"oh god. What the hell is that monstrosity? a 'Z'? an 'x' ? crap. wait... *stares at context* You call that a 'J', you pig fucker?"
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SmasherStarting to get dizzyRegistered Userregular
edited September 2007
I think Thanatos's point is a good one that hasn't really been focused on much so far in the thread.
For example, even though Kate's writing is pretty well formed, it still took me a couple seconds to decipher "mercy". At first glance I read it as "merry", but if her writing were just a little less neat the fourth letter could easily seem to be an i or e as well as an r or c. I'm sure when one takes particular care to write clearly cursive is easy to read, but the same is true of print, and by doing so cursive loses the speed advantage that makes it useful in the first place.
I think the inherent problem is that the same connected letters that make cursive quick to write also remove vital clues (in the form of spaces) our brains use while reading to decipher what are fundamentally arbitrary marks into letters and words. If people wrote very consistently and/or in the same style as everyone else it probably wouldn't be much of a problem, but that's not the case.
Now that I think about it I think cursive has a trade-off similar to internet/phone abbreviations such as rly, ltr, etc. in that it takes less time to write but more to read.
Now that I think about it I think cursive has a trade-off similar to internet/phone abbreviations such as rly, ltr, etc. in that it takes less time to write but more to read.
Indeed. Cursive is the real-life equivalent of txt-spk.
It takes me about ten times as long to read cursive as it does to read print, too. And yeah, if you're just writing notes to yourself, whatever, but really, there's no way anyone can be fast at reading it, because everyone's is so different. So, printing is better for the reader, as well.
That's patently untrue. Plenty of us are fast at reading different people's cursive. It's only when the writer has a crappy hand that it's hard to read.
Edit: I don't know if this is just me, but I actually like reading cursive. Even if it's messy and it takes me slightly longer to read, I prefer looking at the writing than at block letters.
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SmasherStarting to get dizzyRegistered Userregular
Edit: I don't know if this is just me, but I actually like reading cursive. Even if it's messy and it takes me slightly longer to read, I prefer looking at the writing than at block letters.
For me it depends what I'm reading and why. Most of the time I'm just reading to get information of some sort into my head, and I don't care about the presentation. As long as it doesn't hurt my eyes, aesthetics are entirely secondary to reading efficiency, and print wins there.
Sometimes though presentation does make a difference. Pretty much the only time I write in cursive aside from my signature is writing blurbs on greeting cards, simply because writing in cursive implies a little extra effort and care (at least to me) and that seems appropriate for something like that. Also, I think at least one person in here mentioned writing love letters in cursive, and I can get behind that too for similar reasons.
Other than occasions like those, though, I think cursive is counterproductive.
Personally, I write in a sort of print-cursive hybrid style. It's basically print at heart, but I find that connecting certain letters enables me to write a lot faster (and therefore take notes a lot faster) than writing straight print.
That's what I've been doing since before I'd ever heard of "running writing". Once you write fast, you find certain letters just join together naturally, without any decrease in legibility.
Not only did teachers fail you on an assignment if you tried to write it in cursive after elementary school, some would flat out refuse to read it and just hand it back.
Printing is more legible, and doesn't make my hands hurt. the only use of it to kids these days is being able to read it, but they shouldn't be forced to learn it anymore.
Also, it's annoying to read, especially when women/girls like to write it in smallest text possible leaving 3/4ths of their lines empty on papers
Now that I think about it I think cursive has a trade-off similar to internet/phone abbreviations such as rly, ltr, etc. in that it takes less time to write but more to read.
Indeed. Cursive is the real-life equivalent of txt-spk.
Now that I think about it I think cursive has a trade-off similar to internet/phone abbreviations such as rly, ltr, etc. in that it takes less time to write but more to read.
Indeed. Cursive is the real-life equivalent of txt-spk.
That's completely ridiculous.
A shortcut for the writer that makes reading more difficult; how is it not similar?
Well, here's an example of mine. This was written on a tiny little surface while standing, so it's messier than usual, which I guess makes it a fairly good representative sample. (My actual letters are cleaner, but I spend a lot more time on them).
Legible?
