Speaking of Cursive and writing...

[ParramattaPaul]

It seems that the education community is beginning to realise that handwriting is a necessary skill.  LINK:  The 'essential' skill children should always be taught in schools - 'timeless' (msn.com)

[jburchett]

Handwriting should be a baseline skill, such as reading. Both are fundamental and necessary. 

 

Just my .02

[amberleadavis]

I think kids do need to learn reading and writing cursive.  You can see if someone is older or educated in a private school because they can read and write cursive.

[Tony1951]

[In the event of] the end of the technological world, we might deeply regret not teaching our children to write in the time honored way. How would we manage if all of the keyboard communications and record keeping were lost to us?

Edited September 24, 2022 by amberleadavis
Removed political comment.

[InesF]

On 9/16/2022 at 4:12 PM, Tony1951 said:

How would we manage if all of the keyboard communications and record keeping were lost to us?

You pull out the keys and glue them on a sheet of paper to send ....

😈

 

On 9/16/2022 at 5:29 PM, Karmachanic said:

You're treading on dangerous ground.

... especially when your message uses some of the letters more often than once!

😈

 

edit, extension: maybe no need to learn cursive handwriting, but a fluent handwriting in print will be sufficient.

[Tony1951]

6 hours ago, InesF said:

edit, extension: maybe no need to learn cursive handwriting, but a fluent handwriting in print will be sufficient.

 

I always thought that one of the big justifications of cursive handwriting was that it can be executed at speed, unlike print. I'd say I can probably write twice as fast by not lifting the pen except between words. Just a guess, but it is certainly much faster. 

 

I wonder if students not brought up as we older ones were, will perhaps lose the ability o even read cursive handwriting with any ease at all. It is VERY unlike printed material. 

[ParramattaPaul]

17 minutes ago, Tony1951 said:

 

I always thought that one of the big justifications of cursive handwriting was that it can be executed at speed, unlike print. I'd say I can probably write twice as fast by not lifting the pen except between words. Just a guess, but it is certainly much faster. 

 

I wonder if students not brought up as we older ones were, will perhaps lose the ability o even read cursive handwriting with any ease at all. It is VERY unlike printed material. 

Judging form the 'magic thumb' keyboarding I see everyone except the inept (like me) doing, I expect thtat will be used as a reason to not evern write in block letters.

[Darryl Foster]

I usually wtlrite in cursive but I'm aware of not confusing cursive with calligraphy: the former is practicle, while the latter is ornate. Perhaps those who dismiss cursive cannot see the difference. Thus they regard cursive as anachronistic and pointless. If those who promote cursive were to spread awareness of this fundametal difference it would become more popular.

Maybe the decline of cursive, then lies in the false perception some have of it: elitist - maybe, also, this is what turns some people off fountain pens.

 

[InesF]

On 9/21/2022 at 10:50 PM, Tony1951 said:

I always thought that one of the big justifications of cursive handwriting was that it can be executed at speed, unlike print. I'd say I can probably write twice as fast by not lifting the pen except between words. Just a guess, but it is certainly much faster. 

Late reply: during all the years of handwriting (with fountain pens) I changed the style several times. Indeed, a strict handwritten print is slower, but I can write faster and with significantly increased readability when lifting the pen multiple times per word. What I handwrite is a true mix between cursive and print and would not be able to define it in other words than "it is my subjective style".

 

What I meant with my original comment is the strong believe in the positive effect of bringing thoughts to paper by handwriting. Whatever style or variant you use, if it is readable (at least by you after some time) you have the full memorising effect. During my high school and during my university time I experienced a deep learning which was catalysed by writing the facts with a pen on paper. And this still works today.

[Tony1951]

I absolutely concur with your point about putting thoughts on paper. I am a strong believer when deciding on a course of action, in sitting down with a blank piece of paper and putting down pros on one side and cons on the other. Since all pros and cons are not equal, some being VERY much more important than others, I also score them, perhaps on a scale of 1 through to 5. Then I look at the sheet and try to make a rational decision. 

 

I spent a lot of time as a college student in writing extensive analyses of various issues. I was just running a Jinhao x450 through its paces to try to solve a periodic ink starvation / ink feed problem, and wondering why about every page, I had to twist the knob on the cartridge convertor to push more ink through thereby solving the thin ink flow that develops. I was remembering my final exams in 1974 in which twice a day, I would complete a 3 hour exam, writing about twelve pages of A4 script - fast and furious and often not very legible. However - those cartridge pens I used back then seemed to work fine however fast and however much I wrote, until they ran dry.

