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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Death Of Cursive
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Twangist:
quote:
Fountain pens, it seems, are very much becoming a thing of the past, which is very sad.
Yes, I suspect you may be right; which is rather a shame as I love them. Writing cursive with a biro seems to me like a satantic punishment for the worst type of offender in hell.
posted by Komensky:
quote:
There are some pond differences.
I hope that is true, but I strongly suspect it is not. I know what CK is saying too, but since my experience with a family friend's children I have enquired a bit and it seems fairly widespread not to bother teaching cursive or 'joined up writing'.
posted by Cliffdweller:
quote:
I suspect cursive will soon become a specialty heirloom skill like knitting or hand embroidery. Something of a niche market. Some people will continue to enjoy learning & using it, and may even be sought after to use their skills either for calligraphy or for taking extensive notes in a setting where a laptop is inappropriate or unworkable. Some may learn and use it as an adjunct to creativity. But it will no longer be seen as a skill that is essential for the entire population.
I must confess that I would find this very, very depressing. I'm not the world's most beautiful writer by a long stretch, but I can still appreciate the art. I know I might sound like a fuddy duddy, but I do think the internet and the numerous cheap printing methods have made us careless about what we write and how we communicate and we are taking for granted the whole art of handwriting that when it is gone I do think we will sorely miss and wish we hadn't let it go. I fear that we might be seriously letting down a generation who will stand and accuse us later.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
I must confess that I would find this very, very depressing. I'm not the world's most beautiful writer by a long stretch, but I can still appreciate the art. I know I might sound like a fuddy duddy, but I do think the internet and the numerous cheap printing methods have made us careless about what we write and how we communicate and we are taking for granted the whole art of handwriting that when it is gone I do think we will sorely miss and wish we hadn't let it go. I fear that we might be seriously letting down a generation who will stand and accuse us later.
That strikes me as the epitome of a first-world problem.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675
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Posted
Here's an example to consider. When the Turks decides to ditch arabic script in favour of Roman for the Turkish language (and there were good reasons to do this) they hadn't anticipated the problems that emerged within a generation where children couldn't read the legal documents of their parents (deeds for houses, wills, etc.) with external help.
K.
Posts: 1784 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2004
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
The new National Curriculum says:
quote:
Statutory requirements
Writing – handwriting and presentation
Pupils should be taught to:
- write legibly, fluently and with increasing speed by:
- choosing which shape of a letter to use when given choices and deciding whether or not to join specific letters
- choosing the writing implement that is best suited for a task.
Notes and guidance (non-statutory)
Pupils should continue to practise handwriting and be encouraged to increase the speed of it, so that problems with forming letters do not get in the way of their writing down what they want to say. They should be clear about what standard of handwriting is appropriate for a particular task, for example, quick notes or a final handwritten version. They should also be taught to use an unjoined style, for example, for labelling a diagram or data, writing an email address, or for algebra and capital letters, for example, for filling in a form.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Maybe this is just another version of the racist comment 'they all look alike to me', but I find most American/French/Italian handwriting looks as if it has been done by the same person. British people seem to have a wider variety of handwriting styles. When it's done by people who rarely put pen to paper it can look crude but is generally legible; it's usually older people whose jobs involve[d] a lot of writing who can write fluently but not always legibly unless you are familiar with that person's style. I suspect once you have acclimatised your eyes to the more consistent styles of those other countries, when you can read one you can read the rest.
Of course there is a generational aspect to this: older British people tend to have been taught a version of copperplate while younger people often learnt Italic and younger still some sort of roundhand.
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I was taught a Copperplate hand (executed with a dip pen). Style though varied with teacher - one year we had to make all loops and connections rounded, next year, very pointed, to the extent of making loops triangular. However, when you went up to secondary school, handwriting no longer had to conform to a particular model, so I went into a mad adolescent spree of inventing my own script - until eventually captivated by the beauty of Italic.
