least, not until we can just sketch on a screen as well, simply and efficiently as on paper. We're still not there. Not everything can be represented on a keyboard.
I was taught cursive in third or fourth grade and had to use it (despite my poor handwriting. Some teachers made me turn in 2 papers -- one in cursive and a copy in print) through college.
I find ANY cursive, and I don't care how nice your handwriting is, to be almost unreadable. It takes me 4-5 times longer to read anything in cursive than it does in print.
That's just bizarre, IMO. Never had that problem, unless, as Luca said, the cursive is just horrible. But then, horrible print handwriting is just as hard to read. Horrible is as horrible reads.
Dorian Gray
2009-04-06, 15:27
Not a bad thought, and one I considered learning myself, when an undergrad. Would have come in handy.
I considered it too, even going as far as buying a book on it. That's as far as I got!
Quitter!
(Hey, I never even bought the book... :D)
Just to indulge my curiosity, are horrible handwriting a result of inefficient writing system?
Put it other way- if we had a different alphabet set that was easier to write, would it facilitate handwriting?
Yet another question- I don't know a squat how it works out nowadays in Asian countries, but I understand that historically they put a lot of emphasis on calligraphy- it was *necessary* that your calligraphy be up to snuff, else it could never convey the meaning correctly. Does this system still work?
I suppose I'm trying to figure out if we have the "Windows" version of alphabet and whether we should be looking for "Mac OS X" version. :D
Dorian Gray
2009-04-06, 15:31
Put it other way- if we had a different alphabet set that was easier to write, would it facilitate handwriting?
Yep. We're just waiting on a Dvorak for Arabic. ;)
Sorry Kick, but I can't disagree with you more on this. I've seen horrible print and while it's not fun to read, I can usually figure it out. But anything less than perfect cursive is almost unreadable for me. I find most cursive to be an absolute mess, made worse by the fact that it's usually written in smudged pencil or too-thick pen. The best I can hope for is a cursive-printing hybrid, where, for instance, you might have cursive-style letters that are written much more separately than in traditional cursive, with very little emphasis on the little trails connecting one letter to the next.
The only time cursive is useful is, as you say, for taking notes, where its speed can actually help. But unless you are a cursive master, those notes will be unreadable even to the writer. It seems you have a gift for deciphering cursive that most do not have.
Hell, why not also teach calligraphy? It's about as useful as cursive these days.
Kretara, you mean your college professors made you turn in assignments in cursive? You must be older than me... by 5th or 6th grade, cursive was no longer required, and I remember being so happy to be rid of it.
Sorry Kick, but I can't disagree with you more on this. I've seen horrible print and while it's not fun to read, I can usually figure it out. But anything less than perfect cursive is almost unreadable for me. I find most cursive to be an absolute mess, made worse by the fact that it's usually written in smudged pencil or too-thick pen. The best I can hope for is a cursive-printing hybrid, where, for instance, you might have cursive-style letters that are written much more separately than in traditional cursive, with very little emphasis on the little trails connecting one letter to the next.
I'm beginning to think you have a faulty pattern recognition unit. ;)
The only time cursive is useful is, as you say, for taking notes, where its speed can actually help. But unless you are a cursive master, those notes will be unreadable even to the writer. It seems you have a gift for deciphering cursive that most do not have.
Possible, but I'm not willing to put one anecdotal data point up against another to determine a general policy on this.
I'm beginning to think you have a faulty pattern recognition unit. ;)
I wish I had an example to show you. Alas, at the moment, I don't. All I can say is the coworker whose writing I can't read does not close her o's or a's at the top, and her s's aren't little wedge-shaped things but rather just simple loops easily confused with o's, and anytime there are several m's, n's, r's, or other similar letters in a row, it all turns into just a bunch of random peaks that could mean any number of things. But seriously, even if you think cursive is just as easy to read as printing, just look at what people are saying... a LOT of people have trouble reading cursive, not just me and a few others. That alone should be reason enough to kill it. Printing is easier to write and easier to read, and there's no need to waste any class time teaching kids an obsolete second writing system.
I wish I had an example to show you. Alas, at the moment, I don't. All I can say is the coworker whose writing I can't read does not close her o's or a's at the top, and her s's aren't little wedge-shaped things but rather just simple loops easily confused with o's, and anytime there are several m's, n's, r's, or other similar letters in a row, it all turns into just a bunch of random peaks that could mean any number of things.
Showing *an* example of really horrid cursive doesn't show a trend, it just shows *an* example of really horrid cursive - and I'd probably agree that it's horrid. This coworker should probably stop using it.
But seriously, even if you think cursive is just as easy to read as printing, just look at what people are saying... a LOT of people have trouble reading cursive, not just me and a few others. That alone should be reason enough to kill it.
Perhaps we're just each reading what we want to here, but I see people saying "Some people's horrible cursive is hard to read", and you see people saying "Cursive is hard to read". Just because some people have horrible cursive isn't a reason to ditch the baby with the bathwater, any more than because some people can't spell is any reason to stop teaching spelling. i meen unles u thnk this iz k, sins u kan reed et allsew...
Printing is easier to write and easier to read, and there's no need to waste any class time teaching kids an obsolete second writing system.
Morse code is even more unambiguously clear... :p :) Seriously, there are multiple vectors of requirements here, and it won't be really obsolete until it is trumped on all of them. Consider cursive advanced writing. Some people can do it, some can't. I think Dorian's suggestion of stenography is a great idea, personally. Even faster, and designed for readability even when a bit wonky.
flounder
2009-04-06, 15:58
When I was in elementary school we had to learn denelian. If you don't know what that is, count yourself as lucky.
It was supposed to help transition you into writing cursive, but all it accomplishes is ruining the quality of your printing.
What I never got was why they didn't just teach kids to use the same stenographer they use in courts instead of QWERTY or Dorky keyboard. Seems to me if we train a generation of kid on this thing, we'd be seeing >100 WPM even for slowest typists.
Same applies to handwriting, I can't but wonder if the writing system is ineffective and the poor handwriting are more of symptom than a indictment against one's pensmanship...
But what do I know?
Naderfan
2009-04-06, 16:01
I agree with Luca - most people's cursive that I've seen is indecipherable. And that includes people from older generations who wrote just about everything.
A part of me hates to see it die, simply because it seems important (as a historian, when you're doing research you run into a lot of handwritten stuff), but I think it'll become like calligraphy - a specialized form of writing that some folks decide to take up for fun.
