Cursive...slip Slidin' Away

[UDog]

My grandson, a junior in high school, cannot read cursive.

[ac12]

That is sad.

What happens when you send him a birthday or Christmas card with written comments?

"mom can you read what grandpa sent me!"

Edited June 22, 2016 by ac12

[Jade108]

So many of our rights have been written cursive, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution. There's a cynical side of me that thinks there is a bigger picture here, that when the general public can no longer read cursive, certain inalienable rights will start disappearing from common knowledge.

[ISW_Kaputnik]

I know a bright young woman with a B.A. in English, straight A average in college, currently working on her Master's degree in education with a view to becoming a teacher. And she has never learned cursive.

[maus930]

More than sad-- tragic

I watch clerks write a bill and they hold the ballpoint like it was fork or spoon -- printing ,of course

[tinta]

I know a bright young woman with a B.A. in English, straight A average in college, currently working on her Master's degree in education with a view to becoming a teacher. And she has never learned cursive.

If it may be a fault, it's not her's entirely.

More than likely she went through primary & junior school when the emphasis on cursive writing was on the wane. Cursive writing was certainly not encouraged during the 70s to 90s when I taught junior grades here in Ontario.

I was one of the few dinosaurs who insisted on keeping cursive writing alive in my own classroom's curriculum.

Edited June 22, 2016 by tinta

[the_gasman]

Is this an American phenomenon? I was taught cursive at school. I have used it since, without thinking about it. My three children have been, and are still, taught to write cursively fro the age of about 8 (I may be wrong about the precise age, though it is certainly whilst they are at primary school -- up to age 11). At whatever age the transition occurs at, they are discouraged from writing "like a child" -- by both teachers and parents -- once cursive is taught.

 

Since reading threads such as this one, I have occasionally tried to print but I find it slow and awkward; there is none of the all-important rhythm to my writing.

 

So, back to my question. Is this a US feature? I don't have knowledge of teaching methods in different countries, though I have a notion that the French still write cursively. I may be wrong (I often am).

 

Cheers,

David.

Edited June 22, 2016 by the_gasman

[tinta]

Is this an American phenomenon?.............

 

I certainly had to learn cursive when I arrived in Canada in the 50s. Even before that, in Hungary I was taught printing & cursive writing simultaneously, from grade one on.

 

From what I've been reading on FPN during the last few years, sadly this may not only be an American but also a Canadian phenomenon.

I am more familiar with the English speaking schools in my immediate area. Perhaps someone in Quebec Province or in another French speaking region could chime in about the teaching of cursive writing in their school systems.

Edited June 22, 2016 by tinta

[cobalt]

More generally, language is taking a beating.

• People txt today, not even whole words: wi spel wen u cn txt :-0
• Emoticons replace genuine emotion: no more love letters
• You can like someone without actually knowing them: post-linguistic relationships
• 140 characters have replaced paragraphs

While analogue writing instruments have broadly been replaced by wordprocessors and other digital kit, pencils and pens persist. Writing is more physical. It is very hard to communicate emotion in pixels. Hammering away at the exclamation mark just doesn't cut it. Time will reinvent writing for the digital age. One may hope that young people will move beyond the transient slip of time that is social media into more integrated existence, to find new needs to communicate.

 

Perhaps the problem isn't writing as such, but having something to say.

[tinta]

More generally, language is taking a beating.

• People txt today, not even whole words: wi spel wen u cn txt :-0
• Emoticons replace genuine emotion: no more love letters
• You can like someone without actually knowing them: post-linguistic relationships
• 140 characters have replaced paragraphs

While analogue writing instruments have broadly been replaced by wordprocessors and other digital kit, pencils and pens persist. Writing is more physical. It is very hard to communicate emotion in pixels. Hammering away at the exclamation mark just doesn't cut it. Time will reinvent writing for the digital age. One may hope that young people will move beyond the transient slip of time that is social media into more integrated existence, to find new needs to communicate.

 

Perhaps the problem isn't writing as such, but having something to say.

