do you ever write in cursive y/n

never

i myself do not, and perhaps as a result my signature (particularly the letter r) is becoming increasingly illegible

yes i do!

hell yes, cursive looks awesome and also it makes it harder for busybodies to immediately discern what you are writing when you're in public

also my friend says the "flow" of cursive matches the flow of your thoughts in a beneficial manner, however he is an enormous hippie.

Never have, really. I'm not even all that good at printing. I've always had computers around, always typed everything, which I guess is probably the norm now.

And my signature is just printed messily, really. B squiggle squiggle'pi.

i recently wrote a sympathy letter to my aunt when her husband died, it looked like i was writing with my opposite hand

pretty sure I couldn't write a "j" right now, could smoke one though amirite

i worked with someone who had the greatest handwriting i'd ever seen - really jealous

i write in all caps, all of the time

write in cursive pretty much all the time, it's so much quicker

i write in what i call 'fake cursive', more like printing but still with cursive elements, because i never really got the hang of proper cursive and sort of made up a lot of things. but i'm sure this isn't that uncommon.

when the apocalypse comes and there are no more computers to type on, who will be the winners then?? cursive writers that's who

Cursive writers with extremely sharp, steel-nibbed pens, which may be used as lethal weapons in the blink of an eye?

I know hell, damn, ass...

i didn't know everyone couldn't write cursive.

i write in what i call 'fake cursive', more like printing but still with cursive elements

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Thursday, July 7, 2011 8:36 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

cursive is for girls

LOL MintIce

The weird thing about cursive is that if you read a lot, pay attention to design, etc. you aren't really used to seeing much printed cursive. At a certain point in my youth I decided that I wanted my writing to look like architectural drafting lettering and I think my cursive just totally atrophied from then on.

i was anti-cursive until i actually started writing in longhand a lot. print hurts. my cursive is hideous and impenetrable but nobody else has to look at it.

("longhand" as opposed to typing i mean, not longhand as opposed to shorthand)

yeah, but rarely, and mostly in a pathetic attempt to demonstrate to myself that i'm still capable (i'm not).

how the fuck do u do exams etc if can only write printed characters

I only use it when I write out, like, birthday cards or something. The rest of the time I print.

how the fuck do u do exams etc if can only write printed characters

― nakhchivan, Thursday, July 7, 2011 5:51 PM (46 seconds ago) Bookmark

what does the one have to do with the other?

'do the math' as u are apt to say

Fuck a cursive tbqh

i write in an unreadable-except-to-me scrawl colloquially known as "serial killer"

how the fuck do u do exams etc if can only write printed characters

Is there any research on whether cursive is actually faster or not? Because I feel like, at least for me, it's really not. It's just a different style of writing. Though I guess I actually write in some gross hybrid where I print but don't actually pick up the pen.

in general if u can write properly in both systems then yeah, though whether that offsets the diminished legibility is a matter of conscience

My problem with cursive is really in the loops, the ridiculous looking uppercase letters, and the stupid lowercase r & s. oh and that sorry excuse for a Z. If you eliminate all of that crap but don't really pick up your pen much, you get the best of both worlds.

i wrote all my exams in fake-cursive and managed to fill many pages and got As, so hey!
i knew a couple of people in highschool who had such bad, or, like too small and weird?, hand writing that papers wld get returned to them with Fs bc they were illegible! (i think they got to rewrite tho)

i print most of the capitals because i don't remember how to do them. except Ss. i always liked those and i sort of go overboard on them. but yeah when i am writing in a notebook my priorities are speed and stamina and when i'm writing for another person (though outside of addressing envelopes i can't remember the last time this happened) i print.

oh exams. i print in exams, and do little jiggly-hand exercises every sixty seconds.

in general if u can write properly in both systems then yeah, though whether that offsets the diminished legibility is a matter of conscience

you mean the diminished legibility of cursive, right?

naturally

http://mobile.dlisted.com/topics/britney-spears?page=101

i don't think i've ever written a proper cursive Q, back in the day i was like "lol wut" and just did a cursive O with a hatch mark.