I would agree that this is an example of good cursive. I can read that easily and it reminds me of the cursive that I learned. I wish I had an example to show you, but your cursive seems to be, at least to me, the exception and not the rule.
Typically the cursive I see is just one step above a bunch of scribbles and it just hurts my eyes. On top of that, when I do manage to decipher it, the cursive seems to be of a different style than the above. But that's typically from older people in their 50s or older, so it makes me wonder if older people were taught a different kind of script or something or if it's just an example of how some of us just get more sloppy over time.
I can't really say too much, though I know my printed handwriting isn't exactly great
Now that I think about it I think cursive has a trade-off similar to internet/phone abbreviations such as rly, ltr, etc. in that it takes less time to write but more to read.
Indeed. Cursive is the real-life equivalent of txt-spk.
That's completely ridiculous.
A shortcut for the writer that makes reading more difficult; how is it not similar?
There seems to be a sense amongst the people in this thread who have trouble with cursive that, because they have difficulty with it, everybody else must too, and that therefore it's a failing of the script. Banish the thought from your head. If you can't read something written in cursive, it's a problem with either you or the person who wrote it. Clearly written cursive is very simple to read.
Up until I read this thread, I don't think it's ever come up that anyone I met couldn't read cursive. Sure, prescriptions are illegible to everyone, but I met anyone unable to read letters just because they're joined together. Now I find there are fair numbers of you people, I'm guessing mostly in the States, and that's fine - if you don't like cursive, you don't have to use it, and if you're in an environment where it isn't used I guess you don't have to be able to read it. But blaming all that on the script and calling for it to be done away with is just silly. It's exactly like discovering that a significant segment of the population can't read lower case letters and want us to write everything in capitals.
I don't have difficulty reading cursive. I can read it just fine. But when you're making scribbles instead of words I'm at a loss and it pisses me off. If you had printed sloppily I'd at least have something to work with. You hateful bastards.
If you can't read something written in cursive, it's a problem with either you or the person who wrote it.
If most people's cursive is illegible then it's a problem with cursive. Not, as you seem to believe people are claiming, because neat cursive is hard to read, but rather because it implies cursive is inherently impractical.
Now that I think about it I think cursive has a trade-off similar to internet/phone abbreviations such as rly, ltr, etc. in that it takes less time to write but more to read.
Indeed. Cursive is the real-life equivalent of txt-spk.
That's completely ridiculous.
A shortcut for the writer that makes reading more difficult; how is it not similar?
There seems to be a sense amongst the people in this thread who have trouble with cursive that, because they have difficulty with it, everybody else must too, and that therefore it's a failing of the script. Banish the thought from your head. If you can't read something written in cursive, it's a problem with either you or the person who wrote it. Clearly written cursive is very simple to read.
Up until I read this thread, I don't think it's ever come up that anyone I met couldn't read cursive. Sure, prescriptions are illegible to everyone, but I met anyone unable to read letters just because they're joined together. Now I find there are fair numbers of you people, I'm guessing mostly in the States, and that's fine - if you don't like cursive, you don't have to use it, and if you're in an environment where it isn't used I guess you don't have to be able to read it. But blaming all that on the script and calling for it to be done away with is just silly. It's exactly like discovering that a significant segment of the population can't read lower case letters and want us to write everything in capitals.
Alternatively, those people in this thread who do use cursive seem to have problems imagining that others might not have the same advantages from it that they do. They also have problems beliving that others would have problems reading cursive outside of "individuals with bad writing in the first place".
If you can't read something written in cursive, it's a problem with either you or the person who wrote it.
If most people's cursive is illegible then it's a problem with cursive. Not, as you seem to believe people are claiming, because neat cursive is hard to read, but rather because it implies cursive is inherently impractical.
Now that I think about it I think cursive has a trade-off similar to internet/phone abbreviations such as rly, ltr, etc. in that it takes less time to write but more to read.
Indeed. Cursive is the real-life equivalent of txt-spk.
That's completely ridiculous.
A shortcut for the writer that makes reading more difficult; how is it not similar?
There seems to be a sense amongst the people in this thread who have trouble with cursive that, because they have difficulty with it, everybody else must too, and that therefore it's a failing of the script. Banish the thought from your head. If you can't read something written in cursive, it's a problem with either you or the person who wrote it. Clearly written cursive is very simple to read.