Yes. My handwriting as a small child was atrocious, so much so that when I started at school one of the first things they did was to show me how to write properly and make me practise forming the joined-up letters. I was also lefthanded, but one of the lucky ones in that the consensus was that I should be allowed to get on with it, even if the way I held the pen looked weird, because I was so much faster than if I tried to write with the right hand.
In secondary school I went through quite a lot of experimentation with both calligraphic styles and different colours of inks until the teachers protested. I eventually settled for a modified version of the copperplate I'd been taught. I have an italic fountain pen that I refuse to be parted from.
Individuality in handwriting seems largely to be dying out and there isn't the interest in it that there was, almost certainly because keypads are now more usual than the pen. With modern handwriting it can sometimes be difficult to tell who in a group has written what if it isn't signed.
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Komensky:
Here's an example to consider. When the Turks decides to ditch arabic script in favour of Roman for the Turkish language (and there were good reasons to do this) they hadn't anticipated the problems that emerged within a generation where children couldn't read the legal documents of their parents (deeds for houses, wills, etc.) with external help.
K.
Not really applicable here, surely since those documents would all at least be typewritten within the last 100 years. Assistance is needed in reading documents older than that, but that is often already the case.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Two of my grandsons attend a bilingual school--English and Mandarin. They are learning to write the Chinese ideographs; I don't know what kind of writing instruction they receive in English.
I suspect that practicing ideographs would make it easier for them to learn to write English clearly.
Moo
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
I'm probably one of the last people in the States to have learned cursive in (a public/state) school as a matter of course—and about the youngest by about ten years to still use it. Nobody I know can read it. Now, part of that is because it's liberal artist cursive—i.e., sends doctors running for cover—but also, I suspect, because most people I know see cursive about as often as they do Carolingian minuscule and fountain pens.
…should mention that I've been known to write letters and signs in Carolingian minuscule sometimes, so people I know do see it, along with whatever vintage Esterbrook I'm using that day. They're all memorable quirks of mine, however, harmless eccentricities that people associate specifically with me, rather than things that are used by normal people for normal purposes.
However, among my grad school colleagues who were almost universally homeschooled or went to Catholic schools, cursive was much more common. I suspect that the use of cursive will become another mark of class, conservatism, and social background more than a way of communication, if it hasn't already turned into such already.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Cliffdweller:
quote:
That strikes me as the epitome of a first-world problem.
In what way?
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
Nobody I know can read it. Now, part of that is because it's liberal artist cursive—i.e., sends doctors running for cover—but also, I suspect, because most people I know see cursive about as often as they do Carolingian minuscule and fountain pens.
I write cursive, and suspect I might give Ariston a run for his money in the illegibility stakes (mostly because I moved schools in the middle of learning cursive, and the two schools taught two different scripts. SO what I have is a hodge-podge.) But I am completely bemused at the idea that there are people who can't read cursive qua cursive, rather than just bad handwriting.
I find the typical American cursive hand to be rather more ornate than a typical British hand, but the only thing that actually looks odd is the weird square-cornered box that people insist is an uppercase G.
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Posted by Cliffdweller:
quote:
That strikes me as the epitome of a first-world problem.
In what way?
oh, I think I was just being needlessly prissy. Carry on.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
I write 'joined up' and am able to do so neatly and fluently. I can write very quickly when I want to and I think my year 5 teacher was quite touched when I came back some ten years later and informed him I still wrote the way he taught me.
I'm a nurse so writing legibly is still a daily and useful skill for me even though typing is making in-roads.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
As part of my job I have to write accurate and legible contemporaneous notes of interviews I carry out. That has been a big challenge to my handwriting. I don't know how people who can't do joined up writing can write quickly enough to do this.
It's probably why I much prefer interviewing with an interpreter as it allows me a bit of breathing space between question and answer to make sure I can get everything down.
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
When it comes to composition, I do think your thought processes change quite considerably depending on whether you're typing or writing longhand.