And getting rid of cursive doesn't mean getting rid of paper and pencil...it would just mean more printing, which seems to be what most kids revert to anyway.
Perhaps we're just each reading what we want to here, but I see people saying "Some people's horrible cursive is hard to read", and you see people saying "Cursive is hard to read". Just because some people have horrible cursive isn't a reason to ditch the baby with the bathwater, any more than because some people can't spell is any reason to stop teaching spelling. i meen unles u thnk this iz k, sins u kan reed et allsew...
I'd say that in my experience, most people have pretty poor handwriting, and furthermore, if they write in printing it's at least readable. Cursive turns into a garbled mess so quickly if you're not good at it and I can't stand it when people use it for anything that is to be read by someone other than the writer. In light of that...
Consider cursive advanced writing. Some people can do it, some can't. I think Dorian's suggestion of stenography is a great idea, personally. Even faster, and designed for readability even when a bit wonky.
I think cursive should be removed from early elementary school because it's not a useful form of writing but for one thing - taking notes. As you said, especially in math and science classes, handwritten notes are way better than computer notes for formulas and so on. So have a "study skills" class that kids take at some point during junior high where they learn not just cursive, but other shorthand and notetaking techniques. Then those students will not see cursive as "that annoying writing we have to do" and "used for papers and other formal things that others will read," but rather as a form of quick and dirty writing that helps you take notes for yourself.
Here are the terrifying results, starting on line three... (http://homepage.mac.com/pscates/mockups/writing.jpg)
Geez, that looks like some kind of a ransom note. ;)
I think cursive should be removed from early elementary school because it's not a useful form of writing but for one thing - taking notes. As you said, especially in math and science classes, handwritten notes are way better than computer notes for formulas and so on. So have a "study skills" class that kids take at some point during junior high where they learn not just cursive, but other shorthand and notetaking techniques. Then those students will not see cursive as "that annoying writing we have to do" and "used for papers and other formal things that others will read," but rather as a form of quick and dirty writing that helps you take notes for yourself.
I could get behind that, as long as kids were taught to *read* clear examples of cursive writing early on. Let the be able to read cursive, but not necessarily teach them to write it unless, as you suggest, they need it for speed. Think of it as backward compatibility. :)
I don't buy the speed argument Kick. Go peddle yer crap on some other street corner.:lol:
I learned cursive in 3rd grade - back when it was considered very important and hand ample time dedicated to it's teachings. We had to use it exclusively through junior high - that's about 5 1/2 years.
In those 5 1/2 years, I never achieved any speed advantage over my standard handwriting. As soon as I was allowed to go back to printing, I did - with no loss in speed. And as others have said, that the faster you write, the harder it is to read. Same goes with printing, but at least it's still legible (usually). If you can set some blazing speed marks with your cursive, more power to you. But you're probably the only one who can read it when you're done.
Sorry, zip, but that's what the purpose of cursive is *for*... you don't have to lift your pen/pencil from the page in between letters, so it is faster. Maybe you were just slow. ;)
Further, look at the design of the letters - the 's' in particular, reduces the amount of distance you have to traverse to hit the significant features of the letter. If you eliminate the 'connecting lines' between letters, cursive and printing are almost identical. Just print without lifting your pen, and you're 90% of the way to cursive.
I'd like to see the time devoted to cursive be reallocated to teach typing and basic computer skills. I'm a 21 year old college student, and there are still a number of people around me who barely know how to use Word. :\
Basically, there needs to be a lot more time dedicated to computer literacy in American grade schools than there currently is.
I 100% agree with Kick on one thing, though: taking math notes on a computer is a PITA. Ironically, in my English and Government classes, I could (but I don't) take notes on my laptop. But in my computer hardware class, I have to take notes on paper! Circuit diagrams, karnaugh maps, hex arithmetic... all much easier to do on paper than through a keyboard on the first pass. Seems backwards, right?
You can pry my black Pilot 0.7mm G2 gel pen and college-ruled notebook from my cold, dead fingers. ;) It's how I take all my notes. Thing about notes is, I rarely reference them later. Especially considering most of my professors post their notes online. I take notes because the act of writing it helps me assimilate the information, and a pen is more conducive to those ends than a keyboard is.
I still don't think cursive is necessarily a worthwhile skill to teach, though. When I was in elementary school, we all learned cursive in second grade, and we all switched back in third grade. I just think that the loss of readability isn't worth the slight speed increase, and there are other, more important things to be learning at that developmental phase, like computer basics.
My mum has beautiful cursive handwriting, but that skill must skip a generation. I have full-blown "doctor" writing. Upper and lower-case capitals, basically.
I hated cursive in elementary. Mainly because my first name starts with a G, and the cursive G is the ugliest letter in the entire cursive alphabet. Plus, the Q isn't even a letter! They use a number instead!
"Be 2uiet, class!"
Bleck.
...Is cursive obsolete?
Of course it isn't ;)
In all seriousness though, even if it is a bit outmoded, I like using cursive. My "print" handwriting is absolutely atrocious, whereas my cursive is neat and clear. I use print for math and science, occasionally use cursive for English, and use cursive exclusively when writing in French.
Sorry, zip, but that's what the purpose of cursive is *for*... you don't have to lift your pen/pencil from the page in between letters, so it is faster. Maybe you were just slow. ;)
I bet over 95% of students who went to grade school and learned cursive in the 90s immediately switched back the moment they were allowed to and saw no loss in speed. I understand the concept behind why cursive is supposed to be faster, but in practice it almost never is unless you really care. And when kids are forced to write in cursive, they hate it and immediately switch back as soon as they're no longer obligated to use it.
It's just that you seem to be responding to people who dislike cursive as though they're special cases, but I think the opposite is true. Virtually everyone switches back to manuscript once they hit junior high or high school, and by then most assignments are typed anyway.
When I stopped being homeschooled (thank God) after third grade, I took a placement test. I would have been able to skip fourth grade if I hadn't forgotten how to draw a cursive "z." All the friends I made at that school (which wasn't many), through the next decade of my life, were one grade above me. Most of my worst enemies were in the grade I was placed in.
So it had a pretty big impact on my life, that test. Not only did it change which people I could easily associate with (this was a very small school), but it also meant that for an entire year and even part of the next I really didn't learn anything at all (except how to draw a cursive "z"). School was incredibly boring, and I didn't have to try at all - I think that year cemented the bad study habits that still trouble me to this day.
Do you know how many times in my life I've had to draw a cursive "z"?
