Do You Write Cursive Anymore?
Childhood, Fun September 30th, 2009Is cursive handwriting dead?
Ah, I remember fondly learning how to write cursive in grade school. My teacher used a funky metal contraption that held three pieces of chalk in alignment and then she dragged it across the blackboard to prepare for our lessons.
The first step produced this:
The second step was to go back and erase part of the middle line to form dashes. This way, you learned where your lower and upper case cursive writing went in relation to the dotted line.
I barely write in cursive anymore, mostly because most everything I write, save grocery lists, is on a PC.
When I do, something strange happens. I tend to mix printed letters with cursive ones. Why? No idea.
Here’s an example:
I don’t know if schools even teach cursive writing anymore. If you have kids in grade school, do they come home with practice lessons in handwriting? Someone please tell me it’s not dead yet.
So, other than signing your name on paperwork, do you write cursive anymore?
Stumble it!
October 4th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
I do the same thing with the cursive-mix-printing thing. I don’t know why either. They don’t actually work that hard on the cursive thing in school. Either way, my son’s penmanship is CRAP and needs some work all the way around. UGH!! It will be a lost art, I fear, but one that is already not appreciated.
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October 4th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
I almost never write in cursive anymore. Pretty much just my signature. My handwriting is so terrible now and it actually feels awkward to write with pen(cil) and paper. This really only happens when I’m taking notes in a meeting and it usually ends up sort of like a mix, like yours.
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October 5th, 2009 at 6:22 am
I write cursive for:
1) thank you notes to my customers
2) greeting cards
Everything else is printing!
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October 5th, 2009 at 10:15 am
OMG I use to get my knuckles wrapped by a ruler with the metal edge from a small elderly Polish nun when my loops didn’t touch the line, too funny. Although you would never know I went to Catholic school now a days if you same my cursive, lol.
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October 5th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I was a tutor for a fourth grader and he was still learning cursive and actually having a hard time with it. I myself do the adaption of both cursive and print. That is if I’m printing something and not using a computer or my phone!!
October 5th, 2009 at 10:43 am
This very interesting, my daughter and I were just talking about this. She home schools and was wondering the importance of teaching cursive. I can’t think of anyone close to me that uses it much anymore. I also do the mix with out even thinking about it, wierd! Now I’m thinking about it! Thanks, lol!
October 5th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
If I ever write anything at all, I mix cursive with print, but I must confess: I even type my grocery list! Sick, huh?
October 5th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
My cursive was so bad that if I didn’t remember writing it even I couldn’t read it, that is why I went to the mixed style but since almost everything I write these days in on a computer I barely write now. It’s kind of sad because in the 1800’s you were judged on the quality of your penmanship and it was expected to be impeccable. If you look at any of the old documents they are stunning just to see the quality of the writing.
October 5th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Not sure if cursive is dead. I still use it and a mixture of it and printed letters. Most people can’t read my cursive writing so I mix the two. The most odd thing is we wrote a birthday card to our grandson last year (15 yo) and he couldn’t read it. I asked if he could read cursive and he wanted to know what that was….so maybe it is dead in the schools now. It really is a shame.
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October 6th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
I teach Elementary students, so this post intrigued me. I have recently been reading student responses and having my students grade them. If the responses are written in cursive, the students have the most DIFFICULT time reading them. I actually had one group of students take away points because they could not understand it since the paper was written in cursive. I asked my “teachers” if that should be counted against the student. We agreed it should not be counted against the student because the teacher should be able to read cursive. This also made me wonder if cursive is dead. When I taught fourth grade, I made my students write in cursive all of the time. It’s not mandatory, but it should be.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Like many of your responders, I was great at cursive in 3rd grade. My teachers were amazed (pathetic that I remember? haha), but since then time and muscle memory have crippled my cursive, mashing it into chicken scratch.
@Maria: Your perspective is fascinating. My high school teachers would threaten “F”s if our penmanship wasn’t up to their reading ability. Cursive was incredibly important at the end of high in AP Tests for essays. How else can you get all your thoughts down in such a short amount of time?
October 8th, 2009 at 8:05 am
The first time I wrote cursive since childhood was my wedding. Otherwise I print or type. The wedding invitations and thank you notes were very difficult to write. I had a 25% failure rate but fortunately purchased many extras.
I learned cursive in school. I’m 30. All school work and reports were to be written in cursive until about 6th grade, when we had PCs in school. Oddly my brother, 5 years younger than I, did not learn cursive at all. By the time he entered school it had be dropped as a requirement. I’d have to say cursive is “dead” in everyday use. But I think it will persist in formal, elegant situations.
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October 14th, 2009 at 8:40 am
I think my handwriting is mainly manuscript (I had to google it!) We just called it normal or joined up writing! How technical lol. My handwriting has definitely got worse now I work on a PC all day
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October 20th, 2009 at 3:37 am
Don’t we all just use keyboards these days? The pen is dead my friend.
October 25th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Yeah it is writing in cursive is still very much ALIVE… It is funy, though, that teachers waste students precious time memorizing the curves and waves of writing in cursive… Too much effort, I guess, for something that is not really necessary. I am now a professional and I don’t write cursive… I write in print and in most instances use the PC for reports, the mobile phone for messaging– and we all can see that doctors doesn’t write prescriptions anymore – they already have software to generate it after a patient’s consultation… See how useless it is to exert so much effort in teaching cursive-writing…
October 31st, 2009 at 4:08 am
cursive writing is still alive, my son is practicing cursive writing since he was grade school up to elementary but when he was on junior high, he neglect using cursive anymore.. but at least he has the idea on how to write it..
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December 8th, 2009 at 9:08 am
As so many others have observed, cursive is still alive and kickin’. I think many people combine it with print as their own personal shorthand for writing as quickly as possible. The great thing is when you send (or receive) a hand written thank you note it is now so much more appreciated.
February 1st, 2010 at 3:54 pm
My handwriting is terrible, I always blame my computer. In my country there are several legal documents that have to be handwriten and stored on paper, although they have their digital and printed version (dont know why). So some accounting and legal companies hire beautiful girls (mostly part-time students – other not so beautiful) with beautiful cursive handwriting to perform that job.
I was very impressed the other day when I saw a girl handwriting a whole document on a company that has several thousand dollars invested in high-tech servers and storage solutions. It was weird.