Typed text is much easier to amend, which means you don't have to thought out the whole text before you start composing it. You can work it out as you go along and go back and modify it afterwards. When writing longhand, you do need to have more or less worked out the whole text in your head before you start committing it to the paper.
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I am old enough to remember being taught to write with pen and a well of ink into which the pen was dipped. Fountain pens were banned until Senior School. We were taught cursive and I still write in what is basically a cursive hand, clear and neat. It is strange to note that women of my mother's generation, emerged from their schooling with a hand different to the men. Even now, if I see writing in that hand, I can say that it was done by a woman of a certain age, that now being in their mid-eighties on.
This is amazing/bizarre. I have just this week spent two days doing some research which involved reading the accounts ledgers of some NZ provincial heavyweight of, well, quite some time ago. The books covered from just before 1900 until about 1930, and were mostly filled with a beautiful, regular, and very narrow copperplate type script, but here and there a section was written, in a different pen (wider nib), and a different hand, (less sloping, and slightly more rounded), and my immediate reaction was 'this is his wife writing this bit'* - probably based on Christmas cards received from extremely elderly females relatives, I suspect.
*Well, duh, right? Who else? But he had many employees, some of whom would have been quite capable of taking care of the books. I don't know the answer, I'm relating my gut reaction.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
However, among my grad school colleagues who were almost universally homeschooled or went to Catholic schools, cursive was much more common. I suspect that the use of cursive will become another mark of class, conservatism, and social background more than a way of communication, if it hasn't already turned into such already.
Interesting. I was bewildered to see Cliffdweller, on the first page, effectively saying cursive is all done with in the US education system, when the only reason I can write cursive, as a New Zealander a shade under 40, is that I spent a couple of years being tortured by an American homeschooling curriculum. I had assumed that it was belaboured so much because it was considered to be a really important aspect of education 'over there'. It now appears not. I would have to say, despite the fact that it was bloody boring having to practice page after page of letter formation when I was ten, and already knew how to write, it's probably the one thing about that programme that I am actually thankful for. Although my natural writing style is not in the least joined up and slopes very slightly backward, I had to practice this stuff so fucking much that it is still in there, like the ability to ride a bike, and I can just pull it out at need. This was very handy indeed while I was doing an Arts/Humanities degree, the exams for which basically involved sitting down and spewing essays on to paper for three solid hours - often as not followed by a one hour break and another three hours of same. It is a really fast way of writing, I cannot deny. In all my life, I have only ever failed to finish one exam, and I think I owe as much, if not more, to the speed of my writing, than to the speed of my thinking!
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
Typed text is much easier to amend, which means you don't have to thought out the whole text before you start composing it. You can work it out as you go along and go back and modify it afterwards. When writing longhand, you do need to have more or less worked out the whole text in your head before you start committing it to the paper.
Depends on the text. I cannot write verse/poetry via typing. There you need to jot down words or phrases as they occur, park them for possible use, then transpose, cancel, insert, interpolate - the ms ends as a crash of scribbles, as much drawing as writing. For creative prose, it's either: speed of committal to keep pace with the storytelling in your head is the main thing, and I can type as fast as I can write.
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
I'm probably one of the last people in the States to have learned cursive in (a public/state) school as a matter of course—and about the youngest by about ten years to still use it. Nobody I know can read it. Now, part of that is because it's liberal artist cursive—i.e., sends doctors running for cover—but also, I suspect, because most people I know see cursive about as often as they do Carolingian minuscule and fountain pens.
<snip>
However, among my grad school colleagues who were almost universally homeschooled or went to Catholic schools, cursive was much more common. I suspect that the use of cursive will become another mark of class, conservatism, and social background more than a way of communication, if it hasn't already turned into such already.
