geekhack
geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: bigpook on Wed, 28 January 2009, 05:33:36
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http://www.newser.com/story/49027/schools-cutting-cursive-as-computers-prevail.html
Its a short read but it looks like schools are discontinuing the use of cursive writing. I thought OMG how could they do that until I realized that I don't write cursive any more either. If I do hand write something I always print it by hand as it is more readable. Everything else is printed on the computer.
I know people that have beautiful hand-writing skills and their cursive script is awesome. But its not too many people that I know that can do that.
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I have been working almost exclusively electronicly now for quite some time. Every time I have to do some manual note taking, note leaving, or whatever, I find I have a hard time writing in general, not just cursive. It's strange, because in high school and college, I had beautiful handwriting. These days, I am lucky to get out some chicken scratch.
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I reverted to a "mostly-print with cursive bits thrown in" style of hand writing when I was in high school. It seemed more efficient to me at the time. I've never truly understood the purpose of cursive writing. Unless it an attempt at doing something close to calligraphy without the fancy pen? "pretty writing"? Shouldn't "readable writing" be the goal? If that's the case, I fail miserably anyway but I'm not sad at all at the demise of cursive writing.
Ever read an old hand-written doc from colonial times? the esses look like long f's. Someday we'll look at standard cursive the same way.
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Even when I used to write more, I printed instead of writing in cursive. I found that print was easier to read especially when sharing/comparing notes in class. I mean, if cursive were all that great, why aren't cursive fonts used more often than, say, Times New Roman, Arial, etc.?
*Cue old-school English teacher saying that, as a culture, we lost the art of writing, blah, blah, blah...*
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And print is more legible than cursive anyway. (Although mine's certainly not the best.)
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Please let's not turn this discussion towards legibility. =-D
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Please let's not turn this discussion towards legibility. =-D
That's why I prefer e-mail, etc. for notes, messeges, and the like. I don't want to screw some thing up because of someone poor handwriting. :)
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Cursive is is about as appealing to me as a screaming baby. I think it's dumb — who uses cursive exclusively anymore? Grandmothers? Snooty, holier-than-thou middle class alcoholic bored housewives? Yup, and all their like.
I'm glad they are getting rid of cursive writing. It belongs in the dark ages, just like worshiping a god.
If you couldn't tell, this day absolutly f'ing blows c*ck.
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If you couldn't tell, this day absolutly f'ing blows c*ck.
I feel you.
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Is cursive the US word for joined up?
Because I saw the title and thought is was like sh1t and bugger ;)
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lol :D
That is cursing, not cursive.
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To answer your first question, lam, yes. No matter what the curriculum is in schools, I think most students will learn cursing, regardless.
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Ever read an old hand-written doc from colonial times? the esses look like long f's. Someday we'll look at standard cursive the same way.
that's juſt the long s. it's often ſomewhat difficult to diſtinguish from a lowercaſe f but modern typefaces generally ſtill have ſupport for it. and it ſurvives today -- the german eszett (ß) is a ligature of a long ſ and a short s.
oh, and it uſually never appears at the end of a word.
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Damn, reading cursive is easier than reading your typing ;)
that's juſt the long s. it's often ſomewhat difficult to diſtinguish from a lowercaſe f but modern typefaces generally ſtill have ſupport for it. and it ſurvives today -- the german eszett (ß) is a ligature of a long ſ and a short s.
oh, and it uſually never appears at the end of a word.
What font are you uſing?
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i see geekhack in DejaVu Sans. i didn't specify a font for that post.
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It's a Unicode character, available in all Unicode fonts.
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The trouble is not all the world is changing that fast. I came from the construction industry where field use of computers is mostly confined to large projects. So I'd come to a site with maybe a legal pad, maybe just a tablet and then have to give detailed instructions to multiple people. Sure you could block print a couple of pages of instructions, but my cursive was an order of magnitude faster. The really sad part is some of the trade foreman still have literacy problems. Agriculture, mining, logging, pretty much any industry that deals in adverse weather conditions has a similar problem
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My cursive is much more legible than my scratch-print, although a move to all caps has improved legibility (combined with the fact I write small print) to the point people looking at a paper from a distance thinks it looks like computer script (I think these people need their prescriptions checked.)
We shouldn't abandon printing because the NWO will drop EMP bombs soon enough and we won't be able to type anymore, for the most part, because we blasted typewriters into achronia.
The problem is that schools don't teach proficiency long enough. We should take writing more seriously, although perhaps not to the level we feel calligraphy was taken by the East centuries ago. It doesn't need to be art, but it should be very legible and very regular, and I think the reason we as a people have such poor written communication is because there is no emphasis on maintaining what is essentially a skill.
Back in 1st grade I imagine you had the big sheets of paper with two solid lines and a dashed line where you practiced forming letters. That needs to be done in 10th grade too, maybe under the guise of English class and lexicography or something, I dunno. Maybe we do need to feel like it's an art we can take pride in.
Shorthand needs to be brought back to schools also.