 

I solved my Jinhao problem, I think. I am using a home made iron gall ink and I think it is precipitating iron oxide particles in the feed over time when air gets at and oxidises iron2 solution into Iron3 particulate/pigments. My solution was to run a razor blade down the very very fine ink capillary channels at the tip of the feed unit forward of the breather hole in the nib, and slightly widening them. This has increased flow with my wierd ink and looks like a permanent fix.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Tony1951

[Bristol24]

On 9/24/2022 at 12:52 PM, Darryl Foster said:

Maybe the decline of cursive, then lies in the false perception some have of it: elitist - maybe, also, this is what turns some people off fountain pens.

Perhaps, but I believe the single most contributing factor is the ballpoint pen.  The pressure required to write with the ubiquitous cheap throw-away requires a more vertical grip and is not friendly to cursive.  Just watch how people even hold a pen or pencil today.

 

Cliff

[Darryl Foster]

Some cheap ballpoints do require a near perpenicular angle, together with pressure to write properly; but quality ballpoint refills don't require any pressure. Also, they can be used at the same angle as a fountain pen. The same goes for pencil - though, of course, a little pressure is required depending on the grade of lead.

I am, of course, speaking from personal experience.

I don't subscribe to the idea that an 'inferior' product can displace a 'superior' product: If a product is rubbish people won't buy it. The reason, as I see it, that ball pens (ballpoints, rollerballs, and gel pens) are so popular is because they are more convenient than fountain pens.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Darryl Foster

[mhwombat]

I remember being so excited about learning cursive. But after two years I decided I didn't like it, it wasn't any faster, and went back to printing. In my opinion (both then and now) the particular cursive style we learned was ugly, too "round". I like things to be logical, so I disliked the way there seemed to be no relationship between some of the uppercase letters and their lowercase counterparts, or even between some of the cursive letters and their print versions. For example, we were taught to write "e" as a vertical loop, like a half-height "l". An "n" was two bumps and an "m" was three. I have seen other styles that I like much better, where the letters look a bit more like the print versions, but connected.

[Andreas Weber]

On 12/30/2022 at 12:50 AM, mhwombat said:

I remember being so excited about learning cursive. But after two years I decided I didn't like it, it wasn't any faster, and went back to printing. In my opinion (both then and now) the particular cursive style we learned was ugly, too "round". I like things to be logical, so I disliked the way there seemed to be no relationship between some of the uppercase letters and their lowercase counterparts, or even between some of the cursive letters and their print versions. For example, we were taught to write "e" as a vertical loop, like a half-height "l". An "n" was two bumps and an "m" was three. I have seen other styles that I like much better, where the letters look a bit more like the print versions, but connected.

 

I can totally understand that; I've actually been arguing against the strictly connected cursives with looped ascenders ever since I taught myself italic script. They were developed much later for specific purposes, italic serves much better as a general purpose hand (you can't fill forms with looped cursives, nor write them all caps).

[XYZZY]

On 12/29/2022 at 3:50 PM, mhwombat said:

I remember being so excited about learning cursive. But after two years I decided I didn't like it, it wasn't any faster, and went back to printing. In my opinion (both then and now) the particular cursive style we learned was ugly, too "round". I like things to be logical, so I disliked the way there seemed to be no relationship between some of the uppercase letters and their lowercase counterparts, or even between some of the cursive letters and their print versions. For example, we were taught to write "e" as a vertical loop, like a half-height "l". An "n" was two bumps and an "m" was three. I have seen other styles that I like much better, where the letters look a bit more like the print versions, but connected.

 

Growing up I had little desire to make my cursive follow the rules.  I've always marched to my own drummer, and this was an area which I probably suffered because of it.

 

I definitely understand the point about capitals not matching the lower case.  I distinctly remember thinking in grade school that many of the capitals were inconsistent that it was downright disconcerting.  Q in particular.  For a few decades I was print only, and on taking up cursive again I have found that I use printed letters for all of the capitals.  With the notable exception of "J", where, I assume, practice from my signature makes cursive intuitive.  

 

For a lot of the lower case cursive not looking like their printed counterpart I would experiment and often come back to the standard forms because I realized I wasn't going to come up with anything significantly better (this was back in grade school, again).  The "n" and "m" having extra humps, as you pointed out, also bothered me, but I eventually noticed that when the preceding letter ends above the baseline, for example an "o", that the first hump of the n or m turns into a pointy bit, at which point I realized that the first hump in the n/m was actually analogous to the "pointy bit" that precedes the first hump in the printed version.  At least that's how I rationalized it to myself, and continue to do so today.