i pretty much only write in cursive

i love it

how the fuck do u do exams etc if can only write printed characters

haha i recall this being kind of an issue, because my printing is quite slow. fortunately when writing essays i had no ideas was very succinct

this is pretty fascinating
http://www.iampeth.com/books/palmer_method_1935/palmerMethod_1935_index.php

I would have thought that most people would do something pragmatic in between cursive and printing? Flow smoothly and join it up with style and grace when it's convenient, print when not. (Oops, I see that rrrobyn says pretty much that upthread.) I still handwrite quite a lot but I don't know if my joined-up writing could accurately be described as cursive, it's slowly transforming itself into capital letters followed by a bunch of horizontal lines with the odd waver in them here and there.

not really

I write in big, vile block letters.

I hadn't written cursively for at least a decade when I started teaching, but it's something I have to force myself to do on occasion. I don't teach it in grade 6, and don't require that my students do it--I suggest that they make the effort in their journals, to keep in practice. Most do at the start of the year, and by the end maybe half a dozen are still writing. When I respond to their journal entries, that's when I write. My handwriting's not good--for every seven- or eight-line response, I have to use whiteout three or four times. It takes me three hours to do a class set, all because the handwriting's such a struggle. On the board, when I hurry, I'm even worse.

Capital Q and Z are batshit crazy and by far the most fun part of writing in cursive.

cursive is for girls

― grey tambourine (wk), Thursday, July 7, 2011 8:45 PM (1 hour ago)

^^

i write in a hybrid style, but i have a fucked-up pen grip and horrible writing so i'm not gonna tell anyone else what to do.

my cursive is not very fluid (very narrow and up-and-down, like my print), so it doesn't add a lot for me, but occasionally the pace it sets is just right for something i need to get down. mostly i print though.

glad to see i'm not the only one who writes in a weird print/cursive hybrid stylee; never write in SERIOUS CURSIVE.

yeah, i do a hybrid. i actually spent some time, intentionally, in high-school adding a slant to my writing as i thought it both looked cool and.... yeah, pretty much looked cool. i constantly get comments on it, the most common being "you write like thomas jefferson"

My cursive has a u before and after every letter, I think. One occasionally sneaks into w, too.

Capital Q and Z are batshit crazy and by far the most fun part of writing in cursive.

I don't know, I feel like the standard, printed S and Z are two of the coolest looking letters, so why does cursive have to go and fuck them up? Cursive Z just looks so dumb.

(only) write in rrrobyn-esque fake cursive

like, were I to write a word like "jump" my pen would never leave the paper

but I never technically learned cursive and my capital Q does not look like a 2 etc.

i feel like i almost always write in block capitals but i never really write anything by hand anymore

thought everyone but kids wrote joined up

cursive? hell I don't even write lower-case letters.

they're pretty easy, actually. like regular letters, but more small.

lowercase is for little kids

though i do occasionally attempt cursive, my regular hand is straight block. all caps, modified as suits. severely crippled mousepad penmanship:

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/mousepadpenmanship.jpg

i write in all caps, all of the time

― van smack, Friday, 8 July 2011 00:13 (5 hours ago)

Most of the time I have to hand-write is scribing for people who potentially have reading difficulties so I've trained myself to write non-cursive lower case for the most part. If I'm not at work I still write cursive because duh

Capitals for legibility, joined-up cursive for speed, pretty sure no-one else could decipher my scrawl - though I could make it legible if I tried, at the expense of speed. I don't recall being taught any special techniques for cursive capitals tho, I just do regular ones - same with lowercase z.

Did once write a copperplate inscription in a birthday card, while in a moving car.

I took so much pride in my cursive when I was young. Then, in undergrad, I read something that argued that printing is just as fast or faster and is significantly more legible. I bought it and from that point on, I mostly printed or used some bastard hybrid. I think it's actually rare that a student hands in a test that is written in proper cursive. A couple of years ago, when I did happen to write something for TAs in cursive, two out of three TAs didn't even recognize what the capital "Q" was.