Really? That's fascinating. I would have said the exact opposite. I remember a couple years ago when they took cursive out of the New Jersey curriculum and everyone in my family started worrying about how managers and workers in Wal-Mart were going to communicate because so many of the people I know forgot how to print after they learned cursive, so it's either type (which not everyone can afford something to type on and/or the printers with their extortionate ink costs)or cursive.
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I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
This is amazing/bizarre. I have just this week spent two days doing some research which involved reading the accounts ledgers of some NZ provincial heavyweight of, well, quite some time ago. The books covered from just before 1900 until about 1930, and were mostly filled with a beautiful, regular, and very narrow copperplate type script, but here and there a section was written, in a different pen (wider nib), and a different hand, (less sloping, and slightly more rounded), and my immediate reaction was 'this is his wife writing this bit'* - probably based on Christmas cards received from extremely elderly females relatives, I suspect.
*Well, duh, right? Who else? But he had many employees, some of whom would have been quite capable of taking care of the books. I don't know the answer, I'm relating my gut reaction.
The handwriting of that generation of women here (perhaps ending at WW II, perhaps a few years before) was much rounder than a man;s, particularly in a and o. Wider spacing between uprights in m and n. Not much, but enough to be a giveaway for me. You're probably describing the NZ equivalent. The difference does not seem dependent upon the education the woman had received: state/private; primary/mid high school/ full high school/university. Perhaps they were all taught by women and a tradition was passed on. Boys, even in their early years, may well have had only male teachers. I know that I did.
The cursive we were taught here in the 50s was a simplified copperplate, from which I developed my own style. My father had been taught a traditional copperplate, and his personal style is similar to mine. Yet we shared no teachers.
[ 12. October 2014, 10:34: Message edited by: Gee D ]
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
My son's writing is exactly like mine, yet I didn't teach him and we shared no teachers.
Our signatures are identical as both our names start with the same letter and we both sign initial/surname. I have signed many a letter 'for' him as he lives abroad and gets me to deal with stuff which comes here.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I was first taught to write joined up at 7ish, through Marion Richardson's system. (I can't find a correct image on line.) It was upright, with joins for all letters, and some unusual open forms of b and p which drew on Carolingian early mediaeval scripts (I think), though her p was that r. When I changed school at 14 I had a rapid correction session with the Head to change to a version called cursive which sloped and derived more from copperplate. At college, I spotted some other girls doing a version of italic and adopted that, along with some fancy e's and d's - now I use a mixture of shapes for these. Except when I was teaching , when I switched to Nelson and then Sassoon (or vice versa - they are very similar, anyway), according to school style decisions.
I find that the way I write - sentence structure and the way my ideas flow - is completely different when I write longhand with a proper fountain pen from the way I write when I type. I think I am probably accessing different parts of my brain, or through different parts of my brain.
[ 12. October 2014, 12:27: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
I've learned cursive in school, but many years of mostly writing physics / maths type things has seen me devolve to a kind of halfway house between cursive and print. Curiously, this seems to be where my son is going from the other side: starting from learning print at school (UK), he's moved on now to some kind of "joined up print".
I don't care too much about all that, to be honest. Whatever works. What does not work for me is however my sons "f", which to my eyes looks practically like a "g". That confuses the heck out of me, because "f" and "g" are not letters that I expect to be confusable (if that makes sense).
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
My nephews had different teaching, as the understanding of the relationship between writing and spelling changed the school policy between them. The first started with print and then converted to cursive, the second started joined up from the first. The second has much better writing and actually writes letters to his aunt on occasion.
The idea of starting with a joined up style (and I think the word cursive actually applies to a specific one) is that the child learns letters in groups, and so is less likely to write, for example, thier for their.
Also, by learning to join, the child is less likely to adopt weird letter formation movements that actually slow down writing. Such as starting a d at the top and going round the bottom clockwise. I had to do a lot of correcting by teaching them the movements for a as if it were a c and an i, and d as a c and an l, because our infant school did nothing to establish good habits, and the children thought that "I've always done it that way" was a reasonable position to take.
