Why do they bother to teach us cursive in school?
I just want to chime in with the observation that cursive writing is vastly different in other parts of the world. Having grown up in north american and then living in europe for two years (mainly France and Switzerland) I found huge differences in the handwriting between nations, but great consistency within. I’ll never get the hang of french cursive numbers.
When I was in school, I couldn’t wait to learn script. It was like a secret code that all the adults were using and I wanted the magic decoder ring, dammit! However, I’ve been hearing rumors that cursive is no longer being taught in schools since students are learning to type instead. I still practice my penmanship pretty regularly even though I know it’s pretty useless these days. Oh well, I enjoy it.
This must be an age thing. I’m in my late 30s, and I almost never print. I work on a computer all day, and I type quickly, but I still need to write people notes and letters, leave messages for people, address cards, sign cheques, and write grocery lists. Printing is slow, and looks childish to me. Besides, how can you take notes in lectures or read letters from your grandparents without knowing cursive? I don’t remember it taking that much time to learn– a few classes in third grade. We were required to use it until sixth grade, when we were allowed to write however we wanted.
Only because it’s done badly. Nup. Palmer and copperplate-style cursive writing are just plain ugly. A big mess, with spikes all over the place jabbing your eyeballs and loops going every goddam which way and stuck onto everything that doesn’t have a spike stuck onto it, even when it’s all done correctly. When done well, cursive makes for more attractive writing than printing and enables one to write faster. Maybe the latter, not the former. Printing is clear, direct, cheerful, and legible in spite of the inevitable personalizations and idiosyncracies of the writer. Palmer or copperplate cursive writing is none of those things. It is jumbled, complexified, and excessively and uselessly ornamented instead of being simple, clear, and geometric. It is spiky and officious instead of being cheerful. When it is inevitably personalized, it devolves into a random array of spikes instead of something consistently legible, even when it remains “neat.” I think all you can say is that when done in
