The Lost Art Of Writing

[KateGladstone]

To Mickey -- I frequently read books on the subjects you mention (have done so throughout the decadesnof my interet in handwriting) and am always happy to add to my reading list in those subjects. Since my limitations do not affect reading, only motor planning of the type used in handwriting and some other skills, the fact that I read as anyone ele does isn't germane. (Analogy: a deaf man may have perfect vision — this does not disprove the fact that he is still deaf.)

[KateGladstone]

Re practice -- my experience is that practice improves some things, fails to improve others, and worsens still others. At school, I had to be removed from certain exercises and other activities in gym class because it became glaringly evident that my hard work and prolonged practice on certain of the " simple" tasks such as jumping rope or throwing/catching a ball had no result except to make my performance even less fluent over time. No MD (then or later) found anything to explain why, though they easily confirmed that this was and is the case ... Mickey, since you are expert on neurology, have you any idea what was going on and how it fits within your premises?

[KateGladstone]

Re reading cursive -- this remains vital, and fortunately can be taught (in an hour or, usually, less time) to anyone who can read (whether or not he can write at all: I have taught five-year-olds who could read ordinary type to read cursive as well).In my experience and observation, the quickest way to teach anyone to read cursive is to demonstrate for the student how each cursive letter-form originated from an earlier and simpler version that the student can already read: e.g., how the 2-shaped cursive capital Q originated from a one-stroke version of the Q that the student is already familiar with.

[Mickey]

Re practice -- my experience is that practice improves some things, fails to improve others, and worsens still others. At school, I had to be removed from certain exercises and other activities in gym class because it became glaringly evident that my hard work and prolonged practice on certain of the " simple" tasks such as jumping rope or throwing/catching a ball had no result except to make my performance even less fluent over time. No MD (then or later) found anything to explain why, though they easily confirmed that this was and is the case ... Mickey, since you are expert on neurology, have you any idea what was going on and how it fits within your premises?

 

Not an expert in neurology, generally, just well read in areas germane to my former profession. As luck would have it, the same issues apply to many other activities, such as writing. You might enjoy reading about Benjamin Libet's work. I've supplied a link to an overview article.

 

http://www.conscious...s.com/libet.htm

 

The article does go rather over board discussing possible implications, but the main thing I wanted to point out was the temporal overhead accrued by direct control of even fairly simple activities, the compensation for which had to be built into his experiments. Put simply, our conscious perception of activities or events, even those we initiate ourselves, occur a substantial interval after the events or activities themselves.

 

Added: the point of my thought experiment was to point out the overhead in dealing with complex objects, such as words, by their component parts rather than as gestalts.

Edited June 2, 2011 by Mickey

[Chevalier]

Copying instantly what we see is one of the natural human skills. Doing something, and watching somebody doing the same thing, activates the same areas in the brain. Everything beyond that point is practice, used to refine the skills we aquired. They should indeed become subconcious, granted enough time, to repeat it often enough, to internalize it completely. We aren't conciously aware of most skills we have.

 

I spupoes you aer albe to reda tihs. Tihs is a sbucnoicuos wrko of yuor brian arleayd. We think we are reading words on a concious level, but this isn't true. Our brain is "compressing" the data, just like it does when it comes to remembering faces. Most people slow themselves down when it comes to reading and writing, but this isn't necessary. We don't need to read every letter, not even a single word. The "speaking in mind" (subvocalization) is an acquired behaviour, that helps during the learning period. There are tons of material about "speed reading" (I hate this term), too much to mention here.

 

You see, we are constantly underestimating the abilities of our brain. The tricky part is ... there's only one way to bring out the true potential of our brain, we need to stimulate it constantly. Not learning something we could is a plain sin (and pretty much self-punishment).

[KateGladstone]

To Mickey — I promise to keep reading your letter and the article until I understand them and see what implications (if any) these have for handwriting.To Chevalier, re "I spupoes you aer ... " — you've left me confused. I wish you'd type more carefully, or use a spell-checker.

[The penner]

A month or so ago I was called to give a witness account of some violent occurences in my school. The big cheese said that I was 'one of the last people alive that knows how to write.' It really is one of the best compliments you can get

[ckpj99]

Neurological debates aside, I think this "dying art" thing is more symptomatic of generational changes in culture. (Some study neurology, some study anthropology, lol).

 

I consider myself a tweener at the current moment. I'm 27, so the beginning of my education was before computers, but I had the internet in my house by the time I was 15.

 

I was required to write in cursive until 6th grade, when after years of intense battling, my teacher just said "Listen, seriously, write in print. Your cursive is terrible. I can't read it." I just never got it, and I LOVED (and still love) to write... with pens... by hand.

 

Now on to main point, the trend in the current generation to not "waste time" with things that "they can google," and the like is on one hand completely ridiculous and on the other hand totally understandable.