Very well put.

[Baenlynn]

More generally, language is taking a beating.

• People txt today, not even whole words: wi spel wen u cn txt :-0
• Emoticons replace genuine emotion: no more love letters
• You can like someone without actually knowing them: post-linguistic relationships
• 140 characters have replaced paragraphs

While analogue writing instruments have broadly been replaced by wordprocessors and other digital kit, pencils and pens persist. Writing is more physical. It is very hard to communicate emotion in pixels. Hammering away at the exclamation mark just doesn't cut it. Time will reinvent writing for the digital age. One may hope that young people will move beyond the transient slip of time that is social media into more integrated existence, to find new needs to communicate.

 

Perhaps the problem isn't writing as such, but having something to say.

 

You are more right than perhaps you even know, Cobalt. Moveable type and plain text are both completely devoid of any emotional cues when compared to what we can discern from another's handwriting. In response to this lack of emotional subtext we often interpret the meaning and intent behind plain text communications according to our own present emotional state. Thus, communicating exclusively in plain text means that your bad days can become moreso, and if you're having a good day and the person at the other end of the screen isn't, you can miss their cues entirely. Maintaining a long-distance relationship of any kind in this post-script world (ahaha!) requires sometimes even more direct explanation of one's feelings than you would in any other medium. I have learned this lesson the hard way over the years.

 

The weird part for my Fiancée and I is that despite all our best efforts, we still get used to seeing a version of each other through plain text that is markedly different than the reality, and the first day or so of any visit usually involves a recalibration of our respective understandings of each other.

 

I don't lend all that much credence to the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, but there is something to be said for its basic premise in that the concepts present in our collective vocabulary affect how we see the world. Given how poorly an ever-growing number of people seem to communicate and comprehend even the spoken word, it seems that a large portion of what is decried as general laziness is stealing meaning from our collective mouths. Well over half my co-workers can't tell the difference between a plural 'S' and a possessive, or the contracted forms of 'it is' and 'it has'. Their spelling is of a similar standard, but at least their errors are consistent. I think I'd go crazy if I had to read 'nozzle' spelled five different ways every other day. Fair enough we're all production grunts, but there was a time when you would never have been allowed out of the fifth grade without knowing how to construct a complete sentence at the very least.

 

But I don't think so much the tools that we have developed are wholly to blame. I've expanded and perfected my personal vocabulary thanks to the use of a spell checker, but I don't rely on it to replace my brain when it comes to spelling correctly in the first place. Certainly, plain text has its deficits when it comes to activating the relevant areas of the brain, and that is something we are going to have to start taking seriously now that we have the computing and software power to accept, examine, and accurately interpret a person's handwriting. It gets back to that whole text speak argument. For a select few (and less than anyone would think), txt-spk probably is a means of increasing their communication efficiency, just like shorthand. But then it must be considered a separate linguistic entity. For a majority of people who use it 'bc I c u r/n' does not conjure up the text that these characters represent, but rather they are words in and of themselves. Which means, in your brain, you are in fact supplanting English with whatever this will be called when it's finally acknowledged as a separate form of communication. All well and good if you want to learn this nascent language, but you shouldn't delete the written form of your native tongue to make room for it.

[ac12]

Spell checkers and even worse the auto spelling correction tools have to be proofed by the human eye.

As in ...

 

Cent buy me two you.

Edited June 22, 2016 by ac12

[amberleadavis]

I am forcing my children to learn cursive this summer. If they don't write it, they won't be able to read it. They are improving.

[ISW_Kaputnik]

Is this an American phenomenon? I was taught cursive at school. I have used it since, without thinking about it. My three children have been, and are still, taught to write cursively fro the age of about 8 (I may be wrong about the precise age, though it is certainly whilst they are at primary school -- up to age 11). At whatever age the transition occurs at, they are discouraged from writing "like a child" -- by both teachers and parents -- once cursive is taught.

 

Since reading threads such as this one, I have occasionally tried to print but I find it slow and awkward; there is none of the all-important rhythm to my writing.