I don't think they have yet got to the stage where exams will be completed using machines, and three hours is a long time to write with a grip attacking the pen and stupid letter forms. Some of them used to hold their pencil as if they were lefthanded - you know that thing about humans having developed the precision grip between finger and opposable thumb? It's getting undeveloped.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
I had to write a note to one of my children's teachers the other day explaining why his not having his PE kit was his fault not mine.
According to him, the teacher couldn't read it. It was in my best cursive. I'll have to use calligraphy next time, which means I need a couple of hours to do it...
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Like all Ontario students I was taught the Zaner Bloser method and was bad at the handwriting.
Ah, there: I didn't know we had our own brand!
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
We don't have our own brand, it's a commercial school book pattern the Province uses in its curriculum. The company is based in Ohio.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
Right, but the province buys their stuff exclusively, I take it from your post?
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Not cursive writing, but not unrelated. I have just seen a woman demonstrating crochet on TV, and not using the usual precision related grip. She was holding the hook as if it were a hammer, only rotated to the left 90 degrees. Excusable if using a very thick difficult yarn (I think I did it while making a bath mat out of old dyed tights), but she was not. Not using precision grip for appropriate tasks I think may be related to not using joined handwriting. Mind you, I've not seen anyone using her grip for writing - not even on a board in a classroom.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
It may have been the tightness of the yarn or the thickness of the fabric she was making -- a bath mat needs to be good and thick. One would need to see her crocheting with ordinary wool and a regular hook to really judge.
In fibrist circles we say that anyway that gets you the good result is good. There are at least half a dozen highly efficient methods of knitting (the American throw, the British pick, the Greek around-the-neck), some of startling creativity. I have an acquaintance who is the only crotch knitter I have ever met.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Ahleal V
Shipmate
# 8404
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Posted
I am quietly amused that I so rarely ever have to fill out more than a form with a pen these days. (My school teachers in the 80s - probably now gone to their eternal punishment/reward - assured me that as my writing was illegible, I would never amount to very much.)
However, this thread has made me think. So on passing the local stationary shop, I picked up a cheap and cheerful fountain pen. And would you guess, that it's made my writing considerably better in the last week or so of using it? (Aside from the horrible flashbacks I get to exams whenever I pick it up.)
x
AV
Posts: 499 | From: English Spires | Registered: Aug 2004
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
It may have been the tightness of the yarn or the thickness of the fabric she was making -- a bath mat needs to be good and thick. One would need to see her crocheting with ordinary wool and a regular hook to really judge.
In fibrist circles we say that anyway that gets you the good result is good. There are at least half a dozen highly efficient methods of knitting (the American throw, the British pick, the Greek around-the-neck), some of startling creativity. I have an acquaintance who is the only crotch knitter I have ever met.
She wasn't making a bath mat - that was me, and the method was essential. She was using a fairly thick but loosely spun yarn, making a loose flower shape with multiple stitches into the centre. She then switched to a thinner yarn and hook, and did the same motif again, also quite loosely. It looked very awkward, which I don't see in the many methods of knitting (which completely throw me, I can only do the way I have been taught, despite people saying that the continental method is better - or the method with wires held in a special belt). Every knitter I have seen demonstrating has looked thoroughly dextrous in what they were doing.
She was doing an unusual twist method around the feeding finger on the left hand to get the multiples - I experimented before posting, and the palm grip wasn't necessary to work it.
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Ahleal V:
quote:
So on passing the local stationary shop, I picked up a cheap and cheerful fountain pen. And would you guess, that it's made my writing considerably better in the last week or so of using it?
I think it does. In school I had to write with a fountain pen, but I quite enjoyed fiddling with it and messing around with the inks etc. I still have an old Parker 51 that smells of the pencil shavings that I - for a reason only God knows - kept in my tin pencil case along with it. Every time I take it out to use I get a whiff of pencil shavings and takes me right back to writing curly capital E's.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ahleal V:
So on passing the local stationary shop, I picked up a cheap and cheerful fountain pen. And would you guess, that it's made my writing considerably better.
