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Why Johnny Can't Handwrite
theodp writes "Handwriting experts fear that the wild popularity of e-mail and IM, particularly among kids, could erase cursive within a few decades. With 90 percent of Americans between the ages of 5 and 17 using computers, it's not uncommon for kids to type 20-30 WPM by the time they leave elementary school. Keyboards, joysticks and cell-phone touch pads have ruined kids' ability to hold a pencil properly, let alone write legibly, says the former president of the International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting."
Perhaps we are just training more kids to be doctors these days...
Good riddance to those pesky writing implements, I say.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
I'd really be concerned if our spelling and math were slipping. Um, hold on a minute....
And in related news, experts at the United States Center for Equestrian Activities have grown increasingly concerned that the automobile will cause a sharp reduction in the horse riding skills of the average American.
Studies have found that kids today can't even point to a sliderule in a room, let alone use one.
Cursive isn't important, and if it died, we would be none the poorer for it.
Besides, handwriting survived the introduction of the typewriter...
What concerns me is not that typing is becoming more popular, but that kids are learning to write on the Internet, to the point where kids hand in assignments with 'internet shorthand' in them, LOL. Wait, not LOL. WTF.
dinosaur comics
IM on mobile phones being sms text messages which havent caught on in the US, and not long ago, I was forced to do repetative excercises using "joined up" letters so I could write cursively. But whether digitally or on paper, I still prefer writing cursingly than cursively.
"it's not uncommon for kids to type 20-30 WPM by the time they leave elementary school"
Bah, I can type way faster than that. At least 40 WPM.
Kids are slow. They're probably dumb too.
Its not that handwriting is becoming sloppy, its just that more people are employing complex encrytion algorithms when writing. Doctor and professors have been doing this for years.
You're worried about DRM? It's already here...
Handwriting just hasn't been the same since Quill pens were replaced. Nobody knows how to trim a quill pen anymore.
A great loss.
"International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting"
Wow... there is such an organization? Oh man, I thought that I was a dork...
Argh, I tried to write cursive writing using Ascii characters, and I encounted the lameless filter!
Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.
Yeah, that's right, cursive is junk.
That's funny. Is the reverse true? Do people that can properly hold pencils mash cell phone keypads, pull keys off keyboards, and gnaw on joysticks?
Please diagram that sentence for me.
I went to Catholic school for ten years, forced to write in script. Like eating those disgusting communion wafers and wearing an awful school uniform, the mere thought of it brings up anger tempered by the relief that nobody will ever be able to force me to do it again.
How happy to read that the world is rising up against at least one of the three.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
So if the kids are stuck in a power outage and need to leave a message for someone, how exactly do you propose they do it?
Use a mechanical typewriter?
Bored with karma, be a fan/freak
The coolest voice ever.
yeah, I have one right here in my back pocket...next to my pen, which I've forgotten how to use.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
"Don't verb nouns." -- William Safire
:-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
They always told me that my writing was messy and hard to read and that they would take points off for not writing in cursive. Then when I wrote in cursive, they complained even more, so eventually, I went back to my current writing.
So let me guess, you're a doctor now? Looks like things worked out just fine...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
to keep the left-handed man down! Don't listen to this handwriting propaganda. Typing sets you free!
It's an imperative to a judge named Grammar. Sentence is the verb. Structure and spelling are direct objects. (The second comma is bad style but not technically incorrect.)
Think of it as a criminal trial involving abstract concepts.
No - the rest of the world can only write in block capitals. It doesn't have electricity either.
High school student my ass! Find a single high school student that knows what "bemoan" means and I'll give you a cookie.
You must be a college student.
Here's your post in high school student writing:
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does in class esay mean nething nemore?
Therz no way 2 use a comp on those bitches!
oh, and then theres teh AP tests (wtf does AP mean/?) those ~*HaVe*~ to be hand writin
in AP US we were reading Zerox's of da past years esays, th 1s that were harder to read cauz they were in cursiv cause of the damn twirly things.
I noticed the loss of cursive.. When taking the SAT a coupla monts ago when asked to copy the anor fraze ("i certicify that this is my test" shit) with instructionz saying "DO NOT PRINT" in the the box the whole fucking room started LMAO, we were like, how the fuck do you write this shit again? haha
cause I hate math i use the internet to cheat, must nice than actually writin by hand haha
so wtf am I sayin? well
I hate school, cant wait till i graduate or drop out haha
Cursive Sux!!
Hanwritin Suck ASs!
Fuck Life Man!!
The Fucking End!!
(why cant we all just chat on AIM or somtin?)
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p.s. I'm not a highschool student. I just remember what it was like, and no I wasn't that stupid, but everyone else was. =)
So if the kids are stuck in a power outage and need to leave a message for someone, how exactly do you propose they do it?
So my computer should have a UPS, 'for the sake of the children'. Sounds good to me.
these days there are stuffs that are impossible to write in cursive. :)
such as l33t h4x0r or
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
The rest of the worlds handwriting will be as bad as my doctors!!
