I was reading, from a link here I suppose, about the decline of handwriting, and how of the essay questions on the SAT exams only a few percent used cursive handwriting, the rest used block printing.

But the guides I've read here say that cursive writing is easier, which is why we went from Roman capitals to lower case to cursive anyway. So why do people go back to printing when writing is unskilled?

I do the same. My handwriting is not cursive, but a draftsman-style lettering. A couple weeks ago I found I could hardly write a check by hand, so disused is my "hand", especially the last few months of no "meetings" and doing everything on computer.

So, starting to drill with a nice FP to play with, and I find out that the sinwaves are hard for me. I can't move in a smooth curve while moving along the page. With printed letters I do much better. Now the first thing I read was "don't write with your fingers" and I'm certain my motor technique is in the right ballpark, using the shoulder and arm muscles. But again, this contradicts "cursive is easier" and if common place would explain the trend to manuscript letters.

Any ideas?

--John

I enjoy calligraphy but I feel very strongly against this notion that block printing is inferior to cursive.
Of course cursive or any other calligraphic hand is more enjoyable.
But anything readable is acceptable in practice. If anything the fastest hand is a simplified italic.

Hello John.

Note: The below is written by somebody with more opinion than information - take it all with a grain of salt. I'm happy to be corrected by more knowledgeable forum members.

Hmm, I never got the impression that cursive was supposed to be easier.

However, I did get the impression that cursive was supposed to be generally faster, as there are less pen lifts and many connections form naturally with speed (when a lower-case printing style is written at speed you can sometimes see these connections starting to form, as well as more cursive letter forms), although attempts to make cursive styles more attractive often seem to negate the speed advantage.

However, when written at too much speed some looped continuous cursive styles (running hand styles) show greater deterioration in legibility, and this can also occur when written slowly with an unpractised hand as you yourself mentioned in the context of writing a check.

I think this legibility is why many people return to a possibly slower but at least legible print style when writing infrequently, and why print is requested on many forms.

Note that there are many styles of cursive, including non-joined styles of old Roman cursive which were used historically as a faster and less formal alternative to Roman square capitals (the source, admittedly, is Wikipedia for this).

There is a semi-joined italic cursive which is somewhat faster than normal italic with practice, and often remains more legible when written at speed than a running hand cursive style, at least in my personal experience.

I'd also like to note that in my occasional attempts at writing with an edged pen (mostly italic FP nibs, once or twice with calligraphy nibs, and I'm guessing quills would be the same) that some cursive styles do seem "easier" than some non-cursive styles where it may take several strokes and pen lifts to properly form a letter. This is less noticeable with modern printing styles.

Regards, Myles.

Printing involves a lot more picking up and putting down of the pen, for one.
Also, printing usually uses the fingers rather than the arm, so you are more likely to get writer's cramp. That makes cursive easier to write at length.

I think people go back to printing just because it's what we learned first.

Agreed. I never was a 'printer' but as I recall when I once did draughtsmanship classes at school doing a lot of block printing. And it certainly involves more effort than a nice running hand. These days I have little occasion to do block capitals so that when I do write them a weird sort of semi-joined printing comes out. It looks so bad that there is little point in doing it in the first place! Some things start to look like mini pentagrams and cuneiform...

Patrick

I agree with you on the first and third sentences, but not the second, at least for me. I suppose I spent too long in Architecture school, but I cannot make myself use anything other than block printing. If I try to write in any other style not only do I no longer enjoy writing, I also get the worst hand cramps from forcing my hand to do something that it is not conditioned to do. I think that whatever style you are most comfortable with is the most enjoyable regardless of the amount of work involved.

- R

Cursive and other flowing forms have a certain aesthetic appeal if done well and can be harder to read if done poorly.

I reverted to printing in block letters because it was more legible than the alternatives. However, I'm working on changing that, and I enjoy a certain pleasure from the flow of writing cursive style.

Yes its uncomfortable and tiring at first, but if equally practiced at both the cursive is less work.

I was taught cursive in school and I could not do block letters until I took a drafting class. In general, as you speed up, the letters deform, with the last stroke on each letter melding toward the first stroke of the next letter. For block letters, this results in weird shapes people aren't used to. For cursive it just results in more cursive. For me, cursive is faster and more legible. Block letters (when I actually write them, not when I "draw" them like we were taught in drafting class) are useful when writing to people of my age or younger (early twenties). I am not kidding when I say this, but many people in school had less trouble with malformed block letters than with almost perfectly formed cursive.

Having newly gotten back into cursive myself, I am still having a lot of trouble with incorporating the arm and shoulder into the mix. When I do I get messy malformed writing and a sore arm. I am used to writing by leaning over the paper and supporting myself with my elbows and arms. This obviously does not lend itself to using the arm to write with. When focusing on it I can make good looking letters without the use of my arm, but then my hand is sore.

I'm not sure where I was going with that other than to say I understand the trails of shifting back to cursive and I feel your pain

The funny thing is that I have quit writing cursive when I was about 11 years old and started to write in block print, but during several years I have come closer and closer to the cursive again. Maybe the fact that I started using FP again had something to do with it.

I generally find cursive more personalised and in most cases nicer to look at. The truth is that legibility is something completely different.

I love my cursive. I've been taught using cursive ever since i was 10....and loved it, esp the fluidity of the connections. I used printing in science classes (diagrams and all, we were REQUIRED to print, for clarity's sake), but that's all.

I've seen people printing as quickly as I write my cursives. So in terms of speed, it's personal preference and practice. Nothing to do with being inferior/superior.

btw, the sine curve does require practice (as it is with ALL styles of writing, cursive or print). My sine-curves are slanted almost to a degree of mathematical impossibility. haha~

I was taught to write in cursive from the very beginning and I never really learned how to do it otherwise. I mean, I guess I can imitate the simple sans-serif fonts I see in print, but it is terribly tedious and does not look good. So filling out forms that say "please print" is torture for me!

QM2

Exactly! Cursive is beautiful but when out of practice it is illegible. Cursive seems, to me, to require you to go decently fast to look good and with a good amount of practice to be legible. Print takes a bit more time and focus when your starting out, but that makes it look better, so a lot of people don't see a reason to try cursive (and sometimes there isn't). On the other hand, print done quickly tends to mesh into either cursive or something malformed.

So what's ideal for a person to write in depends on the person and the situation. Like AP tests and all that, it HAS to be legible, and so if you have illegible cursive most kids are told to write in print. You have a decent amount of time to do so in an AP test. When you have the time, print is rather easy to revert back to, especially if it's the first thing you learned.

Cursive, on the other hand, is more helpful when you want to write fast and legible or beautiful. This takes more practice, but in note taking situations and artistic situations, I find it helpful.

My handwriting has always been cursive. It was what I was taught in school. I personally think it looks neater, classier and it's easier to write. It's not amazingly hard to read. At least, I don't think so.