 

The reason for this, I believe, is two-fold. 1) Everyone gets a trophy, 2) Nothing is guaranteed

 

1) The generation of kids coming up through school now (and even somewhat my generation) gets graded on effort and great lengths are taken not to hurt their self esteem. I hate to say, but if you're a crappy writer, your best efforts are still NOT GOOD. That's just how life works. You can work extra hard at things to make it passable, but that doesn't make you a good writer. When I was in 6th grade, the lowest grade you could possibly get was a 60%. It was an F, but if didn't turn something in, you only got a 60%. If you took a test and got every question wrong = 60%. This was done as a self-esteem building exercise, and too help lazy kids who just didn't do homework pass school. Kids are no longer trained told they aren't good at certain things. Therefore they're not taught to work extra hard at something just to get through it. That's the dying art, not handwriting, not holding the door for ladies, not handling a slide rule.

 

2) On the other hand, 30 years ago things were different. If you graduated high school and then went on to finish college, chances were EXTREMELY high that you would lead a relatively successful life. That is no longer the case. The first point is education expenses. Over the last 30 years, average incomes have increase 80%, but average cost of an average college education has increase 400%. (I forget the exact time period but it was close to 30 years). So you better be damn sure you can get a job once you're out of school. I think that this uncertainty is effecting how teenagers are looking at education. Why would they want to spend their time learning cursive when they know without ANY uncertainty that their cursive will not lead to a job. How many cursive teachers do you know? Of course, you can make arguments about cursive stimulating different parts of the brain and helping with fine motor skills, but those aren't arguments any teenager from any era would listen to.

 

Both of these elements converge to make for some troubling issues, but take solace in this: your grandparents thought your generation sucked, too.

 

On an unrelated note, I'm far more concerned about the quality of writing of high school students these days. I've edited papers for some students in ADVANCED writing classes, and they are horrible. I'm sure there are some standouts, but all the ones I've seen are supremely and unequivocally (bleep). I don't care if your handwriting is bad, but don't make read a paragraph with three sentences that all say the exact same thing three different ways.

 

And finally, for my last point, I'd like to say that mass media, popular culture and the dreaded television have exponentially less to do with how a child thinks and act than how their parents raise them. Parents are so afraid of their kid "not fitting in" or getting made fun of, that they LET them and ENCOURAGE them to consume all the same (bleep) media as the general populations. I've heard even parents say "I don't want my kid to be a nerd." And more importantly, let's not forget that KIDS DON'T SPEND MONEY, parents do. In the U.S., we live in capitalist society. Your dollars hold just as much as weight as your ballot.

 

So basically, if your a parent currently raising kids, it's your generation's fault. And if your of grandparenting age, you were probably too hard on your kids which made them be too soft of their kids. LOL

[KateGladstone]

<br />Poeple relaly shuold teka mroe crae, btoh with tyipng <i>and redaing</i>. <img src='https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/hmm1.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':hmm1:' /><br />

<br /><br /><br />

 

I don't understand, Beak. Seeing some of the messages here, I am seriously worried that I may have quietly suffered a left-hemisphere stroke interfering with my language ability ... Except that my own typing looks all right (unless maybe that's just some stroke-induced hallucination on my part? Should I be dialing the medics or 911?)

[KateGladstone]

For what it's worth, I similarly have been told I'm "probably the only person in the building who knows how to write." This was at the check-in deck of a Miami hotel shortly after Hurricane Katrina: they had re-opened for business, but their computer was still down, so they had resorted to doing check-ins the old-fashioned way with a great big ledger.

[KateGladstone]

Kids DO spend money -- lots of it, often given to them by their parents ...

[Nonsensical]

I don't understand, Beak. Seeing some of the messages here, I am seriously worried that I may have quietly suffered a left-hemisphere stroke interfering with my language ability ... Except that my own typing looks all right (unless maybe that's just some stroke-induced hallucination on my part? Should I be dialing the medics or 911?)

In response to your query...this follow paragraph has been floating around for some time...on the internet, ofc.

 

Take a look at this paragraph. Can you read what it says? All the letters have been jumbled (mixed). Only the first and last letter of ecah word is in the right place:

 

I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

 

What is being said is this: Our brain recognises the words as a whole. I am quite sure that you are perfectly able to understand the paragraph, with perhaps a little more effort than it would usually take, but not exactly strenuous brain activity.

 

The reason for this, I believe, is two-fold. 1) Everyone gets a trophy, 2) Nothing is guaranteed

 

1) The generation of kids coming up through school now (and even somewhat my generation) gets graded on effort and great lengths are taken not to hurt their self esteem. I hate to say, but if you're a crappy writer, your best efforts are still NOT GOOD. That's just how life works. You can work extra hard at things to make it passable, but that doesn't make you a good writer. When I was in 6th grade, the lowest grade you could possibly get was a 60%. It was an F, but if didn't turn something in, you only got a 60%. If you took a test and got every question wrong = 60%. This was done as a self-esteem building exercise, and too help lazy kids who just didn't do homework pass school. Kids are no longer trained told they aren't good at certain things. Therefore they're not taught to work extra hard at something just to get through it. That's the dying art, not handwriting, not holding the door for ladies, not handling a slide rule.

