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The End of Handwriting

wired.com

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Re: The End of Handwriting

#4
post #3

I just dropped a thank-you note in the mail this morning, not only handwritten, but in cursive. Now, it is true that I am old.

I do most of my handwriting in a cypher. I've done it so long, it's become more natural than writing legibly. Just now I wrote a shopping list in code. Nobody will know that I'm buying milk and tomatoes.

Re: The End of Handwriting

#5
post #3

I just dropped a thank-you note in the mail this morning, not only handwritten, but in cursive. Now, it is true that I am old.

I do most of my handwriting in a cypher. I've done it so long, it's become more natural than writing legibly. Just now I wrote a shopping list in code. Nobody will know that I'm buying milk and tomatoes.

Oh that takes me back to uni. I was trying to learn Greek at the time. So all of my grocery lists and to-do's were just English, transliterated with Greek letters.

Re: The End of Handwriting

#7
I don't see a lot of people still writing with quills, and there's a reason for that, yet there have been no catastrophic consequences, excepting maybe for "Big Quill".

Personally, I think this veers into hyperbole a bit. The degradation in motor skills is barely measurable when compared to common tasks required of people today and we're talking about a skill that has less and less use cases every day.

I believe this is trying to judge a fish by how well it climbs a tree, in a lot of regards.

YMMV.

Re: The End of Handwriting

#8

> For years, smartphones and computers have threatened to erase writing by hand. Would that be so bad? Yes, it would. This is the first time I've seen Betteridge's law of headlines [1] violated. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

I understand your opinion and I'm curious as to your reasoning why it would be bad.

Re: The End of Handwriting

#10
PSA for people with "bad cursive handwriting" but who would like to improve it: Write with FOUNTAIN PENS. Ideally on thicker paper, with something soft below (like more paper for example).

Different writing systems evolved alongside different utensils. Cursive evolved to be written with a quill or a fountain pen. Ballpoint pens are an amazing invention and they have their place, but they optimize for price and practicality, not necessarily for an æsthetically pleasing legible outcome. People say they have "bad handwriting" but their setup is a Bic pen on a thin sheet of paper on top of a hard surface: well, everyone's handwriting is bad in this setup.

In France, back when I went to school, not sure now, though I hope it hasn't changed, as a child, you'd only be allowed to use fountain pens. Kids learning to write have constantly stained hands while they learn to use it properly, almost as a rite of passage. I'm very thankful to have learned it like that.

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