That's all anecdotal, of course. But I think cursive for youngsters really should have been replaced with typing for youngsters by now. Typing really shouldn't be a "middle school on up" thing, because you can bet that by that time the kids have had to type, and they've probably developed all sorts of bad habits.
Excellent. My plan to become High Scribe to the Lord of the Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland is coming along nicely.
http://www.thestate.com/local/story/716534.html
Erica Smith, a second-year eighth-grade English teacher at Lady’s Island Middle School, said she doesn’t require her students to write in cursive and is satisfied as long as she can read students’ work. Only one of her approximately 80 students consistently writes in formal cursive, she said.
http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/05/06/in_digital_age_more_ts_are_crossed_poorly/?p1=MEWell_Pos1
Elementary schools, squeezed by standardized testing and an increasing number of curriculum requirements, are spending less time on penmanship. By high school, most students stop joining letters, reverting to the print style they learned from kindergarten through second grade. One measure of how eager they are to abandon cursive writing is the SAT . Since the College Board began requiring handwritten essays as part of the exams two years ago, 85 percent of the more than 4.5 million essays have been printed, said Caren Scoropanos, a spokeswoman for the College Board.
Just some sources that show that cursive writing is no longer in the majority. I know the first one is anecdotal, and there aren't any studies (that I know of) that compare the legibility of cursive vs. manuscript, but the fact is that nearly everyone switches away from cursive and back to manuscript by mid-high school. So teaching cursive is a waste of time for 85% of students.
I would have been able to skip fourth grade if I hadn't forgotten how to draw a cursive "z."
So, you're Billy Madison?
So, you're Billy Madison?
Huh? I'm confused :(
Isn't Billy Madison the movie about a grown-up who goes back to school because he's dumb? I was a third grader who almost skipped fourth grade because I was smart, so I don't see the connection. :p
Just some sources that show that cursive writing is no longer in the majority. I know the first one is anecdotal, and there aren't any studies (that I know of) that compare the legibility of cursive vs. manuscript, but the fact is that nearly everyone switches away from cursive and back to manuscript by mid-high school. So teaching cursive is a waste of time for 85% of students.
Just so we're clear, I agree with you on the idea of making cursive a study-skills item instead, and not teaching the writing of it to elementary students. You've convinced me that the use cases simply don't apply in a general population.
But really... this is bad logic and a weak argument, Luca. Most people never use algebra either, so should we stop teaching that in middle school? :confused: Stick to the use case argument. ;)
Huh? I'm confused :(
Isn't Billy Madison the movie about a grown-up who goes back to school because he's dumb? I was a third grader who almost skipped fourth grade because I was smart, so I don't see the connection. :p
He can't pass 3rd grade the first time he retakes it because he cant spell "Rizzuto" in cursive on the blackboard.
But really... this is bad logic and a weak argument, Luca. Most people never use algebra either, so should we stop teaching that in middle school?
YES
Just kidding. I actually do use algebra sometimes, in, like, Dungeons & Dragons or something. :p
I bet over 95% of students who went to grade school and learned cursive in the 90s immediately switched back the moment they were allowed to and saw no loss in speed. I understand the concept behind why cursive is supposed to be faster, but in practice it almost never is unless you really care. And when kids are forced to write in cursive, they hate it and immediately switch back as soon as they're no longer obligated to use it.
It's just that you seem to be responding to people who dislike cursive as though they're special cases, but I think the opposite is true.
I've never said anything about *writing* in cursive being problematic, only responding to your claim that *reading* cursive is the problem. I agree with you that most people switch back. Their reasons for doing so are pure speculation on both our parts.
(Oh, and you do know that 92.4% of all statistics are made up on the spot, right? :p)
Virtually everyone switches back to manuscript once they hit junior high or high school, and by then most assignments are typed anyway.
Reading cursive is still important, until it *truly* goes away in writing examples that the general populace will be commonly exposed to. Otherwise you're simply locking students out of the information for specious reasons.
(Sorry, had this one in another tab, forgot to hit post...)
YES
Just kidding. I actually do use algebra sometimes, in, like, Dungeons & Dragons or something. :p
:lol: Yeah, I hear ya. A better example probably would have been geometry. Most people hate it, they don't get it, and they never use it. Which is too bad, because the point isn't to learn geometry, the point is to learn how to think in a particular way... which most teachers are too lazy/dumb to realize as well, so we get a subject that no one likes and few can teach. Woot.
He can't pass 3rd grade the first time he retakes it because he cant spell "Rizzuto" in cursive on the blackboard.
Really? That's funny.
Maybe that's because THE CURSIVE Z IS TOTALLY ASS BACKWARDS AND LOTS OF PEOPLE CAN'T DRAW IT RIGHT. I mean...
:p
It still irks me. I think that if that fourth grade teacher wasn't a first-year teacher who did everything "by the book" she would have just passed me. And I drew the "z" sort of right. It looked more like a quarter rest symbol, but...
*Sigh...*
What's worse is she made me take remedial penmanship throughout fourth grade. I think she was actually confused - the placement test I took was to be placed in fifth grade and I got everything right except for the cursive z. Considering it's quite likely that I would have learned how to draw a cursive "z" sometime in the next twelve months I don't think the remedial workbooks were necessary. My handwriting was already better than most of my classmates, cursive "z" aside.
Since that was my first experience in a "real" school, I quickly associated school with meaningless busywork. That's what it was.
But that school was the biggest clusterfuck ever, so it's not like fifth grade would have been any different. I would have escaped earlier, I suppose. (In fact, my senior year was when the president resigned and their was a massive power struggle to take his place. Yay religion!)
Reading cursive is still important, until it *truly* goes away in writing examples that the general populace will be commonly exposed to. Otherwise you're simply locking students out of the information for specious reasons.
Being taught how to write cursive has not helped me read the poor cursive writing that so many people produce. Again, with printing, poor writing is at least semi-legible.
Being taught how to write cursive has not helped me read the poor cursive writing that so many people produce.
Being taught how to use a wrench does not help much with following poorly drawn diagrams on how to put together a table. You're conflating the two lessons, because that's how it's taught now. Expose them to the glyphs early on to help mold the pattern matching, but don't bother teaching them to write them until later. Concentrate on just reading them, teach it as a standalone task. Then, later, if they choose to, they can learn how to make them for speed in note taking. (Or skip them and go to stenography.)
Jeez mon, this was your idea in the first place. :p
As long as it's faster than block printing by hand, it has a use.