 

2) On the other hand, 30 years ago things were different. If you graduated high school and then went on to finish college, chances were EXTREMELY high that you would lead a relatively successful life. That is no longer the case. The first point is education expenses. Over the last 30 years, average incomes have increase 80%, but average cost of an average college education has increase 400%. (I forget the exact time period but it was close to 30 years). So you better be damn sure you can get a job once you're out of school. I think that this uncertainty is effecting how teenagers are looking at education. Why would they want to spend their time learning cursive when they know without ANY uncertainty that their cursive will not lead to a job. How many cursive teachers do you know? Of course, you can make arguments about cursive stimulating different parts of the brain and helping with fine motor skills, but those aren't arguments any teenager from any era would listen to.

 

Both of these elements converge to make for some troubling issues, but take solace in this: your grandparents thought your generation sucked, too.

 

On an unrelated note, I'm far more concerned about the quality of writing of high school students these days. I've edited papers for some students in ADVANCED writing classes, and they are horrible. I'm sure there are some standouts, but all the ones I've seen are supremely and unequivocally (bleep). I don't care if your handwriting is bad, but don't make read a paragraph with three sentences that all say the exact same thing three different ways.

 

And finally, for my last point, I'd like to say that mass media, popular culture and the dreaded television have exponentially less to do with how a child thinks and act than how their parents raise them. Parents are so afraid of their kid "not fitting in" or getting made fun of, that they LET them and ENCOURAGE them to consume all the same (bleep) media as the general populations. I've heard even parents say "I don't want my kid to be a nerd." And more importantly, let's not forget that KIDS DON'T SPEND MONEY, parents do. In the U.S., we live in capitalist society. Your dollars hold just as much as weight as your ballot.

 

So basically, if your a parent currently raising kids, it's your generation's fault. And if your of grandparenting age, you were probably too hard on your kids which made them be too soft of their kids. LOL

 

Gee...I'm starting to rethink my plan to study a postgraduate degree in America...Not that I'll have any money, with the $45k debt I'll have once I finally graduate from University.

 

Sadly, my parents are asian, so in their opinion, it is a given that I should be a nerd. If only I loved studying. :bonk:

Edited June 4, 2011 by Nonsensical

[KateGladstone]

I can solve anagrams, when I am informed that they are anagrams. Otherwise, I do my st to read what is written — and to identify the unreadable as exactly that. Do you find something wrong in this?You may feel "sure" that I can do easily (or at all) whatever you can easily do. Those feelings d not, however, confer upon me the ability to do it.

[Nonsensical]

I take the effort to fill in the blanks, where you may have missed a letter or two (st -> best, d -> do)...I may have assumed that you do the same. If not, I apologise for the assumption.

[KateGladstone]

I don't always notice my own typing errors (I am still learning to manage the iPad's occasionally unresponsive keyboard), but such lapses don't confer on me the ability to read others' intentionally scrambled text. (Oddly, though, I am very quick at cracking simple substitution ciphers.)

[KateGladstone]

I know at least three people who learned cursive properly as children — if winning a Palmer Method Medal indicated having learned it properly — and who then found that they could produce a semi-joined or even (in one case) an unjoined style with equal legibility at greater speed.On this network, I suspect that we have more than one person who has ably practiced and mastered more than one style (Caliken springs to mind, and likely there are others) — I hope that some of them are reading this and that they will feel moved to submit comparative samples (and times in legible letters per minute) for each of the styles that they write.

[Nonsensical]

Well, my cursive handwriting is terrible. This is my normal handwriting, and the speed is listed above.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/815/05192011080436pm.jpg/

[caliken]

......I can at least a hazard a guess at what has been written when I look at the original archive documents to do with my family's genealogy - census forms, birth, marriage and death certificates for instance.

I can't alway read it first time, but if I stare at the word long enough usually it comes to me what has been written.

 

Someone gave me a tip, a long time ago, which I've used from time to time, when attempting to decipher either old or badly- written, new handwriting.

 

If I trace a difficult word with a ball-point pen, at normal writing speed, I can often tell what the word is meant to be, just from the sensation of following the shape of the original writing.

 

Ken

Edited June 4, 2011 by caliken

[KateGladstone]

To Beak:

Here's how joining all letters can be slower than not doing so —

 

Many of the joins — but not all of them— are faster than pen-lifts: the rest are more complexly shaped (hence, slower to do legibly) than a pen-lift would be.

 

For example, the joins "pa" and "sc" and "qu" and "gh" each contain multiple curves, which inevitably take more time than straight or near-straight lines. So these joins take more time to form competently than do simpler joins like those seen in "an" or "on" — unlike those simple joins, they even take more time than pen-lifts in the corresponding locations would take instead. (The straight line permitted by, and formed during, a pen-lift is the shortest — hence the quickest — route between two points: so much so, that this more than compensate for the time used to move the pen momentarily off the paper in thus moving between the letters in "sc" or whatever other letter-combination would require compound curves if joined.)

[Mickey]

 

Someone gave me a tip, a long time ago, which I've used from time to time, when attempting to decipher either old or badly- written, new handwriting.

 

If I trace a difficult word with a ball-point pen, at normal writing speed, I can often tell what the word is meant to be, just from the sensation of following the shape of the original writing.

 

Ken

 

Absolutely brilliant, using one's own muscle memory to decode what the visual systems won't.