I have my own quick writing style that has printed capitals and mostly cursive small letters.

didn't we have a post your handwriting thread at one point?

maybe, but nobody could read it

i was anti-cursive until i actually started writing in longhand a lot. print hurts.

Post your handwriting and then someone else on here who knows better analyse it.

I can't imagine not using Cursive. I also use Kunstler Script for my emails, size 24.

I very rarely use cursive. I remember as part of the GRE (or maybe it was the SAT? or ACT? can't remember) you had to copy a few printed paragraphs from the screen in cursive to prove that you were a real human being, or something. and i was totally stumped at how to write 'b'!

Not the GRE iirc.

My friend's cursive typewriter makes beautiful looking text.

I print serial killer style, my signature just looks like scribbling.

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/zodiac-killer.jpg

That's way neater than my print tbh

I don't even bother to write anymore, I just use those scratch-off stencil letters.

http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/s/images/stencil_sansserif.lg.gif

i just got stencils

i love them

thread is blowing my mind

cursive just means joined up writing right?

i write in all caps, all of the time

This is what I do, but that comes along with years of architectural lettering and noting up redlines.

no b/c i am not a grandma

i only print in all caps w/a sharpie, thank you very much. grocery lists, laundry details, dear jane letters, ransom notes. it's all THE SAME

i write in all caps, all of the time

This is what I do, but that comes along with years of architectural lettering and noting up redlines.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Friday, July 8, 2011 10:24 AM (1 hour ago)

I'm a surveyor, so I have to have exceptional penmanship and sketch with great detail when I write in my fieldbooks.

cursive just means joined up writing right?

― PM me for invites to 77+ (cozen), Friday, July 8, 2011 5:19 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think so. Maybe with some fancy tricks for capitals and zeds that I never got taught.

girls learned this when we were in primary school, i can't recall what boys did instead tbh. Probably just let out to roam.

PIEROGIES TWO BANANAS BLOCK OF SWISS CHEESE MIDDLING CUCUMBER HIGH TEST PICANTE OCEAN OF BROWN RICE BOK CHOY VARIANTS ORANGE CARROT HUNKS

MACHINE WASH COLD W/LIKE COLORS. TUMBLE DRY FOR THREE SHAKES OF A LAMB'S TAIL

DEAR JANE, I LOVE WHO YOU ARE AS A PERSON. I WISH WE COULD HAVE MET MORE OFTEN IN THE SAME PLACE. BUT SADLY AT THIS TIME YOU ARE ADDICTED TO MOROSE FIXATIONS AND I AM IN LOVE WITH DRUGS AND ALCOHOL. YOU WILL BE HAPPIER WHEN LIFE TAKES YOU TO NEWER HORIZONS IN LATE '11

IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS AGAIN, PLEASE TO FULFILL REQUEST OF 1000 UNMARKED 100 DOLLAR BILLS PLUS TWO SUSAN B. ANTHONY DOLLARS. MUCH LOVE, THE GUY THAT HAS YOUR LOVED ONES TIED UP AND IS FORCING THEM TO WATCH DVR'D REPLAYS OF NANCY GRACE AND GRETA VAN SUSTEREN

girls learned this when we were in primary school, i can't recall what boys did instead tbh. Probably just let out to roam.

haha totally

I remember learning it in primary school in a select group of advanced students. It's been all downhill from three.

*there

ha you were in the advanced class at two but got jaded huh

I think this is one of those things that the American educational system has dumbed down to the point where it's useless. Who would possibly want to know how to write like this?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Cursive.svg/300px-Cursive.svg.png

Writing like this on the other hand would be a totally useful skill

http://www.printmag.com/CMSAssets/Blog/lettercentric/DiSpigna_2.gif

just thankful that elementary school teacher made me feel like essentially a shitbird for not being able to form a capital z in cursive properly

My elementary school had a specific penmanship teacher who spent the year moving from classroom to classroom throughout the grades, teaching her damn little unit and administering the penmanship test (which I think was required by the state curriculum). Like a frontier hanging judge.