I'm firmly of the belief that typing something into a computer is a great way to keep a note about it, but *writing* it cements it in the brain much, much better.Yup, this is one of the cited reasons why my university discourages laptops in class. Even most of my programming-oriented computer science classes don't let us use computers during class.
stevegong
2009-04-06, 17:55
Here's a sample of my handwriting. I'm already hearing "huh? what handwriting?"
http://gong.smugmug.com/photos/419237312_kGtcq-L-7.jpg
Yes, but maybe not for the reason you think.
Wow. Chicken scratch doesn't begin to describe that.
Don't get me wrong, it looks pretty, but not even slightly legible. I guess it's a good security method for keeping secrets.
stevegong
2009-04-06, 18:27
Yeah, I have trouble reading it when I first started writing like that. It started off as a project so I could develop my fine motor skills in my left hand because my fruit fly brain dissection was a little sloppy. Because it was so hard to push against paper, I learned how to write backwards (mirror).
Now it's a good parlor trick, but pretty useless, just like cursive. I write in cursive because that's the way I was brought up, but I do agree with you guys who say it's obsolete. There's really no reason for its existence in this day and age.
curiousuburb
2009-04-06, 18:27
On the upside... if we get rid of cursive, chicks won't dot their i's with little happy faces. :) :p
dmegatool
2009-04-06, 18:33
Yes, but maybe not for the reason you think.
:lol:
On the upside... if we get rid of cursive, chicks won't dot their i's with little happy faces. :) :p
Yeah. When they're printing they use hearts. :p
Just kidding, but in all seriousness I don't see any connection at all between cursive vs. printing and, ahem, decorative tittles. You can dot your "i's" (and "j's!" Everyone forgets about the lowercase J...) using whatever you want (stars! peace signs!) in either form...
There are many things that I 'learned' in grade school that have never, ever come up in my life since then. That does not necessarily mean they are all worthless. Cursive is a bit redundant, and I personally have no attachment to it, nor would I try to argue that it is at all valuable. It isn't. That said, it is pretty and the type of skill that will always have a niche. I don't know the level that it is taught in today's elementary schools, if it is required to know, or if it is just brushed over. I wouldn't say we should get rid of entirely, but it would not hurt anyone to scale back on cursive exposure.
curiousuburb
2009-04-06, 19:02
Yeah. When they're printing they use hearts. :p
Just kidding, but in all seriousness I don't see any connection at all between cursive vs. printing and, ahem, decorative tittles. You can dot your "i's" (and "j's!" Everyone forgets about the lowercase J...) using whatever you want (stars! peace signs!) in either form...
Alright... I'll allow ONE portion of decorative flair.
Either an odd ink colour, or the occasional artistic addition.
If you use pink or polychromatic ink AND decorative graphics, Hello Kitty will mock you mercilessly. http://www.easyfreesmileys.com/smileys/free-hello-kitty-smileys-669.gif http://smileyshut.com/smileys/new/free-hello-kitty-smileys-619[1].gif
However...
Doctor's Signatures scrawl sometimes with special paper to make magic prescription powers.
Certain historic cursive documents are worth a lot. Blame Gutenberg for decreasing their numbers in general.
Many typed documents are worthless except for the few cursive words they contain.
Longhand in general is on the decrease in quality as well as quantity. Doesn't come with spell cheque. :p
As long as it's faster than block printing by hand, it has a use.
I'm firmly of the belief that typing something into a computer is a great way to keep a note about it, but *writing* it cements it in the brain much, much better.
Agree 100% on both accounts. Most people have a cursive-block shorthand that is faster than either one independently for note taking as well.
It still irks me. I think that if that fourth grade teacher wasn't a first-year teacher who did everything "by the book" she would have just passed me. And I drew the "z" sort of right. It looked more like a quarter rest symbol, but...
You remember this thirteen years later?
Then again, it sounds like this lady was totally whack. I'd probably remember too :p
drewprops
2009-04-06, 20:00
I love writing in cursive, and nearly always write that way when I'm doing sketches and hand-drawn technical drawings because it just looks cool... I'll have to post some of mine when I get back to my scanning setup tomorrow!!
In fact, around Christmas I bought some new ink nibs and various colors of inks and some sealing wax and had hoped to write some letters to some folks to see if I get a response ;)
...
You remember this thirteen years later?
I'm bitter, what can I say. If failing to draw a cursive z was literally one of the defining moments of your life, you'd remember too. :o
But it's probably for the best. My older brother might have been a bit embarrassed if his younger brother was in the same grade as he was. And being an agnostic at a religious school while it literally tore itself apart in a violent power struggle sure sucked, but it certainly cemented my (lack of) faith! :lol:
It's interesting that you bring this up. There is some pretty serious speculation among neuroscientists that the reduction of teaching a highly formal style of writing and the removal of lots of memorization (i.e. of Latin, passages of Shakespeare, etc.) has impacted negatively on the motor skills and memory skills of the younger generations. I can't pull up the details right now because I have too much other research to do, but I know I read it in "The Brain the Changes Itself", a great book on neuroplasticity.
I like writing cursive, and I like memorizing things. Maybe that the influence of Buddhism on me (they pay a lot of attention to proper handwriting and memorize A LOT of stuff in Tibetan Buddhism).
bassplayinMacFiend
2009-04-06, 20:19
My sister's children's school teaches cursive before block writing. Look at kids' scrawls from when they're in the 3-5 age range. See all that loopy stuff they do? According to my sister, it's easier to teach a kindergartener to write in cursive then to write in the harsh angles of block script.
It's interesting that you bring this up. There is some pretty serious speculation among neuroscientists that the reduction of teaching a highly formal style of writing and the removal of lots of memorization (i.e. of Latin, passages of Shakespeare, etc.) has impacted negatively on the motor skills and memory skills of the younger generations.
Perhaps, but I'm not so sure I would label cursive as "more highly formal" than block letters. Both systems of writing have their rules. We just tend to teach block letters first, but as bassplayinMacfiend pointed out, that's not always the case.
My graphic design classes were less about me learning anything new and more about me just learning the names of things that I've been doing for my entire life. Kerning, tracking, ligatures - I've been paying attention to those, subconsciously, for as long as I can remember. All that just came naturally to me. (I'm not the fastest writer, but my writing is very legible.) And I always write in block letters. Would you argue that my block writing is somehow less formal than my cursive writing would be?
I'm not saying I'm normal or anything. I'm just saying that one isn't explicitly more "formal" than the other.
Did your parents hold you back, or was is just the teacher? I'm curious.
I think it's more that cursive writing tens to be the way that we teach writing formally. I'm not sure that we are as particular about block writing. The important thing seems to be that you learn to do it a very particular, fancy way.
