THE END OF HANDWRITING

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What practical purposes has learning how to handwrite given you other than writing checks, writing signatures, and making art?

(Even then, my signature isn't exactly handwriting as it is just a CONTINUOUS SQUIGGLY CODE!)

But other than making visual art/comics, I only find myself using handwriting in an everyday/getting-by-with-life way by having to write out the dollar amount in words on checks. And the more my monthly bills become direct deposit or paid online, the less checks I'm writing over time as it is.

So when will handwriting be relegated to only a traditional artistic form of expressing text?

― dali madison's nut (donut), Friday, 2 December 2005 10:05 (nineteen years ago)

I want all those days of kindergarten back!!

― dali madison's nut (donut), Friday, 2 December 2005 10:05 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria/content/images/2005/02/04/must_have_toys_kids_play_15_313x470.jpg

― dali madison's nut (donut), Friday, 2 December 2005 10:07 (nineteen years ago)

(sorry) http://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria/content/images/2005/02/04/must_have_toys_kids_play_15_313x470.jpg

― dali madison's nut (donut), Friday, 2 December 2005 10:07 (nineteen years ago)

Hold on, so when you're on the phone and you want to make a quick note of something, you type it out in Microsoft Word?

― James Ward (jamesmichaelward), Friday, 2 December 2005 10:09 (nineteen years ago)

Amen.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Friday, 2 December 2005 10:11 (nineteen years ago)

or "Microscopic Word" as Amber had it, yesterday.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 2 December 2005 10:13 (nineteen years ago)

I am conscious that my handwriting is getting worse, as I'm doing more writing on the computer.

But I still take notes by hand (scrawled) and write lyrics by hand (these have to be somewhat neater if others are going to be reading them.)

I went to a lot of effort to learn to write beautifully when I was a child. I should practice my calligraphy more.

― Control your ponies, children! (kate), Friday, 2 December 2005 10:29 (nineteen years ago)

I think my handwriting's OK

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 2 December 2005 10:30 (nineteen years ago)

handwriting is important to me. I think I do actually notice if someone has good handwriting.

― Control your ponies, children! (kate), Friday, 2 December 2005 10:31 (nineteen years ago)

my handwriting is adequate when i need to write something clearly, but as soon as my ADD sets in, there's a palpable drop in quality. it's not very artistic for what that's worth, with legibility trumping decoration. when i was a kid some of the girls would laugh at me for "writing like a boy" -- they all dotted their is with twee heart balloons and i didn't. if you look at things i wrote by hand in elementary school, you can see me self-consciously trying to be more hearts-and-doodles (haha and then losing interest in that fairly quickly).

i can't write in cursive for more than a few letters at a time, but boy do i have a great autograph!

― like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 2 December 2005 12:23 (nineteen years ago)

I actually thought about this the other day in class. I have been taking more notes by hand this semester, as opposed to on laptop - it forces me to pay better attention and try to make concise statements about the subject instead of just taking dictation.

And I thought I might try to write in longhand, aka cursive, properly, instead of the bastardized longhand I typically write in. It was a lot harder than I thought. VERY formalized. And my attempt was not pretty.

So, when you say "nice" handwriting, do you mean conforms to a norm that you have preset in your head, or something that is simply attractive to your eye?

― Big Loud Mountain Ape (Big Loud Mountain Ape), Friday, 2 December 2005 13:12 (nineteen years ago)

Attractive/aesthetic is what I mean.

― Control your ponies, children! (kate), Friday, 2 December 2005 13:13 (nineteen years ago)

my handwriting is quite poor and often illegible, but I prefer writing by hand to any other form of writing - something that reaches far back, somehow - not "primal" obviously since you're not born with a pen in your hand, but it's the next most basic way of expression to speech. It also expresses in a way that text-on-screen can't, y'know - having its own character just in its appearance.

― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:10 (nineteen years ago)

Not everyone has a computer. Some people don't live on the Internet.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:20 (nineteen years ago)

the only time I ever handwrite things these days is when I'm making shopping lists. And then I have a hard time reading them. For awhile I was keeping a paper journal but I've become slack the past few weeks.