Up until I read this thread, I don't think it's ever come up that anyone I met couldn't read cursive. Sure, prescriptions are illegible to everyone, but I met anyone unable to read letters just because they're joined together. Now I find there are fair numbers of you people, I'm guessing mostly in the States, and that's fine - if you don't like cursive, you don't have to use it, and if you're in an environment where it isn't used I guess you don't have to be able to read it. But blaming all that on the script and calling for it to be done away with is just silly. It's exactly like discovering that a significant segment of the population can't read lower case letters and want us to write everything in capitals.
Alternatively, those people in this thread who do use cursive seem to have problems imagining that others might not have the same advantages from it that they do. They also have problems beliving that others would have problems reading cursive outside of "individuals with bad writing in the first place".
That may be so, but I haven't made either claim I don't see why you're telling me.
If you can't read something written in cursive, it's a problem with either you or the person who wrote it.
If most people's cursive is illegible then it's a problem with cursive. Not, as you seem to believe people are claiming, because neat cursive is hard to read, but rather because it implies cursive is inherently impractical.
In my experience, most people's cursive is perfectly legible - see the two examples in this thread. The majority of people here who claim that most people's cursive is illegible also admit to being unable to read cursive fluently, so it's rather to be expected. I may've gotten the wrong impression here; the people saying they can't read cursive and the people who are against cursive might not be one and the same. In that case I suppose they just meet people with worse handwriting than the people I meet, for some reason.
The two latter examples in this thread were perfectly legible. Unfortunately, most cursuive I see is closer to the tablet example that preceded them; not the first two lines, either. The "is this a signature?" bits below.
I write 's' and 'of' in cursive. 'Of' has to be the most satisfying word I've ever written - I actually derive pleasure from writing it in cursive. And 's' just looks nice. But everything else is in print, sometimes joined-up but always blocked and clear because it is simply neater. I don't understand the need to write everything in cursive because too much looks messy, and these days, who hand-writes anything? Why sacrifice neatness and clarity for a small amount of speed?
Yeah my cursive is just too hard to read, even though it flows nicely its harder to just glance at it and see what it means. I find this to be true with any cursive, even the very neat stuff.
Plus, lowercase L followed by an r seems indistinguishable from a b. I always found that irritating.
I dropped out of cursive pretty shorly after I learned it, I'm not sure if I was using it at all in middle school. I certainly dont use it now, although my printing leaves something to be desired (my u's look like v's, my a's look like u's, my o's look like my v's and my u's, and so on).
I write 's' and 'of' in cursive. 'Of' has to be the most satisfying word I've ever written - I actually derive pleasure from writing it in cursive. And 's' just looks nice. But everything else is in print, sometimes joined-up but always blocked and clear because it is simply neater. I don't understand the need to write everything in cursive because too much looks messy, and these days, who hand-writes anything? Why sacrifice neatness and clarity for a small amount of speed?
I like writing a big G in cursive. It's the only letter that comes perfectly from my hands.
While, yes, some people's cursive is difficult to read, you shouldn't assume that everyone's print is therefore easy to read.
I type up 6-7 people's writings daily. They all write in print or a mixture of print and cursive. While two people's print is perfectly legible, it's taken me a while to learn how to decipher the others'. One guy in particular forms a few of his letters in ways that I'm often mistaking for other letters, and I have to pause and try and work out from the context of the sentence what word he is referring to.
I wish I could scan in all of the examples, but although my scanner's at work I'm missing a cable :P
I think one of the ideas behind teaching cursive (and like I've said before, the joined up writing taught in the UK is subtly different - in particular the capital letters more or less look like their print versions) is to try and teach a uniform style. Print or cursive, the main problem with legibility seems to be that nearly everyone's handwriting is different.
Every single person I know IRL writes in cursive AFAIK.
Yes, I live in europe, but I never knew the younger people had such a cursive aversity in the English speaking parts of the world. I do use the 'not-stupid' version without the funny 'z' and with non-cursive capitals.