 

There were other things I experimented with to make writing "more efficient", which certainly couldn't have helped other people read my writing.

 

My cursive to this day is very NON loopy.  That's was never a goal, just how things evolved over time.  It's to the point that if I "succeed" in putting a loop in a little "L" that it looks inconsistent...it's a bug, not a feature.  A different example is my "e": those frequently have no loop (or a bulge, where the loop never quite formed), and my "e" frequently looks like an undotted "i".  That's a bug, and I work at it.

 

I have found that trying to hand-copy the Bible has given me a lot of  practice and things are definitely getting better.  And in that process things really didn't get going until I modified my guidesheet to have another line for the x-height, and then later yet another line for the cap-height.

[ParramattaPaul]

4 hours ago, XYZZY said:

Growing up I had little desire to make my cursive follow the rules.  I've always marched to my own drummer, and this was an area which I probably suffered because of it.

 

That was me as well.  It still is.

 

Like mhwombat, I didn't like the form of uppercase cursive letters and promptly formulated ones to my liking that I still use all these decades later.  Most of what I write is in cursive form.  That said, some notes are written in uppercase block letters and rarely, very rarely, in both case block letters.  More recently, I've adopted some letter forms of alternative cursives taught during middlle three decades of the 20th century.

 

Only after reading Rosemary Sassoon's book, Handwriting of the Twentieth Century, did I discover that there were many different versions of cursive taught over the decades of that century.  mhwombat would be interested to know that many of the versions as early as circa 1920 used single loop 'n' and double loop 'm' letter forms as well as simplified, more print-like upper case letters.  Additionally, many versions used a no slant which one might suggest offered better legibility and easier reading.

 

The Sassoon book is arguably the best guidebook to how handwriting has changed or evolved since the middle to late 19th century.

Link: Amazon.com: Handwriting of the Twentieth Century eBook : Sassoon, Rosemary: Kindle Store

[amberleadavis]

Thank you for sharing the link.

 

My handwriting has changed since writing for an audience.  I now write with more print like letters and with less of a slant.

[ParramattaPaul]

34 minutes ago, amberleadavis said:

Thank you for sharing the link.

 

My handwriting has changed since writing for an audience.  I now write with more print like letters and with less of a slant.

Sassoon included illustrations of many of the variations.  The one of a page (?) From Nelson's  "The Teaching of Handwriting" will likely be of interest since the connected cursive letters are very similar to unconnected block letters.

[Anne-Sophie]

When I didn't like the forms of the upper case cursive letters, I changed them.

 

There are already many variants, as I have seen in 3 books on Copperplate, the Spencer family manuals for Spencerian and the many, many cursive forms, one can see on Michael Sull calligraphy website.

 

So I made up my own alphabet of upper case cursive letters which are twins of their lower cases forms or intuitive enough to show what they are.

 

Eleanor Winters's Copperplate book has exemplar of those alternate forms, which were invented by master calligraphers, so I can practice them with the proper alignment, others I keep as my own.

 

Handwriting is also very personal, and, it changes, everyday, depending on my mood, what I am writing and many other factors, it is very emotional.

 

 

When I want to share a piece of my logic mind with a firm, an organization or a politician, especially the later, I use my handy-dandy keyboard and run of the mill, fonts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ParramattaPaul]

9 hours ago, Anne-Sophie said:

When I didn't like the forms of the upper case cursive letters, I changed them.

 

There are already many variants, as I have seen in 3 books on Copperplate, the Spencer family manuals for Spencerian and the many, many cursive forms, one can see on Michael Sull calligraphy website.

 

So I made up my own alphabet of upper case cursive letters which are twins of their lower cases forms or intuitive enough to show what they are.

 

Eleanor Winters's Copperplate book has exemplar of those alternate forms, which were invented by master calligraphers, so I can practice them with the proper alignment, others I keep as my own.

 

Handwriting is also very personal, and, it changes, everyday, depending on my mood, what I am writing and many other factors, it is very emotional.

 

 

When I want to share a piece of my logic mind with a firm, an organization or a politician, especially the later, I use my handy-dandy keyboard and run of the mill, fonts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upper case cursive letters were the first thing I changed was I went through school for two reasons.  The first was (is) that I'm very independent-minded and it was an expression of that independence.  The second was I didn't like the form of various letters, F, G, T, J and Z  come to mind, and changed them to a more block-like form at age 9. 

 

Looking back, it's surprising that my teacher didn't object at a time, the 1950s, when children were expected to "hear and obey" or suffer (often corporal) punishment if they didn't.