I hadn't thought about this in years, but I remember that I first learned there were multiple styles of cursive penmanship when she got all catty with our teacher - 3rd grade? - who had been taught a style other than the one we were being taught, and whose blackboard writing was therefore "setting a bad example." (The school had abandoned the Palmer Method around the same time it set up gifted and talented programs, magic pyramids, etc etc.)

in fifth grade i distinctly remember we had a 'writing' class twice a week. much of the time was spent tracing ovals (from which you could later make many cursive capital letters) eight times each while mrs calvert intoned one TWO three FOUR five SIX se-ven EIGHT

Can I check something: is 'cursive' just American for what we (in Britain) call 'joined-up writing' or does it refer to a particular style of joined-up writing?

have no idea what you people refer to as "joined-up writing"

cursive =

http://caliburreigns.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/teencursive1.gif

^ screws attempted to drill this into me circa grade the first, but successfully rebelled by means of not doing shit for no one never

have no idea what you people refer to as "joined-up writing"

Allow me to explain: it's writing where the letters within each word are 'joined-up'. Do you see?

no. i am american. do you see?

[/whiney]

So that picture is an example of joined-up handwriting. But there are loads of different styles of joined-up handwriting. I was just trying to work out if 'cursive' was the name of one particular style or referred to any handwriting where the letters were not separated.

this thread is giving me flashbacks... in the 70's when I was in elementary school I switched states at one point and missed the year of handwriting instruction. My 5th grade teacher tried valiantly to fix my idiosyncrasies but failed. To this day I print in mostly caps (except e, t, and i), form the letters from the bottom, and hold my pen left handed with my right hand. I'll never unlearn it at this point.

hold my pen left handed with my right hand

pls explain

I was just trying to work out if 'cursive' was the name of one particular style or referred to any handwriting where the letters were not separated.

was kidding with american jingoism crap. no offense, i hope. see, we're jingoistic over here, and ha, it's funny cuz...

anyway, i'm not entirely certain, but i was taught (or, rather, they attempted to teach me) a cursive that is exactly identical to the one pictured above. the form of each letter is standardized, in both upper and lower case, as is the slant at which the letters must be written. you can still buy special paper at teachers' stores that includes lettering examples and faint slant guidelines. was looking at some the other day, as i have a terrible supplies fetish.

instruction in this specific handwriting style was once a basic part of the american public school curriculum - or so it seemed to me at the time, given that i encountered it in schools all over the country. you still see it today, and i'd guess that most americans would identify it as proper "cursive writing," not merely as one of many possible handwriting styles.

No, there are many different styles of cursive. That's what I was just saying, with the difference between the Palmer Method (or whatever method my non-penmanship teacher was using) and the method I was taught.

The style that's in vogue in schools has changed every couple decades, but not uniformly, since a given style may be mandated in one district or state, while in other places it may be left to the discretion of the administration, etc.

gotcha, and that stands to reason. do think that, generally speaking, the basic form of american cursive is highly standardized, even today, though the methods of its instruction vary widely.

hold my pen left handed with my right hand

pls explain

I think sleeve is talking about holding a pen in the right hand but angled to the right, like if you put it under your index finger and over your middle finger, with the tip pointed toward your pinky? I'm trying it right now and it's blowing my mind if that's what sleeve means.

Ha, I actually forgot that style of cursive capital "G", also the little curls in the "N" and "H". I think contenderizer's picture is close, if not identical, to what I learned first. I later switched to making my "G"s more like the "G" in this: http://rlv.zcache.com/cursive_alphabet_poster-p228624032981473183t5wm_400.jpg

Oh yeah, and I moved away from that style of capital "A" to a much less neat version of this "A":

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L75x2I7VCU4/SoYoq4-gXmI/AAAAAAAAFSg/qkr67IqD2x8/s400/Cursive+Font.jpg

From what you're saying (about cursive in the USA) I don't think there's anything remotely as prescriptive and universal in Britain. I would say most people write using joined-up writing, but the styles are wildly different (and often illegible) and I think it would be weird if a kid got punished at school for adopting the 'wrong' style. I can't imagine writing everything in capitals - that would be just be time-consuming and difficult to read.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

intriguing -- maybe i should have tried to break it down by hemisphere

British-speak for cursive is really "joined-up writing"? That seems so pedantic.