Handing in your papers in non-cursive is frowned upon, but accepted of course. I have not heard a teacher complain about cursive illegibility since early high school.
When we learned to write in grade school, there were some groans when everybody had to switch from block letters to cursive, but everybody learnt it fine. Personally I was a bit of a freak because I switched to cursive before that voluntarily. For me it has been easier and faster to write in cursive for about as long as since I had learned to write.
I think it is because we switched to cursive really early on in grade school. It was like 10 weeks of block letters, learning to hold a pen the right side up and then on to cursive and only cursive from then on.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
edited September 2007
My handwriting (And printing) has always been terrible because of a habit I've been unable to break - I grip the pen or pencil like my life depended on it. I use to break pencil leads all the time until I finally learned to ease up on pressure, but my hand still cramps up in a few minutes because of how hard I grip the thing.
Anyway, when I DO have to handwrite something out, it's usually pretty messy and I use a combination of cursive and printing, but back in school (I graduated 10 years ago, so 20 years ago I'd be learning it) they never said anything about it being necessary. It was just part of the curriculum.
In my experience, most people's cursive is perfectly legible - see the two examples in this thread. The majority of people here who claim that most people's cursive is illegible also admit to being unable to read cursive fluently, so it's rather to be expected. I may've gotten the wrong impression here; the people saying they can't read cursive and the people who are against cursive might not be one and the same. In that case I suppose they just meet people with worse handwriting than the people I meet, for some reason.
Um, what? If someone is unable to read cursive fluently, wouldn't it logically follow that it'd be illegible for them?
Also, if cursive taught differently in Europe? Not to overgeneralize, it seems like a lot of the people supporting it are from there, and a lot of the detractors, me included, are American.
Not to overgeneralize, it seems like a lot of the people supporting it are from there, and a lot of the detractors, me included, are American.
From what I've seen, American cursive is far more intense than European 'cursive'. We were just shown how to join select letters.
You might be onto something there. This is closer to how most people here would write:
Which is perhaps why people are suggesting that anyone who can't read that is probably retarded, while the letters in the OP are much more stylised and look like the older style that people like my grandparents would use - Uppercase GHIJQTZ especially. That 'Q' is a '2' damnit!
I haven't written in cursive since 6th or 7th grade.
Cursive is inherently harder than print to read because all of the letters are joined together and it introduces ambiguity as to where one letter ends and the next one begins. Most of the time it's pretty easy to figure out, but not always.
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SmasherStarting to get dizzyRegistered Userregular
Not to overgeneralize, it seems like a lot of the people supporting it are from there, and a lot of the detractors, me included, are American.
From what I've seen, American cursive is far more intense than European 'cursive'. We were just shown how to join select letters.
You might be onto something there. This is closer to how most people here would write:
Which is perhaps why people are suggesting that anyone who can't read that is probably retarded, while the letters in the OP are much more stylised and look like the older style that people like my grandparents would use - Uppercase GHIJQTZ especially. That 'Q' is a '2' damnit!
See, that's perfectly legible. If that's what all you European people are referring to, I understand now why there's such a divide. That is not what American cursive looks like, and if I saw that outside the context of this thread I would think of it as print.
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
edited September 2007
Does anyone else like cursive because of its appearance?
Seriously, getting into the flows and swirls of the letters can, sometimes, bring me just the tiniest glimmer of enjoyment in the most random of moments. It's not exactly a religious experience, but sometimes, it's fun to see what your printed words wind up looking like.
Granted, I've made a handful of modifications to the cursive I learned in elementary school. I figured out how to make the printed capital 'A' work in cursive writing, because man, fuck the cursive capital 'A', it looks shitty.
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In my experience, most people's cursive is perfectly legible - see the two examples in this thread. The majority of people here who claim that most people's cursive is illegible also admit to being unable to read cursive fluently, so it's rather to be expected. I may've gotten the wrong impression here; the people saying they can't read cursive and the people who are against cursive might not be one and the same. In that case I suppose they just meet people with worse handwriting than the people I meet, for some reason.
Um, what? If someone is unable to read cursive fluently, wouldn't it logically follow that it'd be illegible for them?