I think it's more that cursive writing tens to be the way that we teach writing formally. I'm not sure that we are as particular about block writing. The important thing seems to be that you learn to do it a very particular, fancy way.
Except that cursive hasn't been used as formal writing for ten or twenty years.
I think it's more that cursive writing tens to be the way that we teach writing formally. I'm not sure that we are as particular about block writing. The important thing seems to be that you learn to do it a very particular, fancy way.
Or it may be that, if you follow Luca's train of thought, it's harder to get *right*, so you *must* be precise. Even just a little bit sloppy, and it degrades faster than block printing.
That's what I was getting at - doing it in a very formal way. Not doing it to be faster, but to be fancy-like. The precision and sticking to the proper form is what is so good for the brain, I think.
Or it may be that, if you follow Luca's train of thought, it's harder to get *right*, so you *must* be precise. Even just a little bit sloppy, and it degrades faster than block printing.
Heh, I thought you didn't buy that. Well, maybe you don't, but that's how I see it. I dunno. Maybe it's not so much that cursive degrades faster but rather that cursive lends itself to fast writing and is therefore more likely to be written in a hurried manner.
I don't, necessarily, but I didn't want you to leave the obvious rejoinder lying on the table. ;)
Did your parents hold you back, or was is just the teacher? I'm curious.
I'm *pretty sure* it was the school. The school essentially had levels of "expected knowledge" for people entering each grade, and to enter fifth grade, writing in cursive was one of them. My teacher interpreted me forgetting how to draw a "z" while taking a battery of tests in a high-pressure environment as me not knowing how to write in cursive, and into fourth grade I went. :\
But I guess there's no way I could know for sure. I guess my parents could have requested that I take an unnecessary year of classes, but I'm not sure why they would (the school was expensive and we were very poor - they only sent me there because it was the Christian thing to do), unless they were worried about my brother being embarrassed. But I don't think they thought he would be. (He was "the athletic one," I was "the smart one," and my younger sister was "the pretty one." As with all labels, we grew to resent them, as my sister is in many ways smarter than I am - so I feel like "the slow, dumb, ugly one," and she goes to law school propelled by her insecurities. Fun!)
Trumpetman
2009-04-07, 09:11
I could do twenty pages on this stuff. I'm a fourth grade teacher for goodness sakes!
My wife threw a fit when she found out our 9 yo was not being taught cursive in school. The teachers said they couldn't fit it in.
I said F' it. Cursive sucks and we have no need of it anymore. The teachers agreed.
My poor kid has to 'study' cursive at home now. LOL!!!
My teachers asked me to NOT write in cursive because I have such bad writing. Plus, I write super tiny
If I were your teacher, after you got tired of not seeing the playground, you would write at a size that I could read.
I don't buy the speed argument Kick. Go peddle yer crap on some other street corner.:lol:
I learned cursive in 3rd grade - back when it was considered very important and hand ample time dedicated to it's teachings. We had to use it exclusively through junior high - that's about 5 1/2 years.
In those 5 1/2 years, I never achieved any speed advantage over my standard handwriting. As soon as I was allowed to go back to printing, I did - with no loss in speed. And as others have said, that the faster you write, the harder it is to read. Same goes with printing, but at least it's still legible (usually). If you can set some blazing speed marks with your cursive, more power to you. But you're probably the only one who can read it when you're done.
Cursive is faster as was explain. Just because you didn't achieve the purpose doesn't negate the purpose.
I'd like to see the time devoted to cursive be reallocated to teach typing and basic computer skills. I'm a 21 year old college student, and there are still a number of people around me who barely know how to use Word. :\
Basically, there needs to be a lot more time dedicated to computer literacy in American grade schools than there currently is.
I 100% agree with Kick on one thing, though: taking math notes on a computer is a PITA. Ironically, in my English and Government classes, I could (but I don't) take notes on my laptop. But in my computer hardware class, I have to take notes on paper! Circuit diagrams, karnaugh maps, hex arithmetic... all much easier to do on paper than through a keyboard on the first pass. Seems backwards, right?
You can pry my black Pilot 0.7mm G2 gel pen and college-ruled notebook from my cold, dead fingers. ;) It's how I take all my notes. Thing about notes is, I rarely reference them later. Especially considering most of my professors post their notes online. I take notes because the act of writing it helps me assimilate the information, and a pen is more conducive to those ends than a keyboard is.
I still don't think cursive is necessarily a worthwhile skill to teach, though. When I was in elementary school, we all learned cursive in second grade, and we all switched back in third grade. I just think that the loss of readability isn't worth the slight speed increase, and there are other, more important things to be learning at that developmental phase, like computer basics.
I love computers but the reality is that we should be expecting a lot more of our kids and ourselves. I mean really is learning to form and write a whole second form really that incredibly hard? This isn't brain surgery or launching a rocket. Other writing systems involve learning thousands of characters and we thing a second set of 52 is too hard.
I bet over 95% of students who went to grade school and learned cursive in the 90s immediately switched back the moment they were allowed to and saw no loss in speed. I understand the concept behind why cursive is supposed to be faster, but in practice it almost never is unless you really care. And when kids are forced to write in cursive, they hate it and immediately switch back as soon as they're no longer obligated to use it.
It's just that you seem to be responding to people who dislike cursive as though they're special cases, but I think the opposite is true. Virtually everyone switches back to manuscript once they hit junior high or high school, and by then most assignments are typed anyway.
I bet 95% of them still can't spell or write for crap period. I bet 95% of them are the ones putting their smilie face signature to a loan doc they have no understanding about while spending more time pondering the specs of the large screen television they are going to put in said house.
It's interesting that you bring this up. There is some pretty serious speculation among neuroscientists that the reduction of teaching a highly formal style of writing and the removal of lots of memorization (i.e. of Latin, passages of Shakespeare, etc.) has impacted negatively on the motor skills and memory skills of the younger generations. I can't pull up the details right now because I have too much other research to do, but I know I read it in "The Brain the Changes Itself", a great book on neuroplasticity.
I like writing cursive, and I like memorizing things. Maybe that the influence of Buddhism on me (they pay a lot of attention to proper handwriting and memorize A LOT of stuff in Tibetan Buddhism).
I'm pretty much of this view. First the irony of a Mac forum complaining about learning a slightly different way of doing one things and wanting schools to standardize on just one way is just off the charts. I mean come on people, those who cant learn cursive are those two dim to learn Windows and say.. Mac as well. Second I can't think of a thing in my life that after having approached it from more angles, I didn't learn more and master better.