Thank goodness the shop was stationary. Had it been in motion, Miss Amanda shudders to think what the effect would have been on your penmanship.
If, on the other hand, you had gone to a stationery shop . . . .
(Miss Amanda will get her blotter.)
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
I fear that I do not mourn the loss of cursive. Like SPK, I went through the Ontario Public Schools' approach and, like most others in the province, developed an increasingly illegible rounded hand. However, in grade IX, my franco-ontarian English teacher (whose evident love of Shakespeare triumphed over his Saint-Isidore-de-Prescott accent) sat me down and told me that, while my essay was excellent, he was going blind in trying to read it. My handwriting was atrocious. I offered to type my essays in future, as I had by then hit 65wpm in typing class and that was the wave of the future. No, he replied, I needed to learn how to write.
I found a book on italic handwriting, and picked up pens and ink, and set about to relearn how to write. I got into calligraphy and would occasionally turn out a personal letter in uncial and can still produce good work when I want to. My italic survived for many decades, although it has now deteriorated a bit. It is still legible and gets compliments.
Italic is far more functional for the rapid writing and note-taking which is what most of us still need to do, and can handle formal writing for condolence and thank-you notes. It is used in many schools in England and, for a while, was the established form in parts of the NW US (Oregon or Washington, I forget which). I fear that I am one of those who cheer the end of cursive... may it die and become a curiosity, and be replaced by italic.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
There is something to the ritual of buying a new notebook and selecting the pen to use. It is one that I continue with the journals I keep when travelling or canoe tripping.
Me too. There is something very relaxing about the entire process. I've heard neurologists say that taking notes while listening to lectures makes for better focusing because the left brain is kept busy and is less likely to wander of like a bored toddler. I believe cursive works even better at this as it's smoother.
I'm not surprised that today's young people have trouble learning cursive, since from the first they are allowed to hold their pencils clutched in their tiny fists as though they plan to stab their playmates in the arm. The first few times I saw this in a sales clerk, I looked politely away, assuming there was some sort of learning disability going on.
Pens and pencils should be held like this. Anything else deserves a wrist rap with a ruler.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Pens and pencils should be held like this. Anything else deserves a wrist rap with a ruler.
I maintain a "writing lump" on the medial side of my right long finger's distal phalange from such correct use. Miss Taylor had a ruler which rapped the knuckles of those who did not hold the "writing utensil like a Christian".
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I maintain a "writing lump" on the medial side of my right long finger's distal phalange from such correct use.
Me, too, again. Extra credit if it's permanently ink stained.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
I fear that I do not mourn the loss of cursive. Like SPK, I went through the Ontario Public Schools' approach and, like most others in the province, developed an increasingly illegible rounded hand. However, in grade IX, my franco-ontarian English teacher (whose evident love of Shakespeare triumphed over his Saint-Isidore-de-Prescott accent) sat me down and told me that, while my essay was excellent, he was going blind in trying to read it. My handwriting was atrocious. I offered to type my essays in future, as I had by then hit 65wpm in typing class and that was the wave of the future. No, he replied, I needed to learn how to write.
I found a book on italic handwriting, and picked up pens and ink, and set about to relearn how to write. I got into calligraphy and would occasionally turn out a personal letter in uncial and can still produce good work when I want to. My italic survived for many decades, although it has now deteriorated a bit. It is still legible and gets compliments.
Italic is far more functional for the rapid writing and note-taking which is what most of us still need to do, and can handle formal writing for condolence and thank-you notes. It is used in many schools in England and, for a while, was the established form in parts of the NW US (Oregon or Washington, I forget which). I fear that I am one of those who cheer the end of cursive... may it die and become a curiosity, and be replaced by italic.