 

So, back to my question. Is this a US feature? I don't have knowledge of teaching methods in different countries, though I have a notion that the French still write cursively. I may be wrong (I often am).

 

Cheers,

David.

 

It's a modern American phenomenon, and not universal. For example, some friends' children go to Catholic schools and are taught cursive there. Public schools may or may not have it.

 

When I went to school in Illinois in the 1960s, it was common to be taught and graded on cursive writing. I studied it from third to sixth grade (ages 8 to 11). They actually started at age 7 in second grade, but I'd moved there from another state where they started in the third. I grew up having little trouble with the longhand writing of most adults, even though it no longer conformed to the model we were taught.

 

But things have changed, and even where it is taught, I'm not sure that they get the same drill that we did, or get graded on it.

 

And (an afterthought), many young people who do learn abandon it when it's no longer required for school, and forget it.

Edited June 22, 2016 by ISW_Kaputnik

[maus930]

As several have pointed out -- if it is a US phenomenon-you can blame it on electronics -- between laptops, I pads and Cell phones-- the keyboard is king -- teachers

think that why reach handwriting when no one uses it -- ridiculous of course but I hear that argument at school board meetings

[ac12]

Oh man, I don't think that I would like to be a college grader now. Some of the handwriting when I was a grader was BAD, it is probably REAL BAD now. If I could not read their answer to the quiz/test question, that question gets a 0.

 

Today, how would/do they answer quizzes and tests...by using only true/false and multiple guess questions?

Edited June 22, 2016 by ac12

[sail1942]

How long before the current generation won't even be able to print?

[flipper_gv]

I know a bright young woman with a B.A. in English, straight A average in college, currently working on her Master's degree in education with a view to becoming a teacher. And she has never learned cursive.

 

I can't believe for the life of me that it would take her more than a day to learn how to read cursive. Writing is a different story.

 

 

More generally, language is taking a beating.

• People txt today, not even whole words: wi spel wen u cn txt :-0
• Emoticons replace genuine emotion: no more love letters
• You can like someone without actually knowing them: post-linguistic relationships
• 140 characters have replaced paragraphs

While analogue writing instruments have broadly been replaced by wordprocessors and other digital kit, pencils and pens persist. Writing is more physical. It is very hard to communicate emotion in pixels. Hammering away at the exclamation mark just doesn't cut it. Time will reinvent writing for the digital age. One may hope that young people will move beyond the transient slip of time that is social media into more integrated existence, to find new needs to communicate.

 

Perhaps the problem isn't writing as such, but having something to say.

 

People don't text like this anymore. With most phones coming equipped by default with very intelligent auto correct keyboards, actual contractions like these are much rarer.

 

Also saying expressing emotions with a keyboard is hard is a bit of a stretch otherwise most authors would still use a pen, which isn't the case,

Edited June 22, 2016 by flipper_gv

[PS104]

I am a product of the NYC public school system ca 1950s. I'd like to thank all the teachers who taught and drilled us into leaning cursive. We spent hours learning how to write correctly. Just like those posters that were posted over the blackboard at the front of the room and showing us how to connect the different letters while writing. My daughter went to Catholic schools and thankfully she also can write cursive. When I was in college I received two As in summer school classes only because the teachers could read my midterm exams. Everyone else was on the hook for doing well on the final exams for their grade. I wonder if Udog's grandson's mother could even read Grandpa's note. Somehow I doubt it. After years of keyboarding at work I was horrified to discovered how my handwriting had deteriorated so much. After taking up fountain pens after a many years long hiatus my writing has shown signs of improvement. It's not just what you write but it should also be attractive enough that it says "read me". My 7th grade teacher from whom I receive (and keep) a Christmas card each year still has the most beautiful handwriting. And he uses a P51 with turquoise ink.

[UDog]

My grandson prints his name on his paychecks or uses direct deposit. Since 3200 BC man has recorded language in writing, but not too much longer, I'm afraid.