Yes, that was my point. If someone can't read cursive properly, then it's only to be expected that they'll find most people's cursive to be hard to read. It doesn't necessarily mean that those same people's handwriting is hard to read for people who can read cursive properly.
Not to overgeneralize, it seems like a lot of the people supporting it are from there, and a lot of the detractors, me included, are American.
From what I've seen, American cursive is far more intense than European 'cursive'. We were just shown how to join select letters.
You might be onto something there. This is closer to how most people here would write:
Which is perhaps why people are suggesting that anyone who can't read that is probably retarded, while the letters in the OP are much more stylised and look like the older style that people like my grandparents would use - Uppercase GHIJQTZ especially. That 'Q' is a '2' damnit!
See, that's perfectly legible. If that's what all you European people are referring to, I understand now why there's such a divide. That is not what American cursive looks like, and if I saw that outside the context of this thread I would think of it as print.
I think we've hit the nub here. That's pretty similar to my writing in where the joins are, etc. Could you give us a sample of how American cursive looks?
American cursive is perfectly legible if it is done correctly, that's not the problem. The problem is that when people write in cursive they don't bother to put in the time to do it right, and sloppy cursive is just scribbles while sloppy printing still looks like letters. Because they think "oh, I'm writing in cursive, I can write faster than I can write and it'll be dandy!" And that's why we need to make using cursive for documents that others are expected to read carry a stiffer penalty than posession.
I think we've hit the nub here. That's pretty similar to my writing in where the joins are, etc. Could you give us a sample of how American cursive looks?
Random image from a Google search:
Pretty lazy cursive, but thats the way that most people write it in my experience. I can read it, but it's not very fun.
While, yes, some people's cursive is difficult to read, you shouldn't assume that everyone's print is therefore easy to read.
Doesn't have to be, it just has to be more legible and it's already more practical.
Anyway, here's a scan from someone's math notes I borrowed years ago and never returned. Different language, but it's not terribly easier to read even when you do speak it. The printed title is quite a bit more legible than the cursive that follows, at least for myself.
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Baroque And RollEvery spark of friendship and loveWill die without a homeRegistered Userregular
While, yes, some people's cursive is difficult to read, you shouldn't assume that everyone's print is therefore easy to read.
Doesn't have to be, it just has to be more legible and it's already more practical.
Anyway, here's a scan from someone's math notes I borrowed years ago and never returned. Different language, but it's not terribly easier to read even when you do speak it. The printed title is quite a bit more legible than the cursive that follows, at least for myself.
I was taught in the Canadian school system in BC in the 80's/90's. Around grade 3 we are taught to srite and quite printing everything. By high school, most people just do what ever is comfortable. I have noticed that it seems most guys default to printing by High school. We had basic penmanship, but I don't guys just can't seem to grasp how to write neatly and by High school they print everything cause at least it is legible that way.
Most every one I know when they have to wite something down will use writing, as opposed to printing. I have a hard time filling in forms because I naturally write most things and printing takes time and feels very weird to me.
Whole language suck ass as a method of teaching English. I grew up with this and we were never really taught parts of languages. It took getting to Grade 8 French to finally really know what verbs, adverbs, pronouns and stuff actually were. I was not the only one.
Whole language suck ass as a method of teaching English. I grew up with this and we were never really taught parts of languages. It took getting to Grade 8 French to finally really know what verbs, adverbs, pronouns and stuff actually were. I was not the only one.
Whole language worked awesomely for me. Yeah, we didn't get hardcore into the whole "parts of speech" thing until middle school, but I didn't really care, because I had read so much at that point that it came really easily, and was very natural.
Everyone argues that immersion is the best way to learn a language; why would that be any different with your native language?
Eh I would have perferd that they paired it with you know actually learning grammer, sytax and structure as well as the immmersion part. Must have worked in part for me as I still love to read and will never have enough bookshelves. Plus I always aced reading comprehension tests.
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For example, even though Kate's writing is pretty well formed, it still took me a couple seconds to decipher "mercy". At first glance I read it as "merry", but if her writing were just a little less neat the fourth letter could easily seem to be an i or e as well as an r or c. I'm sure when one takes particular care to write clearly cursive is easy to read, but the same is true of print, and by doing so cursive loses the speed advantage that makes it useful in the first place.