Both, I believe. Those states and a few others use Getty-Dubay, which is a cursive italic model. Combined with a black gel pen, it's the way I write now. I will never, every go back to Ontario's Zaner-Bloser torture with ballpoint pens.
There are three Elders at my church who have the authority of "Clerk of Session" for signing church documents, and I'm one of them. I use a Curisve Italic signature to sign baptismal certificates, including those of my nieces, and the minister and a few others thought I had a beautiful signature.
[ 18. October 2014, 15:31: Message edited by: Sober Preacher's Kid ]
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I maintain a "writing lump" on the medial side of my right long finger's distal phalange from such correct use.
Me, too, again. Extra credit if it's permanently ink stained.
I used to tell classes that the existence of that lump and the ink stains could have saved your life in the Middle Ages - along with the recitation of the Psalm verse that would prove you were a clerk, and thus subject to church courts...
It is surprisingly often that noticing staff using rubbish grips then reveals that they are lefthanded. One book on how to teach such children had the most appalling instructions which I, sort of ambidextrous*, could not manage, as it was devised to turn the pen to leaning to the right, so it dragged rather than pushed across the paper. Normal grip, mirrored, with pencil, plus lefthanded pen nib later should sort that out. But so many bank and other clerkly staff haven't been taught that properly.
*I could write just about well enough with my left hand to demonstrate to an eight year old how to do it!
[ 18. October 2014, 16:09: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
My writing is equally appalling regardless of the writing implement, be it finest fountain pen, cheap biro or charred stick. And yes, I do hold it right.
My inclination is to thank God that handwriting is no longer an essential and type whenever possible.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I maintain a "writing lump" on the medial side of my right long finger's distal phalange from such correct use.
Me, too, again. Extra credit if it's permanently ink stained.
I used to tell classes that the existence of that lump and the ink stains could have saved your life in the Middle Ages - along with the recitation of the Psalm verse that would prove you were a clerk, and thus subject to church courts...
How is your spoken / written (Church) Latin then? It won't help you much if you are talking / writing in modern English, whether reciting psalms or protesting your innocence. If you could speak and write (Church) Latin, you would have a fighting chance to survive until you learn the local vernacular. As a clerk, in particular you would have to know the many abbreviations used in writing the Latin to limit the use of "paper".
I also have the writer's lump, of course, but no ink stains. Even the cheapest pens do not leak much these days, and fountain pens are impractical and pretentious. And I do not write any text with a pen, other than making notes. It's all equations and drawings for me. I'm very much a "write, edit and re-edit until it is what you wanted to write" type of person. That style only really works with a computer and text on a screen.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Tukai
Shipmate
# 12960
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Posted by Cliffdweller:
quote:
That strikes me as the epitome of a first-world problem.
In what way?
It certainly strikes me that way, having spent years teaching at a university in a developing country. (I retired from that only a year or so ago.)
99% of the students would not have seen a computer, let alone used one, before coming to university. And all school and university examinations required a handwritten script, written against a tough deadline (2 or 3 hours depending on the level).
So there was a premium on fast and legible handwriting, as there was in my own school and university student days (admittedly a few decades ago, but in Australia and UK)
Handwriting is still my preferred mode for note taking as my typing is fast but inaccurate and it's much easier to carry a small writing pad (i.e a notebook) than a computer to places in the field.
In fact, I am astonished to learn from this thread that there are places where handwriting is not taught as a matter of course in primary school.
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A government that panders to the worst instincts of its people degrades the whole country for years to come.
Posts: 594 | From: Oz | Registered: Sep 2007
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
I challenge IngoB's assertion: quote:
Even the cheapest pens do not leak much these days, and fountain pens are impractical and pretentious.
Ballpoint pens do leak, and the price range seems to have no real impact, although the manufacturer will. Fountain pens are extraordinarily practical for fast legible writing, as they require little or no pressure on the paper to write. As for their pretentiousness, as an Anglican obviously I am unable to make any such judgement.