I was writing a birthday card to my nephew yesterday and it was such a task to be legible. My hand literally hurt. I think this is in part due to the fact that medications I take now make me tremble horribly. Like I have Parkinson's disease. If I don't take a Klonpin (which I ususally don't at home) then fine motor activities like writing are nearly impossible.

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:28 (nineteen years ago)

i love writing stuff by hand! some people type their homework in LaTeX and stuff, or scratch it out and hand it in, but i'm really proud of my small, obsessive, gender-neutral printing style! handwriting will never die. also i love paper!

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:35 (nineteen years ago)

type their homework in LaTeX

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:38 (nineteen years ago)

does anyone not have ADD?

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

I most certainly do not have...wait. What was the question? Could you handwrite it for me?

― Big Loud Mountain Ape (Big Loud Mountain Ape), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:52 (nineteen years ago)

What's the opposite of ADD? Whatever that is, I probably have it.

― Control your ponies, children! (kate), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:55 (nineteen years ago)

concentration

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:55 (nineteen years ago)

Hehe, I know somebody who thinks he's big stuff for doing his homework in LaTeX. Are you saying everyone uses it now?

― Mädchen (Madchen), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:57 (nineteen years ago)

no no i mean like math majors, being stupid and annoying

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:58 (nineteen years ago)

I'm saying I have no idea what you're talking about. Latex is kinky rubber to me.

x-post

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:59 (nineteen years ago)

"typesetting beautiful documents"

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:59 (nineteen years ago)

At work, they think I have amazing concentration because I always look so engaged. But whenever anyone comments on my concentration, I'm usually reading ILX. ;-)

― Control your ponies, children! (kate), Friday, 2 December 2005 14:59 (nineteen years ago)

at all the jobs I've had, people always need to give other people directions, marking up proofs with changes etc. At my last job, actually The New York Times¨ª© they brought in a new studio manager who's writing was completely illegible. I said "you're going to have to write a little clearer, nobody can read this" and he said "everyone will have to deal" and I said "ok, don't mind if every time you give me work I have to come back to you and ask you what you need done, or I just do things wrong, because I have no idea what you're asking me to do".

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 2 December 2005 15:29 (nineteen years ago)

He's obviously a failed doctor.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Friday, 2 December 2005 15:39 (nineteen years ago)

I write lots of stuff in handwriting:

* inter-library loans
* letters/postcards
* university notes
* beginnings of essays
* crappy song lyrics
* general notes

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 2 December 2005 17:29 (nineteen years ago)

i like to write lots of long things out long-hand. record reviews, various crappy prose, notes, etc.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 2 December 2005 17:31 (nineteen years ago)

I just handwrote a *personal remember* me note on nice stationary to turn in with my resume. I find handwritten notes more charming and thoughtful. Plus, I have nice handwriting.

― Mendoza Lineman (Carey), Friday, 2 December 2005 17:39 (nineteen years ago)

oh, I forget, my christmas lists too! If I ever have kids and they give me typed Christmas lists, they won't get a thing.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 2 December 2005 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

i have no idea how those ** got there.

― Mendoza Lineman (Carey), Friday, 2 December 2005 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

I think most people get my point, but not sure others do...

I don't mean using one's hand to write anything.. I mean, specific long-hand continuous writing. I'm always writing down directions, lists, post-its, etc. but I usually write in a way that's call "printing", which involves non-continuously written letters.

I hope that alleviates some confusion here(?)

Anyway, I was just noting how signatures and word-form money amounts on checks are the only forms of long-hand continuous handwriting that are required to get by in life, at least in the U.S.... in most official cases, I often see "Please Print Your Name" alongside a signature box. Otherwise, it seems the former is just a preference for the writer and never a requirement, as far as everyday and/or art related things go.

― dali madison's nut (donut), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:03 (nineteen years ago)

are yo utalking about grown up CURSIVE.

― Mendoza Lineman (Carey), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:03 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, I write in semi-handwriting then, some bits are joined up, others not.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:05 (nineteen years ago)

I was comparing that to how much time was spent in my earliest school days stressing the importance of "printing" words as opposed to "handwriting" words. (Sorry, if the terminology I'm using is American.)