My sons aren't just learning English, they are taking Spanish. They aren't just learning to read in those two languages, but music as well. They aren't just learning violin, but clarinet. More is better. Laziness isn't better. The fact that we can't cram cursive in has nothing to do with schools and time and everything to do with being intellectually and physically lazy. More approaches often leads to a conceptual understanding that is deeper than push X, pull Y be it musical instruments, computer programs, writing, you name it.
I think it should at least be required to teach kids how to read it. The bottom line is you will run into people in the business world and elsewhere who will jot down notes or whatever in cursive and not knowing how to read it at least is pretty retarded. We already have a generation of kids who can't tell time accurately on an analog clock and can't do math in their head because their new age, pusserific teachers let them use calculators in math tests from the time they were in 7th grade. Best not to go for the trifecta where they can only read something if it's in standard print.
Sooner or later parents and teachers will figure out that constantly doing everything they can to make their kids' lives in school easier, isn't helping anything. This whole concept of "kid ego" and not allowing kids to fail at something or feel stupid sometimes is just total bullshit. It's part of life and growing up. Failing to get something right the first time is often what will motivate a non-burnout kid to study it again and get it right the next time.
I guess you can argue you shouldn't have to learn to write it, but you should definitely learn to read it. It's not *that* obsolete. 15 years ago there was no such thing as email and phone text, and people wrote in cursive all the time. Most of those people are still alive and while they use email too, they also write stuff on paper sometimes. ;) Moreover, I find it much slower to write out a few thoughts in block lettering than I do cursive. I can rip off a paragraph (legible paragraph) in a few seconds. Doing it in block lettering usually takes twice as long for any given length of text.
Perhaps we could redefine block lettering to be more like the Palm Graffiti system. No character should take more than one stroke and speed and legibility would both be increased.
Another thing I've found: if you don't practice writing stuff by hand, you start to suck at it. Keyboards are amazing devices that help us get tons of stuff done but without them, you'll quickly see how shitty your writing skills become. I have to actually practice a few lines before I write down a thank you note in cursive because the first few words I write are usually skewed and all fucked up. Seriously it's like re-learning to ride a bike or something. :lol:
V's look like R's, U's like W's, etc.
Perhaps we could redefine block lettering to be more like the Palm Graffiti system. No character should take more than one stroke and speed and legibility would both be increased.
See also: stenography.
I bet 95% of them still can't spell or write for crap period. I bet 95% of them are the ones putting their smilie face signature to a loan doc they have no understanding about while spending more time pondering the specs of the large screen television they are going to put in said house.
Correlation does not imply causation. Just because most people are idiots, and most people don't write cursive, doesn't mean that only idiots don't write cursive. They have nothing to do with each other.
I'm pretty much of this view. First the irony of a Mac forum complaining about learning a slightly different way of doing one things and wanting schools to standardize on just one way is just off the charts. I mean come on people, those who cant learn cursive are those two dim to learn Windows and say.. Mac as well. Second I can't think of a thing in my life that after having approached it from more angles, I didn't learn more and master better.
:confused:
Kretara, you mean your college professors made you turn in assignments in cursive? You must be older than me... by 5th or 6th grade, cursive was no longer required, and I remember being so happy to be rid of it.
YES. My English teachers and one psych teacher required that all papers be in cursive. They would not accept typed papers.
The English teachers finally allowed me to turn in a cursive and a printed (but no typed) version so they could read what I wrote.
The psych teacher would only allow cursive. I ended up getting a D in his class because he could not read my cursive.
I had a college German teacher who demanded that we write in cursive. Writing German in cursive sucks badly. I dropped that class.
I also had some teachers in high school that required cursive.
YES. My English teachers and one psych teacher required that all papers be in cursive. They would not accept typed papers.
The English teachers finally allowed me to turn in a cursive and a printed (but no typed) version so they could read what I wrote.
The psych teacher would only allow cursive. I ended up getting a D in his class because he could not read my cursive.
I had a college German teacher who demanded that we write in cursive. Writing German in cursive sucks badly. I dropped that class.
I also had some teachers in high school that required cursive.
Dear Christ, where did you go to school? A lunatic asylum? These days, requiring handwritten cursive would probably get anyone but a tenured professor fired.
If I were your teacher, after you got tired of not seeing the playground, you would write at a size that I could read.
LOL. They tried that. Didn't work.
I have really bad writing (cursive more so than block). I have the classic doctors handwriting.
I believe that part of the problem comes from having ADHD. I have trouble keeping a train of thought, so I write down stuff as fast as I can so I don't forget it. Cursive was indeed faster, but I could never read it.
For whatever reason, the smaller I print the better my penmanship.
Dear Christ, where did you go to school? A lunatic asylum?
Maybe...YES.
I started off at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville back in the mid-80's.
At that point in time, it was one of the top party schools in the US. I made it 3 semesters before leaving for a school with less.....um...distractions to occupy all my time.
Anyone remember having to type out your papers and using those little white out sheets to correct mistakes? Death to typewriters!!!!
Maybe...YES.
I started off at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville back in the mid-80's.
At that point in time, it was one of the top party schools in the US. I made it 3 semesters before leaving for a school with less.....um...distractions to occupy all my time.
Anyone remember having to type our your papers and using those little white out sheets to correct mistakes? Death to typewriters!!!!
I don't but my parents have told me stories. They had coin-op typewriters and had to literally cut and paste their stuff around before carefully typing up a final draft.
Still faster than writing by hand. In fact, just yesterday, I tried writing a little bit by hand (both in print and in cursive), and my hand cramped up something terrible. It's been a long time since I've hand-written anything longer than a short reminder or to-do list.
Damn, I remember manually writing 15 page papers on overnighters in high school.
And yeah, I also remember the typewriter approach. You had your Wite-Out liquid, your correction tape, and if you were really lucky, a correcting typewriter.
Then I found BankWriter on the Apple ][+. :D
When teachers bitched about dot matrix output, I found a lab with a daisywheel printer I could use every so often, and voila... no more bitching.
See also: stenography.
Well, stenography does require additional equipment and you can't really copy equations, diagrams etc. like you can with a pen and paper. I like the idea of doing away with capital letters and reducing each letter to one stroke.