Let me give you a heart-warming example of why we need to be able to write clearly and quickly: let's say you get a traffic ticket for a speeding violation, and you take it to court. In most cases the court will not be a court of record, there will be no recording or transcriptionist, and there will be no ability for someone to just bring in an audio recording to record the proceeding. You'll be limited then, for both the purposes of recording immediate things like testimony so that you might use it to cross examine, raise objections, or other legal things, or you may appeal this later and you need clear documentation of the proceeding to make good legal argument or impeach witnesses.
Neither my writing nor my typing has ever been fast enough to keep up with that. How about yours? Is it worth a 200 bucks (or 1750 in Virgina) to be deficient? Are you going to let your inability to keep up be the reason that the Man gets away with continually collection of easy money for the municipality and the creation of the appearance of crime?
Plus it might help you take notes at a class or seminar.
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Neither my writing nor my typing has ever been fast enough to keep up with that. How about yours? Is it worth a 200 bucks (or 1750 in Virgina) to be deficient? Are you going to let your inability to keep up be the reason that the Man gets away with continually collection of easy money for the municipality and the creation of the appearance of crime?
I fear that's Big Brother's objective - to make just about everybody seemingly smart and educated, but in reality, stupefying and disconnecting them from the roots that caused us to break away from the church (No bashing, I just mean those who use churches as a means of control and profit) way way back in the days.
I want to learn shorthand...
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I really want to learn shorthand too. Its been on my todo list for a decade now.
and in principle I totally agree about the dangers of getting too far away from the basics. The other day I tried to multiply in long form (while calculating the dinner bill in a group) and incredibly I had trouble doing it. It was a bit of a shock.
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I don't want to learn shorthand. I like the entire experience of writing every word, and I can type fast enough to keep up with my head even in the most frantic of writing sessions.
And also, the longer they teach writing proficiency, the less the world will need writers, so I'm happy with the way it is, and currently am employed because of bad writing.
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I don't want to learn shorthand. I like the entire experience of writing every word, and I can type fast enough to keep up with my head even in the most frantic of writing sessions.
And also, the longer they teach writing proficiency, the less the world will need writers, so I'm happy with the way it is, and currently am employed because of bad writing.
So what you're telling me is that you're a pharmacist, and you're needed so people don't die because they get the wrong medication due to doctoscratch?
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No, because people don't die so I can write. That is an ugly analogy.
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I don't even remember how to write in cursive for most letters, I can write my name but I've forgotten how to do capital D so I wing it every time lol.
Here (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/enthauptet/IMG_3920.jpg)'s a sample of mine and this (http://project777.darktech.org:777/pictures/caps/cap-01895b.jpg) was on the wacom which I suck at lol.
Wow my writing sucks, shows you how much I write things.
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So what you're telling me is that you're a pharmacist, and you're needed so people don't die because they get the wrong medication due to doctoscratch?
I think for that, doctors should use a dot matrix printer with those security thingamajigs on the paper to fill out prescriptions, and them sign them. That way, pharmacists can actually read them without killing the patient.
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I don't even remember how to write in cursive for most letters, I can write my name but I've forgotten how to do capital D so I wing it every time lol.
Here (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/enthauptet/IMG_3920.jpg)'s a sample of mine and this (http://project777.darktech.org:777/pictures/caps/cap-01895b.jpg) was on the wacom which I suck at lol.
Wow my writing sucks, shows you how much I write things.
Don't worry, I can read it. I've seen sloppier handwriting coming from my professors.
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I don't even remember how to write in cursive for most letters, I can write my name but I've forgotten how to do capital D so I wing it every time lol.
Here (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/enthauptet/IMG_3920.jpg)'s a sample of mine and this (http://project777.darktech.org:777/pictures/caps/cap-01895b.jpg) was on the wacom which I suck at lol.
Wow my writing sucks, shows you how much I write things.
I think it's pretty legible. Mine is worse than that unless I slow my writing down considerably.
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No, because people don't die so I can write. That is an ugly analogy.
I'm just saying that there's a problem when most of the population can't write quickly and legibly after 13 years of mandatory public education (in the US anyway) and here we have folks who had to have taken 7-11 more years (however long a PhD takes) of education yet are WORSE off. It's not just the benefit of better written communication among the masses...we can see that it can mean life or death.
I don't know anything about betting, but what happens if there a 13:2 odds of something but some bookkeeper writes what looks like 73:2? It just can't end well.
What if people, no longer having an appropriate grasp of script, who read the original writing of the US constitution (at, say, the archives) thought that it (read to) forbade Reason instead of Treason? What perverse effect might that have on the culture of the US? :confused:
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I'm just saying that there's a problem when most of the population can't write quickly and legibly after 13 years of mandatory public education (in the US anyway) and here we have folks who had to have taken 7-11 more years (however long a PhD takes) of education yet are WORSE off. It's not just the benefit of better written communication among the masses...we can see that it can mean life or death.
I don't know anything about betting, but what happens if there a 13:2 odds of something but some bookkeeper writes what looks like 73:2? It just can't end well.
What if people, no longer having an appropriate grasp of script, who read the original writing of the US constitution (at, say, the archives) thought that it (read to) forbade Reason instead of Treason? What perverse effect might that have on the culture of the US? :confused:
jeez, I dont think the situation is that bad :) I dont think it'll ever get that bad, for the very reasons you describe. There will always be a need to scribble things down. I dont think that'll go away. We'll just get slightly clumsy at it, but it'll still function.