As a possible tangent, one of my acquaintances was given a fountain pen (medium-nib aurora, monogrammed GBM) by Bl. Paul VI which he tells me he will now keep handy as a possible secondary relic. While Montegrappa has turned out papal millennium and Our Lady of Guadelupe pens (at healthy prices, a portion of which goes to a papal charity dealing with Roman street children), Benedict XVI used middle-range Mont Blancs (apparently thriftily buying large bottles of ink and decanting them into small ones) and Meisterstucks. St J2P2 used the same fountain pen for most of his cardinalatial and papal life, and wrote his books in longhand with the pen, reportedly an Arthus Bakelite.
Perhaps one of our more up-to-date Tiber-connected shipmates might know what pen is used by the current pontiff?
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Ingo:
quote:
....fountain pens are impractical and pretentious.
Says he who doesn't use them nor one who cares to write. I guess it would depend on your view of pretention, but all those I know who use them do so because they value writing and like to use something that makes that activity pleasurable - it has nothing to do with being pretentious, although I'm sure you could argue the case for a diamond encrusted solid gold pen that's as heavy as a ship anchor - but funnily enough, I haven't seen too many of them.
As a society though we don't seem to value the written word very much at all and much of what we leave society will be on an old, outdated, corrupted and rusted hard drive somewhere that nobody can access anymore or writing with a biro that faded into an unreadable state a mere twenty-five years after the pen touched the paper.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
Ball-point pens are the writing instruments of the Devil Himself. The ink is a combination of alcohol and paste that (a) stinks and (b) requires enormous pressure to write. I ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif) it.
Gel pen ink, on the other hand, is a pigment suspended in a water-based gel. It is as smooth to write with as anything and makes a wonderful dark, thick line. It's not a fountain pen, but it's a good halfway house for everyday pens. I have met several people who say they use gel pens and will never go back to ballpoint.
I would like to purchase an italic-nib fountain pen in the near future once some job prospects work out.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I had a Parker fine italic which saw me from lower sixth through university and a couple of decades of personal writing thereafter. I also had a stable of calligraphy pens and nibs - those didn't last so well on account of the heavier ink. I'm afraid the only functional fountain pens I have currently are a couple of Mont Blanc rip-offs I bought in HK. But I can never pass a shop selling high end fountain pens without going up to the glass whimpering and scrabbling.
Writing with a good pen - a really good pen, the right shape and heft, with a smooth glow and a resilient nib - is a sensual pleasure.
[ 22. October 2014, 15:44: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Cathscats
Shipmate
# 17827
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Posted
Fountain pen is still the legal requirement for signing a marriage schedule, at least in this neck of the woods. I keep a very nice one just for that purpose and most of the couples and their witnesses have never used one before! My first question before I let anyone loose on the document is "Is anyone left handed?" ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
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"...damp hands and theological doubts - the two always seem to go together..." (O. Douglas, "The Setons")
Posts: 176 | From: Central Highlands | Registered: Sep 2013
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
I challenge IngoB's assertion: quote:
Even the cheapest pens do not leak much these days, and fountain pens are impractical and pretentious.
Ballpoint pens do leak, and the price range seems to have no real impact, although the manufacturer will. Fountain pens are extraordinarily practical for fast legible writing, as they require little or no pressure on the paper to write. As for their pretentiousness, as an Anglican obviously I am unable to make any such judgement.
I have used ballpoints about 100 times as much as fountain pens in my life, but the number of times I've had ink everywhere as a result of a fountain pen malfunction is many, many times more than I have with any ballpoint. As for "fast legible", as far as I'm concerned there is no such thing. Fast or legible. Choose one.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
When I was at school everyone had a fountain pen. Writing with one is a joy compared to a ballpoint. Plus it was always fun to flick ink on the shirt of the person sitting infront of me. ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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