Fuck cursive. Being forced to write in that was absolute torture. The forced use of specific esoteric hand-cramping illegible scribbles is asinine.
There surely was a use for penmanship before the proliferation of ballpoint pens and typewriters, but the way it was taught while I was in school was completely backwards. The intent of writing in script is to quickly flow from one letter to another without needing to lift the nib of a quill; rote learning of individual hieroglyphs with full disregard for the writer’s natural hand movements is at best asinine, and at worst cruel.
The fact that we were tormented decades in the past doesn’t justify more torment now. Be better.
I find cursive is very useful when writing notes that only I will ever need to read. Reading and writing another persons cursive has never been easy for me and it has never impacted my life with one exception. I cannot read post cards from my aunt. Oh, and that time a decade ago when I had to fill out the “I will not cheat” pledge on the back of the SAT.
Turns out if you need to write something with speed we have these things that are like typewriters, but they don’t even jam!
Never tried. Apparently yes, but I sound like a child reading each word like, “yeah, that’s definitely’vested’ I’m sure!”. I doubt the next generation will except a few people.
I see your point, but I’m not sure I believe somebody could lie about it’s contents even in the distant future with how many legible copies there are.
I’ve never once encountered such a book. The only times I see cursive are stuff from older relatives, and they all write differently to each other so it’s just a matter of familiarity, and on headings or labels trying to look fancy.
Sometimes it comes up in old stuff for academic or personal interests but “knowing cursive” is often secondary to understanding those. Letters or papers intended for others are often perfectly legible, personal notes are a total mixed bag. (Looking at you, Charles Darwin.)
I have heard of this argument many times and it never made any sense. Is it really a big deal that kids these days might have trouble reading the original 1787 hemp copy, The one they keep in a climate controlled room in dc? Even the Supreme Court Justices use print transcriptions. This always seems like a purely sentimental arguement
Because it’s a waste of time, and a lot of people were taught in a way that wasn’t the easy, quick way you seem to think it was.
The way they taught me was to write the alphabet in a new script over and over for about an hour a day twice a week for several years. If you had poor handwriting you had to do it more, and you could fail lessons based purely on “didn’t shape your cursive S correctly”.
Then you leave elementary school and teachers immediately switch to saying they won’t accept assignments in cursive, and then in highschool and college they won’t even accept handwritten.
Slide rules are also easy to learn, but we don’t teach them because there’s no point to it.
Fuck cursive. Being forced to write in that was absolute torture. The forced use of specific esoteric hand-cramping illegible scribbles is asinine.
There surely was a use for penmanship before the proliferation of ballpoint pens and typewriters, but the way it was taught while I was in school was completely backwards. The intent of writing in script is to quickly flow from one letter to another without needing to lift the nib of a quill; rote learning of individual hieroglyphs with full disregard for the writer’s natural hand movements is at best asinine, and at worst cruel.
The fact that we were tormented decades in the past doesn’t justify more torment now. Be better.
I find cursive is very useful when writing notes that only I will ever need to read. Reading and writing another persons cursive has never been easy for me and it has never impacted my life with one exception. I cannot read post cards from my aunt. Oh, and that time a decade ago when I had to fill out the “I will not cheat” pledge on the back of the SAT.
Turns out if you need to write something with speed we have these things that are like typewriters, but they don’t even jam!
One of the hardest sections of the SAT, right there
Can you read the original constitution and will your kids be able to?
Never tried. Apparently yes, but I sound like a child reading each word like, “yeah, that’s definitely’vested’ I’m sure!”. I doubt the next generation will except a few people.
I see your point, but I’m not sure I believe somebody could lie about it’s contents even in the distant future with how many legible copies there are.
On another note, this website exists which is super cool! https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/downloads
There are books out there that haven’t been scanned or translated. Even some that aren’t that old. It’s such an easy thing to learn, why wouldn’t you?
I’ve never once encountered such a book. The only times I see cursive are stuff from older relatives, and they all write differently to each other so it’s just a matter of familiarity, and on headings or labels trying to look fancy.
Sometimes it comes up in old stuff for academic or personal interests but “knowing cursive” is often secondary to understanding those. Letters or papers intended for others are often perfectly legible, personal notes are a total mixed bag. (Looking at you, Charles Darwin.)
Found the weird ammurica fetish guy.
I have heard of this argument many times and it never made any sense. Is it really a big deal that kids these days might have trouble reading the original 1787 hemp copy, The one they keep in a climate controlled room in dc? Even the Supreme Court Justices use print transcriptions. This always seems like a purely sentimental arguement
Oh no imagine not veing able to read the slaveowners manual
Voicing pride that you’ve never read the constitution of a country you don’t even live in is weirder 😬
You mean the one that starts with “congrefs” because the long s was a thing at the time and the letter f had a different meaning?
How much time should we spend teaching school children about 200 year old antiquated orthography?
I didn’t realize that such an easy thing to teach would meet such controversy, lol. Why wouldn’t you teach such an easy thing to learn?
Because it’s a waste of time, and a lot of people were taught in a way that wasn’t the easy, quick way you seem to think it was.
The way they taught me was to write the alphabet in a new script over and over for about an hour a day twice a week for several years. If you had poor handwriting you had to do it more, and you could fail lessons based purely on “didn’t shape your cursive S correctly”.
Then you leave elementary school and teachers immediately switch to saying they won’t accept assignments in cursive, and then in highschool and college they won’t even accept handwritten.
Slide rules are also easy to learn, but we don’t teach them because there’s no point to it.
It sounds like you had horrible teachers? We learned it alongside print and that was it. It wasn’t a big deal at all.
Welcome to why so many people hate it. You’re taught it, it’s an awful experience, and then you never use it again.
We may as well teach slide rules and abaci.
It’s not awful for everyone though. That’s like deciding not to teach history to all schools because a few classes had really bad teachers.