Korean has no capital letters and is considered one of the best writing systems on the planet. It was invented in the 15th century or so as a way to teach peasants to read as Chinese was really only accessible to the wealthy. It's actually phonetic (rather than symbols having certain meanings) so you can write in any language with the Korean alphabet. Each "character" is a syllable made up of letters, this means words are usually spoken as they are written (there are a few rules and exceptions but that has more to do with the language than the writing system).
Hangul (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul)
I find it interesting that a 15th century King can look at the writing system of his country, decide it's too difficult for the common people, and create an entirely new one that's not based on the old one at all. Especially considering that any texts in the day would have been written in Chinese or Hanja, so even learning Hangul would not give you access to any more information than you had before, only the new stuff. Which was fair enough, peasants didn't really need anything from those texts and the people that studied them also had the resources to learn Chinese.
I like the idea of only teaching cursive to those that need or want to learn it. I hated cursive in school and later when I tried using it to take notes quickly I was dismayed to find that even a couple of hours after the initial note taking I was unable to decipher my own script. I certainly don't consider it a life skill that needs to be taught with the same consideration we give to english, math, science, etc.
Well, stenography does require additional equipment and you can't really copy equations, diagrams etc. like you can with a pen and paper. I like the idea of doing away with capital letters and reducing each letter to one stroke.
Huh?? Stenography is done with a pencil and paper. You're thinking of stenotyping, on a stenography *machine*, which is a dedicated typewriter for the style. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand
That page does highlight one shortcoming of teaching stenography: which *style*? There are more than a few, and no single standardized one. Cursive at least has the advantage of being more or less universal.
Korean has no capital letters and is considered one of the best writing systems on the planet. It was invented in the 15th century or so as a way to teach peasants to read as Chinese was really only accessible to the wealthy. It's actually phonetic (rather than symbols having certain meanings) so you can write in any language with the Korean alphabet. Each "character" is a syllable made up of letters, this means words are usually spoken as they are written (there are a few rules and exceptions but that has more to do with the language than the writing system).
Hangul (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul)
I find it interesting that a 15th century King can look at the writing system of his country, decide it's too difficult for the common people, and create an entirely new one that's not based on the old one at all. Especially considering that any texts in the day would have been written in Chinese or Hanja, so even learning Hangul would not give you access to any more information than you had before, only the new stuff. Which was fair enough, peasants didn't really need anything from those texts and the people that studied them also had the resources to learn Chinese.
It's good to be King. ;)
I like the idea of only teaching cursive to those that need or want to learn it. I hated cursive in school and later when I tried using it to take notes quickly I was dismayed to find that even a couple of hours after the initial note taking I was unable to decipher my own script. I certainly don't consider it a life skill that needs to be taught with the same consideration we give to english, math, science, etc.
It's a more specialized skill these days than it used to be, but it's still an important one (when done *right*) for when getting the information down ASAP is critical.
Korean is interesting... the individual glyphs each represent about the same amount of information as a Chinese character (a syllable with a basic root meaning that can take on many other meanings depending on what other syllables it's paired with), yet it's phonetic. I had major trouble trying to learn Chinese during my ten months in that country because it was almost entirely straight-up memorization—unlike learning something like Spanish, where a lot of words are similar and everything is phonetic, Chinese has absolutely nothing in common with Latin- or Germanic-based languages, so I had to remember the pronunciation, appearance, and meaning of every character separately.
Huh?? Stenography is done with a pencil and paper. You're thinking of stenotyping, on a stenography *machine*, which is a dedicated typewriter for the style. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand
Indeed! I was thinking of stenotyping and had completely forgotten about shorthand (and never knew it was called stenography).
Shorthand seems far more useful then cursive. Well written cursive looks like english anyway and my Korean friends (who have never been taught cursive) have no problem reading it while poorly written cursive can't be read by anyone!
Trumpetman
2009-04-07, 13:04
Correlation does not imply causation. Just because most people are idiots, and most people don't write cursive, doesn't mean that only idiots don't write cursive. They have nothing to do with each other.
:confused:
Well you see the point though, cursive has strengths and advantages regardless of the desires of the general population and their ability to utilize them. Correlation is not causation with regard to cursive and your own desire and anecdotal experiences.
The confused thing (yeah I got my two wrong early this morning) is that so many Macs have been tossed out of schools because they are not Windows machines running Microsoft products. The claim is that the kids shouldn't be bothered learning something that is not the "one" standard. There isn't time for it. The small changes can be confusing and are a supposed "burden" to teachers, IT staff, etc.
The reality though, much like cursive and print, is that learning a couple different systems gives a deep understanding and often makes one learn concepts versus just rote learning (go to this menu, select this item, etc.)
LOL. They tried that. Didn't work.
I have really bad writing (cursive more so than block). I have the classic doctors handwriting.
I believe that part of the problem comes from having ADHD. I have trouble keeping a train of thought, so I write down stuff as fast as I can so I don't forget it. Cursive was indeed faster, but I could never read it.
For whatever reason, the smaller I print the better my penmanship.
I would have 180 days and I am one stubborn man.:lol: I say this as someone who HAD terrible handwriting but had to take some time and clean it up to teach it.
I don't but my parents have told me stories. They had coin-op typewriters and had to literally cut and paste their stuff around before carefully typing up a final draft.
Still faster than writing by hand. In fact, just yesterday, I tried writing a little bit by hand (both in print and in cursive), and my hand cramped up something terrible. It's been a long time since I've hand-written anything longer than a short reminder or to-do list.
Dude, that is terrible. Put on some sun block and step away from the keyboard.
The confused thing (yeah I got my two wrong early this morning) is that so many Macs have been tossed out of schools because they are not Windows machines running Microsoft products. The claim is that the kids shouldn't be bothered learning something that is not the "one" standard. There isn't time for it. The small changes can be confusing and are a supposed "burden" to teachers, IT staff, etc.
The reality though, much like cursive and print, is that learning a couple different systems gives a deep understanding and often makes one learn concepts versus just rote learning (go to this menu, select this item, etc.)
That's a good point, though I'd argue that a lot of schools switched to PCs just because of tight budgets and Apple's unwillingness to continue releasing inexpensive computers for schools. When you're buying 50 or 100 computers, a $100 or $200 price difference can be really big, and that's precisely the difference between a Mac Mini and a cheap Dell desktop. I do agree, though, that using both Mac and Windows gives you a better perspective of everything. I for one am glad I used Macs for a while even though I ultimately decided I prefer Windows. Otherwise I'd be just another mindless fanboy.
Dude, that is terrible. Put on some sun block and step away from the keyboard.
Heh, actually I get out quite a bit but doing so doesn't exactly build up my handwriting skills ;) not that I need them anyway these days.
