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Long thread, but to repeat somewhat. Cursive writing skills at a young age teach a) artistry b) eye to hand control c) how to read cursive wrting d) how to quickly execute a hand written message.
Electronic technology is only available a percentage of the time that someone wants to record or read a message. Up to 95% (urban area, no power failures) but as low as 0% (rural, mountains, no computer/cell). How do you leave an electronic message for someone you cannot address by name or account or when you have no electricity/battery? You write it. Time being of the essense, you write it quickly using cursive wrting patterns.
I suspect that the some of the groups of people who dislike cursive are a) immigrants and first gen immigrant families who are not familiar with the letters and letter forms from the US so feel like they are learning too many ways of messaging, b) lazy or too busy parents who don't like to spend the extra time helping their little kids pick up these skills (don't they realize it is bonding time?), c) parents who are still using TV, streaming video, videogames as electronic babysitters rather than schedule time to personally help the kids learn physical skills. But that is just one opinion.
So that you can read it. I haven't really mastered cursive writing, and I still have trouble reading such. Even if you don't use it yourself, it's good to be able to read it when many people use write in it.
Interesting comment about calligraphy. I never equated that to cursive hand writing, the goal of which is to keep the pencil/pen point on the paper without lifiting it between letters. Calligraphy seems to be even more complicated than either printing or cursive-writing.
Writing in cursive (something I don't do but should do more often),
makes your written works obscure to computers that can only interpret printed lettering on paper
This type of writing is helpful if you have a large journal of written work confiscated by an agency
It's also helpful to not only write in cursive but also in non-English
Cursive writing is being phased out of the educational system in a lot of parts of the country. I keep hearing people freak out about this, but I don't really see the point of teaching cursive writing to our kids. We're not exactly dipping pens in ink these days, so what's the big deal? Printing is so much easier to read anyways, and with all the time that is wasted on teaching cursive, kids could be learning something useful like typing or another language.
Give me an actual legit reason for teaching cursive writing to all students. To me it's seems like teaching old English. It obviously would be important for a historian or something of that nature, but it has no place in modern society IMO.
To sign checks so you can spend money and buy more stuff like a real American.
This answer sounds sarcastic I'm sure, but I'm being pretty serious unfortunately. The only thing I write in cursive is my name, and really, that's devolved into something of a scribble. And it's pretty much just when buying something or agreeing to a contract that tends to still involve transfer of money. Moderator cut: Off Topic
Moderator cut: Orphaned - Quoted post has been deleted
I think the function of legal confirmation and endorsement is certainly valid, but a question would remain over why cursive writing itself -- and particularly today's often badly scribbled versions of it -- would necessarily be attached to it in the way that signet rings and sealing wax might once have been but are no more. And in the larger sense, shorthand was once a very important form of writing as well. It was long taught as a valuable skill in high schools and business colleges. Who can take dictation today or would need to? Cursive as a specialized skill or art form may be of interest to some or even many going forward, but I would think that the case for its being generally required grows weaker with each passing year.
I had dinner tonight with a group of professors who teach at a local liberal arts college. One does not allow use of electronics in his classroom because of the potential distractions. That means that the students must take notes. Cursive is faster than printing. He has noted that being able to write cursive (about 20% of his students do) affects the responses to his examination essay questions. Those who do not know cursive have a hard time answering the questions in the time allowed.
Cursive writing to me is attractive, if done properly and not quickly scribbled. After working nearly 50 years, in the latter years I noticed that younger coworkers wrote with a lot of curly q's. Many would use a heart shape above an i instead of a dot, for example.
Then I noticed something else: the way they hold a pen or pencil when writing, it was almost straight up and clutched in such a way that it would be very difficult to practice the cursive style. And also that many would lower their face very low to the paper when writing, as though they were in the first grade learning how to write.
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