Do You Join Then Together?

[ndw76]

After many years of having illegible handwriting I have decided to learn to write cursive. So far it is coming along quite well, if I do say so myself. I can now read my own writing. It is legible, but not beautiful. I am still developing my own style.

 

During my search for my own style I have been thinking, do others, who have beautiful cursive writing, join their capital letters to lowercase letters?

Some capital letters lend thenselves to being joined. Such as A B D and E. But what about letters like W and V.

 

 

And one other thing I was wondering about, do people join letters together that are separated with an apostrophy?

 

Thank you for any help you can give me.

 

Cheers,

Nathan

[Michael A]

I join capital letters like P. T U, W and V. You then have to lift the pen to start a new line but it looks better if you join the letters. I do not join letters if there is an apostroph. Not a big problem to me, apostrophs are seldom used in the Swedish language.

[wyldphyre]

I can't hold myself up as a good example of nice writing, but I can at least tell you what I do.

 

I join some capitals to their following letters, typically where it is easy to do so. "F" I do, "T" I don't, for example. "J" is one that is real easy to join. I have vague recollections that when I learned cursive in primary school 25+ years back that is what we were taught, and to be honest I think joining all captials would just lead to a bit of a mess for those where it doesn't really make sense, but I'm hardly well educated in different scripts, so it's possible that there is a way to do it neatly. I'm guessing not though.

 

I always join lowercase letters, regardless of apostrophe. It sits above the join lines so doesn't get in the way and I don't see any reason to break the line. That would just look odd to me I think, though I only write in English so it's entirely possible that another language would have reason to do things differently.

Edited December 7, 2012 by wyldphyre

[dickydotcom]

Mostly no. But I do sometimes if the capital ends in such a way as to flow into the start of the lower case, but I don't have any hard and fast rule.

I definitely don't join anything with an apostrophy.

Dick D

[bizmiard]

I don't join capitals, mostly because I was taught lowercase letters but never uppercase. So I generally end up doing some fancy form of a "print" uppercase, then starting my other letters after that. It mostly works, I think.

 

As for apostrophes, I generally finish a word before adding embellishments- dotting i's crossing t's, and putting in apostrophes. So yes I do join them, but I tend to make the loop between the two letters slightly longer, to give space for the apostrophe to go in.

[Runnin_Ute]

My handwriting style is a bit of a hybrid of printing and cursive, so the answer is "it depends". When I sign my name, I do attach the capitals and lowercase. I may or may not do the same with those same letters when not signing my name. Earlier I wrote the word "Noodler's" and the N was printed as was the s- sometimes the s would be a regular cursive s and be attached. In this case it wasn't.

[zemof]

A friend insisted that cursive means having to join all the letters together but I disagree. Maybe that was the way it was taught (just a few weeks of worksheets) in elementary school but I believe that writing's cursive's nature is to allow one to write faster, and hence lifting the pen as little as possible. Different people tend to write some letters in different strokes and I think that one should lift and/or join as and when one feels comfortable and which does not hinders the flow of writing.

 

That said, I really hate my short ascenders and descenders hahaa..!

[bizmiard]

Hmm I think as long as it's consistent having a short ascender and descender isn't an issue. I have a stroke slightly smaller than the standard "college ruled" page which is 7 mm. I believe mine is closer to 5 mm. So my ascender is approximately 2.5 mm, and my descender slightly longer than that. It's just a habit. Size is relative, and you don't need to mold the handwriting to fit the page in my opinion

[pmhudepo]

Fairly often, particularly when taking notes and other faster writing. The word "All", for instance, easily becomes three loops of which the first is bigger and wider. I suppose the rule of thumb for me is that if a capital letter ends on base line and with a stroke in the left-to-right writing direction, I will join the capital with the next letter. "A" and "C" do, but "P" and "Q" do not.

 

If I write slower, my capitals tend to be fancier and I hardly ever join. For instance, the "R" may end well below the base line and may even run underneath several of the next letters.

 

Perhaps I should provide a writing sample. In this case, a picture will easily be worth a thousand words