Cursive is no more!

S

shipwreck

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Hey guys, I just found a story that for some reason shocked me than any of the acts of violence you find depicted in the Prac-tac forum. An overseas friend of mine had been asking me some questions about cursive, she had recieved a thank you note in english cursive and couldn't read it. So I translated it for her and gave her a link on the net so she could see how cursive letters corespond to printed letters. A couple of days later she replies back and tells me that she has decided not to make cursive writing and reading part of her studies in learning English as a second language because she read on the internet that cursive is not used in America anymore!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001475.html

I just can't get over this! This got to me. Something really fundamental in the society that I grew up in has changed! It gives me for the first time in my life a glimpse into how my grandfather and father must feel seeing the world becoming something they dont recognize anymore. So......there you have it. If you can read cursive handwriting that means you are old guys, going the way of the dinosaur.
 
I should and will go the way of the old German kurrentshcrift (running script) My history professor use to complain about having to essentially translate all of the stuff the he got from the old Royal and Imperial Army archives in Vienna twice.:D
 
Its not like cursive is HARD or anything....

But in the end its all about aesthetics. The only thing its good for is making your letters look pretty.
 
But do you get that sense of an era passing? You can read something that kids today can't! You stand on the turning point and you represent the obsolete knowledge. You (and me) represent the superflous , the out dated, just by virtue of having grown up in an era where long hand cursive was still thought as valuable.
 
Cursive is no more, eh? Try explaining that to the people who design the curricula for our elementary schools and the people who teach it, like my wife, for example. I will say, though, that my own cursive skills have always been sadly lacking, due in large part to the horrible old bat who taught cursive writing in 1955 Birmingham, Alabama. We called her Cannonball Keenan because of her shape... :D
 
shipwreck said:
But do you get that sense of an era passing? You can read something that kids today can't! You stand on the turning point and you represent the obsolete knowledge. You (and me) represent the superflous , the out dated, just by virtue of having grown up in an era where long hand cursive was still thought as valuable.
Click to expand...

I just can't get over this! This got to me. Something really fundamental in the society that I grew up in has changed! It gives me for the first time in my life a glimpse into how my grandfather and father must feel seeing the world becoming something they dont recognize anymore. So......there you have it. If you can read cursive handwriting that means you are old guys, going the way of the dinosaur.
Click to expand...


I know what you mean, with a half century under my belt now, the world looks a lot different now.

Sometimes I turn around and say, what the heck happened.:D

I look to my own grandparents as a guide to old age.
The last one passed 13 years ago, they were 101 and 95.
And they raised me as much as my parents did.:cool:
With that much time in the world they saw many changes in their world.
Change can be a good thing. It keeps the boredom away.:)
 
shipwreck said:
But do you get that sense of an era passing?
Click to expand...

Is that necessarily a bad thing?

I'm sure there were people who bemoaned the passing of the era of the outhouse. I'm sure there were people who lamented the loss of horsemanship as a basic skill taught to children much at these people now whine about the decline of penmanship.

I submit to you that penMANship is a politically-incorrect, sexist thing anyway which has, for generations, denied the female gender access to higher education. Where is NOW on this issue anyway? It should be penpeopleship. The era of gender inequality is over and so is penMANship.... and horseMANship too. Today, we have the gender-neutral keyboarding... which appeals more to children since it sort of sounds like skateboarding and snowboarding and wakeboarding and surfboarding and ... and ... and ... waterboarding.... and all those other fun activities the kids are into these days. Yes, keyboarding... it's hip... it's now!

Get used to it.
 
jdm61 said:
I should and will go the way of the old German kurrentshcrift (running script) My history professor use to complain about having to essentially translate all of the stuff the he got from the old Royal and Imperial Army archives in Vienna twice.:D
Click to expand...

Gone but not forgotten. When I was studying German, I asked my teacher if I could turn in my handwritten assignments in it. She said it would be OK, but since she was Swiss-German, she never saw it, and didn't know how well she could read it. :)

Like any cursive, it will be as clear or as obscure as the care the writer takes with it.
 
Gollnick said:
Is that necessarily a bad thing?

I'm sure there were people who bemoaned the passing of the era of the outhouse. I'm sure there were people who lamented the loss of horsemanship as a basic skill taught to children much at these people now whine about the decline of penmanship.

I submit to you that penMANship is a politically-incorrect, sexist thing anyway which has, for generations, denied the female gender access to higher education. Where is NOW on this issue anyway? It should be penpeopleship. The era of gender inequality is over and so is penMANship.... and horseMANship too. Today, we have the gender-neutral keyboarding... which appeals more to children since it sort of sounds like skateboarding and snowboarding and wakeboarding and surfboarding and ... and ... and ... waterboarding.... and all those other fun activities the kids are into these days. Yes, keyboarding... it's hip... it's now!

Get used to it.
Click to expand...

Im not sure. From a personal standpoint, it is a reflection of my mortality, a reminder of my finite nauture. Somehow worse than that, it speaks to me of my own alienation from what is modern. I am caught on the "old" side of that benchmark, the kids who will never learn cursive (in favor of the keyboard) are new.
 
There is good cursive and bad, If you want someone to understand what you have written, Print.:)
 
Gollnick said
so is penMANship.... and horseMANship too. Today, we have the gender-neutral keyboarding... which appeals more to children since it sort of sounds like skateboarding and snowboarding and wakeboarding and surfboarding and ... and ... and ... waterboarding.... and all those other fun activities the kids are into these days. Yes, keyboarding... it's hip... it's now!
Click to expand...

LOL !! :D
 
jdm61 said:
I should and will go the way of the old German kurrentshcrift (running script) My history professor use to complain about having to essentially translate all of the stuff the he got from the old Royal and Imperial Army archives in Vienna twice.:D
Click to expand...

Hate that schrift. Damned hard to read. I can read Fraktur aloud at speed- but that damned old Handschrift is just awful. :barf:
 
Just like in the song, when you laugh the world laughs with you, when you cry (in my case over the demise of cursive) the whole world laughs at you.
 
Gee, I still write in cursive . . . when I can put my BlackBerry down long enough. Hmmm, well, now that you mention it, that's not very often anymore. (BTW, this entry was written on the BlackBerry.)
 
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