I write in cursive when taking notes at work, but I can't really read what I write.

We had to learn a specific variety called "D'Nealian", which I have no idea why I remember, but I do.

http://cdn-ak.f.st-hatena.com/images/fotolife/m/mb2sync/20050209/20050209043932.jpg

i can't be sure at this stage but i think i just stole the letters i liked from whatever styles, i definitely nicked my '7' and my 'D' from a guy i sat next to when i was 11

laurel what are the little footnotes?!

i think i was taught more or less what wk posted, but perhaps with a few more flo(u)rishes

If you mean the arrows? It's to show you which direction the penstroke is going at that point.

this thread is mental

ah ok -- i was thrown off by the dots

oh wait I just saw the results. righteous brits voted but didn't voice it itt, fucked up kindergartener yankees were vocal but were hardsonned at the polls

cozen i shan't disagree but u need to be more specific

pretty sure hardsonned is a yank term btw

septic cunts got a doing

yass

One of my grandmothers wrote like this

http://www.zanerian.com/Blackwell_files/image003.gif

and the poems and prayers that she copied out are some of the most treasured mementos of her in the whole family. So I'm pro-penmanship in general. Also I was hardcore into calligraphy as a teenager and have all these pen & ink sets and copy books and manuals around somewhere.

calligraphy & penmanship are cool skills to have but it's like teaching kids to i dunno climb trees for woodwork class or something

cursive is neither penmanship or calligraphy per se though, it's just a quick way to write.

. . . which is kind of the definition of penmanship?

US definition of "penmanship" = neatness of the writing, no matter what the style or how efficient

yes, to me penmanship is neatness, caligraphy is artistry. writing quickly is ... don't know. for me, cursive!

well i reckon that penmanship is whatever you do with yr pen and its quality depends on whether it's legible, be it printing or connected letters or whatevs

I write in cursive a lot. In fact, it looks like this: Post your handwriting and then someone else on here who knows better analyse it.

well i reckon that penmanship is whatever you do with yr pen and its quality depends on whether it's legible, be it printing or connected letters or whatevs

nah, not really. legibility and beauty are two different things. cursive is the opposite of legibility. speed is not really valuable at all imo. and anyway for speed you would of course type. and the cursive we were taught in the US has no real aesthetic value. I think the original point of cursive was to make business writing look more formal before typing was widespread, so it's basically obsolete now.

speed is not really valuable at all imo. and anyway for speed you would of course type.

oh yeah well what if you're supposed to be taking detailed notes in a darkroom, huh.

I think the justifications for teaching and using cursive have been regularly rephrased as older ones ceased to apply.

It's usually taught later than printing now - and that has to be the first step in its decline, right, when it was no longer the first form of writing people learned? - but the reverse used to be true, and I'd assume the change in writing instruments has something to do with that. It makes sense not to lift the pen when you're using a dip pen, but ballpoint and pencil don't drip. There was a time when students were taught multiple cursive styles for different applications. Then the Palmer Method comes along - at about the same time as Taylorism, part of the whole standardization and efficiency zeitgeist - and you've got cursive suitable for newly mass-produced pencils, and later ballpoints.

Mostly, people are just going to keep writing it because it's what they learned, and it's pretty to think we learned something for a good reason.

oh yeah well what if you're supposed to be taking detailed notes in a darkroom, huh.

What does the darkroom have to do with anything? I personally never felt like speed was an issue for note taking, but at any rate cursive isn't necessarily faster. Evidently there are studies that show that a hybrid approach is fastest (printing without picking up your pen). And either way are we really teaching 3rd graders cursive so that they can take notes slightly more quickly 9 years later?

this is what i do

i write in what i call 'fake cursive', more like printing but still with cursive elements, because i never really got the hang of proper cursive and sort of made up a lot of things. but i'm sure this isn't that uncommon.

