I studied architectural engineering and hand to take a handwriting course. It is the exact opposite of cursive, youre never supposed to let your pen(cil) connect letters, not even parts of the letter (as the post describes how to write a P). you always lift up the pen and start a new point of connection because it gives you more control of the output. it was an interesting class and changed the way that I write (all caps that basically look like the image in that book) and also anyone I teach to write.
Penmanship
41–50 of 120 posts
Re: Penmanship
#42> In penmanship class, we learned a standard cursive font. I think it’s the standard cursive font, in fact. He's wrong that there's a standard cursive. Different countries and different centuries have used a variety of different cursives. Most Americans who were taught cursive in school learned either Zaner-Bloser or D'Nealian, which both derive from Palmer. Both of them are terrible . They have indistinct letter sha…
In re: different countries: students who study Russian (or, I assume, other languages that use a similar alphabet) typically learn to write Russian in cursive. The letter forms overlap with English/American cursive, but not perfectly, and of course there are OTHER letters, too, that we lack. (Russian cursive is also notoriously hard to read for non-native speakers owing to a few idiosyncrasies: some letters are entir…
It’s very likely that English cursive is insufficient to really write the English words - since English pretends to only have 26 letters but so many do double or more duty - sometimes distinguished by diphthongs or other mechanisms but often just assumed you’ll know which pronunciation is right.
I wonder if the Russian cursive slips in because it has sounds that are closer.
Re: Penmanship
#43> In penmanship class, we learned a standard cursive font. I think it’s the standard cursive font, in fact. He's wrong that there's a standard cursive. Different countries and different centuries have used a variety of different cursives. Most Americans who were taught cursive in school learned either Zaner-Bloser or D'Nealian, which both derive from Palmer. Both of them are terrible . They have indistinct letter sha…
This is a good comment. I do have a contrary opinion however as I generally recommend a spencerian derivative over an italic one to new learners these days. One could say simple Spencerian derivatives are like Rust with a steep learning curve to inculcate the core shapes into muscle memory but have lesser overhead during runtime owing to their dependence on muscle memory. Italic derivatives otoh more like Go, easier to pick up initially, but relative to penmanship variants have a higher runtime overhead. This is a silly analogy, but drawing from my experience teaching penmanship and calligraphy to people of different age groups is what I’ve seen to be true, mostly in younger age ranges. Older people usually do better with italic variations. A good reason, I recommend spencerian/penmanship derivatives is that they let one write more efficiently with higher precision during flow moments as letting muscle memory do the work helps with learning the task at hand.
A small nitpick, Zanerbloser doesn’t derive from palmer script, but they both absolutely do belong to the same family.
Re: Penmanship
#44"Nobody writes it anymore. Nobody can read it, anyway." I think the author is mistaking their self for everyone. I have rows of my bookshelf dedicated to all my journals. Written by hand. In cursive (for the most part, some technical journals I used standard print for diagrams and annotations). I use a reMarkable2 as well for ephemeral notes, bullet journalling, and reading/sharing documents from my computer. I like…
It’s poetic license - like saying that nobody reads or writes Latin anymore; there are small groups that still can and do; but it is no longer assumed that every college graduate can.
Re: Penmanship
#45I "practiced" penmanship every day for 9 years in primary school, but my handwriting is still the sad squiggly sort stereotypically associated with doctors. It really didn't change much from age 12 and onwards.
Re: Penmanship
#46Handwriting has also been shown to improve thinking versus typing
https://bigthink.com/the-present/handwriting-memory/
I wonder if there is a way to produce a “keyboard” with the same effect on the mind?
Re: Penmanship
#47Interesting.
Where I come from, writing cursive is taught in the first few grades.
Re: Penmanship
#48Semi related aside - it was a good post day today.
I've been after a book called "Flip The Script" for ~10 years, but being out of print the prices are crazy. It's recently been reprinted, arrived today, and it's absolutely wonderful - https://www.handselecta.com/handselecta-flipthescript
As it says on the back "Graffiti is one of the last strongholds of highly refined penmanship." Anyway, beautiful book, highly recommended.
Re: Penmanship
#49[dead]
Re: Penmanship
#50I hated learning cursive as a child, and as soon as I could get away with it, switched to writing printed non-cursive letters. BUT, I'm glad I did learn it, as just an alternate way of writing, and if I ever have a child/ren will probably try to teach them if it's not being taught in their school (which it doesn't sound like is common these days).