Are you southern, Canadian, or southern Canadian?
That's what pisses me off about college - you don't get any reward for conceiseness or clearly thought-out answers. So what if you can answer an essay question better than everyone else, in half as much space - the exam is to write a 2 page essay, in class, with a pen/pencil, on X or Y topic or idea.
I have a feeling that this is the doing of governmental regulation agencies.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Wow, it looks like people on /. hate cursive more than SCO and Microsoft! Every bitch rant gets modded up, unlike many anti-M$ rants.
Now I will post the phone number and address of my 3rd grade teacher...
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
Cursive is:
a) hard to learn,
b) hard to use, and
c) (usually) hard to read.
Hence, the name.
My report cards all through elementary school showed "Needs improvement" under penmanship, but it didn't seem to affect my getting A's in everything else. I mean how bad could my writing have been if all of my teachers were able to read and grade it?
Why don't you ask Mrs. Peebles, your English teacher from 3rd grade? Last I heard, she got hit by a school bus while trying to figure out if some kid wrote Bench or Penis. Don't think your bad penmanship didn't have an earth-shattering effect on the course of history!
That is GREAT! No more having the court call my chief to try and figure out what I charged that guy.
You, sir, must be the nut who pulled me over and wrote me a ticket for doing 83.2 in a walrus zone.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
We read slashdot, so we did not get your joke. You'll have to explain.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
It is official; Netcraft now confirms: Cursive is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered handwriting community when IAMPETH confirmed that the cursive market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all children. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that cursive has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Cursive is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in a recent comprehensive literary test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict cursive's future. The hand writing (printed) is on the wall: cursive faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for cursive because cursive is dying. Things are looking very bad for cursive. As many of us are already aware, cursive continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Calligraphy is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core penmen. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time calligraphers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: calligraphy is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Handwriting leader Theo states that there are 7000 literate people. How many users of cursive are there? Let's see. The number of literate versus cursive posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 cursive users. Cursive posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of printed posts. Therefore there are only about 700 users of cursive. A recent article put cursive at about 80 percent of the cursive market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 cursive writers. This is consistent with the number of Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, Cursive Handwriting Lessons went out of business and was taken over by Write Cursive Good, who sell another troubled writing style. Now WCG is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that cursive has steadily declined in market share. cursive is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If cursive is to survive at all it will be among writing dilettante dabblers. cursive continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, cursive is dead.
Fact: cursive is dying
Educators are also worried that kids aren't learning proper spear-making technique.
Shockingly, no one gives a fuck.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Your notary sounds clueless about her "job", which is to validate that *you* signed the document. If signatures intrinsically meant anything, she'd have no function.
I had a notary refuse to sign an letter-of-authorization allowing my wife to take our child on vacation out of the country. "It is not a legal document", she claimed. Er, yes, it is. I wrote it, and it grants a specific, limited power to my wife. It also happens to be a required piece of documentation in that circumstance. But to her, a "legal document" is written on a form or letterhead. The barrier-to-entry for a notary seems to be far too low for (my) comfort.
Pah, thats why you have a printer that can take envelopes ;-)
My handwriting sucked to begin with. I'm also one of those people who can think faster than they can communicate (which makes for some interesting word combinations, like today when I read a "cyst and decease" letter aloud). Typing, on the other hand, allows me to quickly express complete thoughts in fluid form, and even edit those thoughts on the fly (ala the Backspace key).
So...fuck handwriting...
Mr Doyle: So, you never learned cursive?
Bart: Well, I know hell, damn, bit...
Mr Doyle: Cursive handwriting, script. Do you know the multiplication tables? Long division?
Bart: I know of them.
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
If your prose is so bland that only your penmanship can lend it a cherished style then it's lucky you're good with your hands. At least you can tickle her fancy.
ah, but I am one of those 0.000000001% =P
(I've taken three semesters of Akkadian through the History of Mathematics department at Brown Univeristy)
And, I, for one, will be ready when all the lights are out, all the paper and pens and pencils and burnt wood is gone, and the only thing we've got is conveniently located clay resevoirs...
The more that people can't write, the less grafitti will be covering all the walls. Oh wait, now they're cracking into web sites and plastering them with HTML. Nevermind.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Is that a typewriter in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
.
It's supposedly slightly faster to write in, but it's certainly a whole lot slower to read!
*ducks*
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Amazingly, the loseriest group ever mentioned on slashdot isn't a computer group.
One of the many things I hate. thingsihate.org
Even before I learned Qwerty my handwriting was atrocious. If it wasn't for learning how to type in elementary school, I'd probably be creating indecypherable codes for the Allies. Of course kids need to be able to write, but this article stinks of Luddites and FUD. Must be Bic and the other writing instrument monopolies banding together to stomp out computers - "Did you know that typing leads to poor grades and bad dental hygiene? Take away your kid's computer and give them a pen!"
Oh, and my spelling sucks too.
-Ryan
You sign things "Anonymous Cow"?
Doug