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Thursday, July 7, 2011 7:36 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

mostly in caps

What does the darkroom have to do with anything?

can't use a laptop in a darkroom! i transcribe college lectures on the fly for hard of hearing students, and i got SUCH a look when i brought my glowy laptop in for the darkroom demonstration.

anyway my argument for cursive in darkrooms doesn't even hold water, i ended up typing the demo on this beauty:

http://assistivetech.sf.k12.sd.us/images/AlphaSmart.jpg

Americans are so weird.

"joined-up writing" is so cute.

^__^

I do think speed is important, especially if one is taking notes without the aid of a computer, but proper cursive with all its extra curls has to be the least efficient way of writing, short of actual calligraphy.

(I mean, now that I have a computer with me everywhere, I use that to take notes.)

Wk OTM, generally.

How do they teach "joined-up writing" in the UK? I'm completely sold now on the idea that proper American cursive is neither practical nor aesthetically valuable but it still seems like the easiest way to teach kids to write without lifting their pens might be to have a prescriptive template...

"... valuable. However, it still..."

Surprised by the closeness of this result...thought everyone wrote in cursive still.

At my school we learnt 'joined-up' writing by having lessons at junior school where we had to copy writing with fountain pens - we had a teacher who was obsessed with joined-up.

I type in cursive

Ha, I just found my notes from undergrad, which was the time when I truly had to take notes quickly without a computer. They are all printed, with occasional joining of letters, and are completely neat and legible. Issue settled!

Also, just remembered that at my school, "cursive" was just called "writing" as opposed to "printing". Wikipedia says this is normal for Canada.

Inevitable, I suppose:

http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2014/03/14/cursive_writing_returns_to_toronto_catholic_schools.html

The public board, which I'm part of, may or may not follow. I bet they will.

I think this has more to do with guilt/embarrassment over unspokenly letting it disappear in the first place than any actual pragmatic value, but if they want to bring back cursive, fine. All I'd ask is that the higher-ups do the one thing they never do: remember that there are a finite number of hours in the day, and that when you add something in, you need to take something out to make room for it. They never do that. DPA (Daily Physical Activity), new curriculum, new assessment programs and cycles, they're always adding stuff. Nothing is ever eliminated. The day is apparently endlessly pliable, with hidden Einstein-like pockets in the space-time continuum where we're supposed to find room for whatever.

Wow, cool! I learned cursive in the 2nd grade. A great deal of time was dedicated to it that year. My Catholic school managed to fit mass every M-W-F morning, math, science, history, English, an hour for lunch, PE, religion, art and music and later "computer science" and social sciences all into the curriculum. PE was an hour, music and art were also an hour and alternated days. School started at 8 and the day was over at 3:15. Looking back don't know how it was done exactly. I still had plenty of time to pass notes, look out windows and wish I were out free in the world.

It only sounds like I'm complaining because I am. Anyway, it won't happen at the public level until someone comes up with a catchy acronym to help with the launch. In education, acronyms come first, policy follows.

(So that's what that impassive stare from my students means. I always thought they were held spellbound by my Charlie Brown drone. Turns out they're pondering freedom.)

I haven't written in cursive since elementary school and wouldn't even know how to if I wanted. I can barely read it.

I know capital RJG cause those are my initials and how I sign but I can't even write out my full name.

That's one of the Catholic Board's rationales--that kids can't sign their own names anymore. The other is that they can't read cursive, though I'm not sure when it is that you're required to do so in today's world. When I started teaching in the '90s, I had to relearn cursive myself--hadn't used it in years.

you have to sign it on those electronic thingies, so it doesn't matter anyway, because who the fuck can write normal on those

I don't think there have been any more than a dozen times in my adult life where I've had to read cursive. In my own handwriting, I've always prized legibility above all else (although I do get sloppier if I have to write quickly) so cursive is totally out.

my handwriting is virtually identical to that of one of my great-great-grandparents in the late 19th century, transmitted down the generations
it's virtually illegible to anyone else when practised at any speed so i adapted towards a single figuration style for exams etc

My aunt is teaching her grandchildren cursive because they aren't being taught it at school.