I think the inherent problem is that the same connected letters that make cursive quick to write also remove vital clues (in the form of spaces) our brains use while reading to decipher what are fundamentally arbitrary marks into letters and words. If people wrote very consistently and/or in the same style as everyone else it probably wouldn't be much of a problem, but that's not the case.
Now that I think about it I think cursive has a trade-off similar to internet/phone abbreviations such as rly, ltr, etc. in that it takes less time to write but more to read.
Edit: I don't know if this is just me, but I actually like reading cursive. Even if it's messy and it takes me slightly longer to read, I prefer looking at the writing than at block letters.
For me it depends what I'm reading and why. Most of the time I'm just reading to get information of some sort into my head, and I don't care about the presentation. As long as it doesn't hurt my eyes, aesthetics are entirely secondary to reading efficiency, and print wins there.
Sometimes though presentation does make a difference. Pretty much the only time I write in cursive aside from my signature is writing blurbs on greeting cards, simply because writing in cursive implies a little extra effort and care (at least to me) and that seems appropriate for something like that. Also, I think at least one person in here mentioned writing love letters in cursive, and I can get behind that too for similar reasons.
Other than occasions like those, though, I think cursive is counterproductive.
That's what I've been doing since before I'd ever heard of "running writing". Once you write fast, you find certain letters just join together naturally, without any decrease in legibility.
Personnally I always tend to end up with something half-print half-cursive when I need to write fast. Same as Marlor and Marty81 I guess.
Printing is more legible, and doesn't make my hands hurt. the only use of it to kids these days is being able to read it, but they shouldn't be forced to learn it anymore.
Also, it's annoying to read, especially when women/girls like to write it in smallest text possible leaving 3/4ths of their lines empty on papers
I would agree that this is an example of good cursive. I can read that easily and it reminds me of the cursive that I learned. I wish I had an example to show you, but your cursive seems to be, at least to me, the exception and not the rule.
Typically the cursive I see is just one step above a bunch of scribbles and it just hurts my eyes. On top of that, when I do manage to decipher it, the cursive seems to be of a different style than the above. But that's typically from older people in their 50s or older, so it makes me wonder if older people were taught a different kind of script or something or if it's just an example of how some of us just get more sloppy over time.
I can't really say too much, though I know my printed handwriting isn't exactly great
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Up until I read this thread, I don't think it's ever come up that anyone I met couldn't read cursive. Sure, prescriptions are illegible to everyone, but I met anyone unable to read letters just because they're joined together. Now I find there are fair numbers of you people, I'm guessing mostly in the States, and that's fine - if you don't like cursive, you don't have to use it, and if you're in an environment where it isn't used I guess you don't have to be able to read it. But blaming all that on the script and calling for it to be done away with is just silly. It's exactly like discovering that a significant segment of the population can't read lower case letters and want us to write everything in capitals.
Alternatively, those people in this thread who do use cursive seem to have problems imagining that others might not have the same advantages from it that they do. They also have problems beliving that others would have problems reading cursive outside of "individuals with bad writing in the first place".
EDIT:
That may be so, but I haven't made either claim I don't see why you're telling me.
In my experience, most people's cursive is perfectly legible - see the two examples in this thread. The majority of people here who claim that most people's cursive is illegible also admit to being unable to read cursive fluently, so it's rather to be expected. I may've gotten the wrong impression here; the people saying they can't read cursive and the people who are against cursive might not be one and the same. In that case I suppose they just meet people with worse handwriting than the people I meet, for some reason.
Plus, lowercase L followed by an r seems indistinguishable from a b. I always found that irritating.
I dropped out of cursive pretty shorly after I learned it, I'm not sure if I was using it at all in middle school. I certainly dont use it now, although my printing leaves something to be desired (my u's look like v's, my a's look like u's, my o's look like my v's and my u's, and so on).
I like writing a big G in cursive. It's the only letter that comes perfectly from my hands.
I still like reading well-written cursive though. Good penmanship is so underrated, sadly.