Cursive is faster as was explain. Just because you didn't achieve the purpose doesn't negate the purpose.
Give me a break.:rolleyes: Cursive may be intended to be faster, but just because it is intended to be so, doesn't make it so.
I can print, and print legibly at a very fast pace. Back when I was in practice, I could write fast as well. There was no speed benefit to writing.
By the way, I can print faster than many people who write - and mine is often easier to read.
Besides, tell my why writing is supposed to be so much faster when for so many letters, you are double tracking half of you lines. a, b, c, d, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, p, q, s, t, u, v, y, and z at the very least all have about half of their strokes repeated, overlapped, or looped back. You are essentially writing what I write when I print - 1 1/2 to 2 times over. Then you have to back track to dot your i's and cross your t's.
If you believe it is faster just because someone told you it was supposed to be, that's on you.
Your pentip doesn't teleport between those lines.
Line 1, lift, move, drop, line 2, lift, move, drop...
or...
Line 1, line a, line 2, line b...
the a's and b's are just the loops and connecting lines.
No need to be bitchy.
I'm not bitchy. I just don't appreciate the attitude that because I can print faster than I ever could write - that I am some how deficient. Just because writing is 'supposed' to be faster, doesn't make it so. The world is full of supposed-tos that don't exactly measure up. I think this is one of them. Certainly for me it is.
I realize the pen doesn't tele-port itself around. But I can take the shortest, fastest, straightest path to the next letter, and draw it in the most efficient pattern when I print, instead of having to follow my previous track.
Try writing hello and printing hello. Notice how much back tracking you're doing on the h the l's and the o. I don't have to follow the old path to get to the new letter when I print - I can go directly to it. And I can move my pen faster when it's off the paper than when it's on.
Some of my letters do trail a bit from one to the other, kind of like a half script, so in that sense, maybe I'm just finding that happy medium where speed is key.
Eh, I think like anything, cursive just needs practice. If you're trying to make perfectly formed cursive letters that look exactly as they do in the penmanship book, you're going to frustrate yourself into thinking it's horribly slow. The point is to learn how to write the letters and connect them.
Yup, and if you look at the way most of the cursive letters are formed, it's an *awful* lot like printing without ever lifting your pen. Try it, it ends up looking (with a few exceptions, like a lower case b) like cursive.
zippy, if something I said made you feel like you were being targeted, I'm sorry, that wasn't my intent. Cursive *was* designed to be faster, originally. Folks who get hung up on e-xact-let-ter-struc-ture are probably going to go slower, but it really was designed to be a faster form of printing. Not everyone is going to have that experience, of course. If you print 95% of the time, you're almost certainly going to be faster at it.
It's kind of like touchtyping, IMO - a two-finger hunt and peck typist will be faster at hunt and peck than touchtyping, if they don't touchtype at all, right? But the top speed of a good touchtypist is almost certainly going to be faster than the top speed of a good two-finger typist. I used to hunt and peck, and could do a respectable 40+wpm with it, *certainly* faster than I could touchtype, so I didn't see the need to learn to touchtype, for years.
zippy, if something I said made you feel like you were being targeted, I'm sorry, that wasn't my intent. Cursive *was* designed to be faster, originally. Folks who get hung up on e-xact-let-ter-struc-ture are probably going to go slower, but it really was designed to be a faster form of printing. Not everyone is going to have that experience, of course. If you print 95% of the time, you're almost certainly going to be faster at it.
You made a comment yesterday, but you did it with a smiley, so I took no offense - and felt no need to respond. ;) The tone of trumpetman's comment was less jest-ful so that's why I felt it worthwhile to 'defend' my old cursive skills.
Don't give it a second thought.
Next topic: Is Dvorak obsolete?
stevegong
2009-04-07, 17:59
Next topic: Is Dvorak obsolete?
Absolutely not. NEVER.
Well, I'd argue *both* qwerty and dorky are obsolete.
We should be teach kid how to type using the same stenographer in court. What's the excuse?
curiousuburb
2009-04-07, 18:40
Do Stenographers support Unicode?
Trumpetman
2009-04-07, 19:20
Give me a break.:rolleyes: Cursive may be intended to be faster, but just because it is intended to be so, doesn't make it so.
I can print, and print legibly at a very fast pace. Back when I was in practice, I could write fast as well. There was no speed benefit to writing.
By the way, I can print faster than many people who write - and mine is often easier to read.
Besides, tell my why writing is supposed to be so much faster when for so many letters, you are double tracking half of you lines. a, b, c, d, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, p, q, s, t, u, v, y, and z at the very least all have about half of their strokes repeated, overlapped, or looped back. You are essentially writing what I write when I print - 1 1/2 to 2 times over. Then you have to back track to dot your i's and cross your t's.
If you believe it is faster just because someone told you it was supposed to be, that's on you.
Sorry if you are touchy about it.
You made a comment yesterday, but you did it with a smiley, so I took no offense - and felt no need to respond. ;) The tone of trumpetman's comment was less jest-ful so that's why I felt it worthwhile to 'defend' my old cursive skills.
Don't give it a second thought.
Sorry if you don't read my tone right.
Sorry if you don't like the way the apologies are written or their tone either.
dmegatool
2009-04-07, 19:44
I didn't expect some tension in the cursive thread :)
Maybe a beer option in the poll would relax everybody :p
If we'd just print, OCR would work much better!
Language is obsolete. Quantum Telepathy FTW.
Trumpetman
2009-04-08, 17:17
Just make sure it is only one form of quantum telepathy because if we have to learn a second form that is 90% like the first form but 10% different, that is going to be too hard for a lot of folks.
curiousuburb
2009-04-08, 17:21
Just make sure it is only one form of quantum telepathy because if we have to learn a second, better designed form that is 90% like the first form but 10% different, that is going to be too hard for a lot of less cool folks.
T, FTFY. :p ;)
"I'm just not cool enough to be a quantum telepath." :(
Trumpetman
2009-04-08, 17:52
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Very cute!
Weird, I just noticed that I slip into cursive when I'm trying to write quickly.
Cursive is a gateway script.
First cursive, then you try JavaScript because all the cool kids are doing it, then you find yourself in a dark room huddled over a keyboard screaming while you debug AppleScript. Just say no, kids.
Only real men snort C for breakfast.
curiousuburb
2009-04-09, 16:08
Hardly anybody uses Machine Language anymore. Damn compilers make whippersnappers lazy.
Don't make be get all EBCDIC on you.
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