Slashdot Mirror
Cursive Writing Is a Fading Skill — Does It Matter?
antdude sends along an AP piece on the decline of the teaching of cursive writing in schools — ramifications of which we've discussed a few times before. "The decline of cursive is happening as students are doing more and more work on computers, including writing. In 2011, the writing test of the National Assessment of Educational Progress will require 8th and 11th graders to compose on computers, with 4th graders following in 2019. ... Handwriting is increasingly something people do only when they need to make a note to themselves rather than communicate with others, [an educator] said. Students accustomed to using computers to write at home have a hard time seeing the relevance of hours of practicing cursive handwriting. 'I am not sure students have a sense of any reason why they should vest their time and effort in writing a message out manually when it can be sent electronically in seconds.'"
This is nonsense. Cursive writing is the essential underpinning of nothing more than fountain pens and hand fatigue.
I also don't care to read or write curseive writing. Yet, it shows up all the time on /. Just mention RIAA, patents, traffic shaping, Microsoft, etc. and you see all sorts of f-bombs and other forms of curseive writing in comment after comment. It makes me sad. I'm glad that you have gone for many years without resorting to such tired-out shock devices.
With the knowledge of penmanship goes the ability to sign a pact with the Devil in one's own blood. I suppose a syringe and an empty ink cartridge would do the trick, but why bother? Whatever Life trouble you are trying to bypass with such a pact cannot seriously be as bad as the anxiety this will cause. Imagine the stress of not only owing your soul to Satan, but also to living your life in fear of litigation from Canon, Epson and the like for breaking the DMCA by refilling those cartridges.
No sir. I am glad to see the day of this cursed writing.
I installed the cursive font sometime around 2nd grade, but I haven't really used it much since then. Comic sans is what I currently use by default, and while font snobs may sneer, I think it works pretty well for legible handwriting.
Forget cursive - the whole world's been going to hell ever since they eliminated mandatory cuniform tablet-carving in the 30s. And don't get me started about the sad state of papyrus making in America's schools...
Yep, another Slashdupe.
Ah yes the rule that dictates only one person on the slide at a time, this is definitely not to be forgoten.
You can't take the sky from me.
... is the only font I ever use, even when handwriting.
Cursive is fine, but it will never replace Insular Majiscule for grandeur, so important to getting one's point across (especially important if you're 1300 years old or so). I do enjoy the hip-hop trendiness of Carolingean Miniscule with it's clever serifs and ligatures, but nothing will replace Gothic Littera Bastarde for those elegant, impassioned invitations to the A-list on your parties (well, SCA events anyway). But don't skimp on the illumination, either, or valuable content may not be appropriately highlighted.
Apologies for the rubric.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
My "signature" is a drawing of a lion. I'd like to think it's harder to reproduce than a real signature ever would be.
We can't all sign with an 'X'
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Or leave a note on someone's car when you scratch it
Now that's a good point for calligraphy. If you have to vandalize other people's cars, do it with style!
"That is why it is often banned from being used to sign your name on documents. "
Wut?
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
There was. Cliff and Timothy left a handwritten notes to kdawson indicating that they had posted similar stories already, but apparently it was cursive, kdawson couldn't read it.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Or leave a note on someone's car when you scratch it with a shopping cart.
An illegible cursive note on their windscreen, of course. If it's written using a diamond-tipped stylus, there's actually no need to scratch the car with a shopping cart.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Next they'll have our students churning butter forging horseshoes.
I always wondered how they made butter....never realised it involved horses though.
While you call this important body of knowledge valueless, I do not and can do the things you describe. So therefor when and if the balloon goes up, my family will eat and be clothed while yours will starve and die naked in the cold. What a pitty.
You... hunt your own food... in Oakland. And tan your own leather? By the light of kerosene lamps. To wear on your horse while you ride to Burning Man. I think you'll be dead long before any of that is an issue. If it is an issue, I don't think you'll feed your family with cursive writing, man.
Easy solution: if you're left handed, write in an RTL language such as Hebrew, then you can use your fountain pen. Problem solved! ;)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Something is amiss indeed. You left this out:
0800: Class on proper use of 24 hour clock
Unless after hunting and foraging at 10 AM you wait until 2 AM to have lunch.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Don't judge me!
Apparently your post is in cursive too.
Or maybe that's recursive...
Especially on /.?
50 replies on how a paraplegic rat regained the function in its legs, and 250 replies on how cursive writing is a fading skill. Really -- slashdot?
Does that mean that a story about paraplegic rats' fading skill of cursive writing with their legs would evoke 12500 replies?
Ezekiel 23:20
Next thing you know, they'll be selling desks without inkwells!
trendiness of Carolingean Miniscule with it's clever serifs and ligatures
And five days of a scribe's time was wasted with the stray apostrophe or blot in the middle of the page.
[
Does this mean that hand-writing passwords on the post-it attached to your monitor will soon become a secure method of encrypting them?
Assuming you still remember how to write, of course.
I used to sign with an "X", but someone from Alabama accused me of forgery.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
No no no. If it was handwritten in cursive and his writing looks anything like mine, it'd look like:
Uuin uniuuwln wn, uiwum iu Ounu uwvunm oulnny.