I type up 6-7 people's writings daily. They all write in print or a mixture of print and cursive. While two people's print is perfectly legible, it's taken me a while to learn how to decipher the others'. One guy in particular forms a few of his letters in ways that I'm often mistaking for other letters, and I have to pause and try and work out from the context of the sentence what word he is referring to.
I wish I could scan in all of the examples, but although my scanner's at work I'm missing a cable :P
I think one of the ideas behind teaching cursive (and like I've said before, the joined up writing taught in the UK is subtly different - in particular the capital letters more or less look like their print versions) is to try and teach a uniform style. Print or cursive, the main problem with legibility seems to be that nearly everyone's handwriting is different.
Yes, I live in europe, but I never knew the younger people had such a cursive aversity in the English speaking parts of the world. I do use the 'not-stupid' version without the funny 'z' and with non-cursive capitals.
Handing in your papers in non-cursive is frowned upon, but accepted of course. I have not heard a teacher complain about cursive illegibility since early high school.
When we learned to write in grade school, there were some groans when everybody had to switch from block letters to cursive, but everybody learnt it fine. Personally I was a bit of a freak because I switched to cursive before that voluntarily. For me it has been easier and faster to write in cursive for about as long as since I had learned to write.
I think it is because we switched to cursive really early on in grade school. It was like 10 weeks of block letters, learning to hold a pen the right side up and then on to cursive and only cursive from then on.
Anyway, when I DO have to handwrite something out, it's usually pretty messy and I use a combination of cursive and printing, but back in school (I graduated 10 years ago, so 20 years ago I'd be learning it) they never said anything about it being necessary. It was just part of the curriculum.
Also, if cursive taught differently in Europe? Not to overgeneralize, it seems like a lot of the people supporting it are from there, and a lot of the detractors, me included, are American.
From what I've seen, American cursive is far more intense than European 'cursive'. We were just shown how to join select letters.
You might be onto something there. This is closer to how most people here would write:
Which is perhaps why people are suggesting that anyone who can't read that is probably retarded, while the letters in the OP are much more stylised and look like the older style that people like my grandparents would use - Uppercase GHIJQTZ especially. That 'Q' is a '2' damnit!
Cursive is inherently harder than print to read because all of the letters are joined together and it introduces ambiguity as to where one letter ends and the next one begins. Most of the time it's pretty easy to figure out, but not always.
See, that's perfectly legible. If that's what all you European people are referring to, I understand now why there's such a divide. That is not what American cursive looks like, and if I saw that outside the context of this thread I would think of it as print.
Seriously, getting into the flows and swirls of the letters can, sometimes, bring me just the tiniest glimmer of enjoyment in the most random of moments. It's not exactly a religious experience, but sometimes, it's fun to see what your printed words wind up looking like.
Granted, I've made a handful of modifications to the cursive I learned in elementary school. I figured out how to make the printed capital 'A' work in cursive writing, because man, fuck the cursive capital 'A', it looks shitty.
I think we've hit the nub here. That's pretty similar to my writing in where the joins are, etc. Could you give us a sample of how American cursive looks?
Random image from a Google search:
Pretty lazy cursive, but thats the way that most people write it in my experience. I can read it, but it's not very fun.
Anyway, here's a scan from someone's math notes I borrowed years ago and never returned. Different language, but it's not terribly easier to read even when you do speak it. The printed title is quite a bit more legible than the cursive that follows, at least for myself.
I have trouble even reading the print.
SteamID: Baroque And Roll
I was taught in the Canadian school system in BC in the 80's/90's. Around grade 3 we are taught to srite and quite printing everything. By high school, most people just do what ever is comfortable. I have noticed that it seems most guys default to printing by High school. We had basic penmanship, but I don't guys just can't seem to grasp how to write neatly and by High school they print everything cause at least it is legible that way.
Most every one I know when they have to wite something down will use writing, as opposed to printing. I have a hard time filling in forms because I naturally write most things and printing takes time and feels very weird to me.
Whole language suck ass as a method of teaching English. I grew up with this and we were never really taught parts of languages. It took getting to Grade 8 French to finally really know what verbs, adverbs, pronouns and stuff actually were. I was not the only one.
Everyone argues that immersion is the best way to learn a language; why would that be any different with your native language?