Well, at least, I don't exclusive use cell phone text message shorthand.

wdnt it b fny, lol, c u l8r

― dali madison's nut (donut), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:05 (nineteen years ago)

I'm talking about this:
http://www.schoolfonts.com/printouts/ZCursiveHandArrGuid.gif

― dali madison's nut (donut), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:07 (nineteen years ago)

as opposed to something like this:
http://www.drawyourworld.com/im_styles/nsw.gif

― dali madison's nut (donut), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:07 (nineteen years ago)

Either way, I'm getting horribly messier at both as I get older.. no doubt because of using computers almost exclusively for work and leisure.

― dali madison's nut (donut), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:08 (nineteen years ago)

What's the opposite of ADD? Whatever that is, I probably have it.

the form of ADD i have is the one where i don't get distracted by EVERYTHING, only the things that are more interesting than whatever i happen to be doing. i can concentrate really well, just never on what i'm supposed to be concentrating on.

― like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:10 (nineteen years ago)

As much as I generally prefer to type, there are times when sitting down with a pen in my hand and writing things down seems to be helpful by making me think differently, or something of that sort. It's a specific motor skill, it must feedback into thinking somehow, however subtly.

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:11 (nineteen years ago)

Mine is much more like the first example. We had to learn proper joined-up writing in school, one of the teachers was obsessed with it. We had hand-writing classes and everything, where we had to copy stuff out.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:12 (nineteen years ago)

Ironically, I could have cleared things up a lot easier had I been able to print and handwrite this thread instead.

― dali madison's nut (donut), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:13 (nineteen years ago)

Often I think of handwriting as "temporary memory." If I am writing notes to myself, my writing will be legible enough for me to figure out what it says, given what's currently happening in my life, but I might not be able to make sense from it a year from now, or even in a few months. (Unfortunately, I sometimes take phone messages for other people in the same hand, if I am feeling rushed.)

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:16 (nineteen years ago)

I find cursive handwriting very ugly. I much prefer "printed" writing.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:19 (nineteen years ago)

I believe the word "cursive" is american terminology.

My efforts at teaching my 7th and 8th grade students to write in cursive were largely wasted.

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Friday, 2 December 2005 18:38 (nineteen years ago)

three years pass...

The slow death

― Alba, Thursday, 26 February 2009 20:29 (sixteen years ago)

The writer of that article concedes that a "crude" sort of handwriting is likely to survive. In which case handwriting will survive. Which makes perfect sense because hand writing is quite handy.

With hand writing anyone with a couple of low-tech, crude tools that operate manually and work everywhere can fairly quickly record some information they want to save. It doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to be useful. And paper and a pencil or pen are pretty damn useful in a lot of situations.

And in the future, who knows? Standardized, legible handwritten letterforms may someday make a comeback, because, as Fred Astaire once sang, the radio and the telephone and the movies that we know may in time disappear for all we know.

― Aimless, Friday, 27 February 2009 01:51 (sixteen years ago)

I read an article recently about how many kids today can't read cursive. and guess what, E4 can't. that kind of freaked me out.

― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Friday, 27 February 2009 02:39 (sixteen years ago)

two years pass...

Indiana schools to teach children to type instead of joined up handwriting

In a sign of the endless march of technology individual schools will no longer be required to instruct pupils in long hand from the age of eight, and they may only learn to print.
The move has led to fears that youngsters could grow up not even knowing how to sign their own name.
According to a memo sent by the Department of Education to schools on April 25 they can continue to teach handwriting of they want, but children will be expected to achieve proficiency with a keyboard.
Local teachers said the effects of technology on handwriting in schools were already apparent and students were "atrocious" at it.
Andree Anderson of the Indiana University urban teacher program, told the Times of Munster: "It's not at the top of the priority list. Teachers are responsible for so many things that handwriting just gets lost. There used to be a sense of pride attached to having the best penmanship.

― Stockhausen's Ekranoplan Quartet (Elvis Telecom), Thursday, 7 July 2011 22:33 (fourteen years ago)

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