As a CS student, the way I learned things I needed to memorize was by writing it down / copying / summarizing on paper and studying from that. It’s a little ridiculous to reframe that a significant part of my education was an exercise in copying information over by hand, but it’s just true that this method reliably worked for me. Also: my reading speed was ungodly slow. I think I considered it typical to spend 3 hour…
The End of Handwriting
171–180 of 338 posts
Re: The End of Handwriting
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
>becomes tuned to your handwriting I didn't know that, what's the noticeable difference?
As you know, almost all fountain pen nibs (sans some specialty ones) come with some tipping. This is a very hard alloy engineered to resist wear and tear. Some manufacturers have their own formulations and grinding characteristics, and some manufacturers use "default" versions supplied by the nib vendor. As the user writes, this tipping material starts to get polished. This can take from a couple of months (e.g. Lamy…
> This is a very hard alloy engineered to resist wear and tear.
> As the user writes, this tipping material starts to get polished.
"Polish" is making a surface more even than before either by [a] filling it in with substance so that the depressions in the surface becomes level with the peaks or [b] filing away (i.e., introducing wear) at the surface so that the peaks become level with the depressions.
Either way, I don't see how it can be achieved with writing. Paper and ink doesn't have anything that can achieve [a] nor is it enough to achieve [b]---even over time---otherwise the nib isn't made of alloy that can resist wear and tear.
I'm prepared to wager that a well-used but well-cared for nib isn't gonna exhibit a more polished angle. It could tarnish. It could build-up a patina. Maybe it could have some chemical residues from previous inks. But to have a significant and highly-localized deviation from when it was brand-new, I highly doubt it.
Another part of my hypothesis is that you don't actually keep the pen at the same angle everytime you write. You still produce the same(ish) handwriting but writing angle is easily affected by external factors. In other words, the writer compensates for these external factors subconsciously in order to produce the same handwriting. E.g., I write differently on my journal vs. if I'm filling out a form. I write differently when I'm jotting down notes in a meeting vs. something more deliberate. I might adjust angles if the paper has a different texture, or if the ink isn't drying as quickly. I would write differently on my desk at home vs. a hotel room desk. Heck, I write differently at the start, middle, and end of a journal.
I'm just saying this because I think people could stress over fountain pens over what is basically superstition and there's already plenty to think of when using fountain pens. It won't change your pen's "attunement" if you lend it for friends to try occasionally. Conversely, don't be afraid to give second-hand pens a try just because the previous owner's writing style might be too different from yours.
Re: The End of Handwriting
#173I find these articles both baffling and frustrating at the same time. I find it frustrating because I spent recess after recess locked inside to practice cursive. After many months of this, my handwriting had not improved. The teachers finally relented and stopped punishing me because the punishment never actually improved my handwriting. My handwriting is now print only and is still horrible and has never improved.…
Cursive as taught in schools today is useless at best and dangerous for your health at worst. The cursive that made the world run between 1850 and 1925 was called business penmanship and it lets you write at 40 words per minute for 14 hours every day for decades on end without pain or injury. If you're interested here's the best book about it: https://archive.org/details/tamblyns-home-instructor-in-penm... Note the a…
I'm not sure if I can tell the difference between Tamblyn's business penmanship" and "looped cursive" and any other type of cursive to be honest. The difference in individual handwriting seems to be much larger than the difference in overarching styles?
Re: The End of Handwriting
#174Physically written materials are such a huge part of our archaeological understanding of the human past. In my mind digital materials are always dangerously close to non-existence, even if cloud redundancy and our apparent inability to fully delete things from the internet make us feel digital materials are well protected. The persistence of this data basically boils down to magnetic fields. Without power, these will…
If all should fail, we'll just pick it back up, just like we have before with those things. Until then, they will remain dead to most.
Re: The End of Handwriting
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cursive as taught in schools today is useless at best and dangerous for your health at worst. The cursive that made the world run between 1850 and 1925 was called business penmanship and it lets you write at 40 words per minute for 14 hours every day for decades on end without pain or injury. If you're interested here's the best book about it: https://archive.org/details/tamblyns-home-instructor-in-penm... Note the a…
When going through the effort to re-learn how to write, why would one learn this rather than one of the more logical/easy shorthand systems? (To clarify, I mean in this day and age! I would understand if one needed to send 300 letters a day to a non-shorthand reader.)
So, yes, now that the world no longer uses crusive that much you might as well pick another standard.
Re: The End of Handwriting
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cursive as taught in schools today is useless at best and dangerous for your health at worst. The cursive that made the world run between 1850 and 1925 was called business penmanship and it lets you write at 40 words per minute for 14 hours every day for decades on end without pain or injury. If you're interested here's the best book about it: https://archive.org/details/tamblyns-home-instructor-in-penm... Note the a…
Looking at this book, it seems very similar to how I was taught in the late 80s early 90s. We were forced to use fountain pens, and would get berated if we got ink on our hands. I'm not sure if I can tell the difference between Tamblyn's business penmanship" and "looped cursive" and any other type of cursive to be honest. The difference in individual handwriting seems to be much larger than the difference in overarch…
Here is a video that gets most of the basics right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TWpFsv9Ib0
Here is one that gets it wrong: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vCPPcweLKWQ
The reason why the letters have the shape they do in business penmanship is for legibility and ease of motion. There are several variants of most letters you can choose from. The standard alphabet as given in that book is a very good compromise. The reason why newer cursive hands that use finger movement have a lot of the same shapes as business penmanship is cargo-culting.
Re: The End of Handwriting
#177PSA 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 practi…
I understand liking fountain pens for their "old school steam punk" factor, but I think recommending them to improve your cursive is a little nutty. I love writing by hand, and for years I was looking for the ideal instrument. Frankly, all the big "pen enthusiast" websites gave awful advice IMO. I essentially wanted something with the tactile feel of a good pencil, but with the permanence of ink. Finally I stumbled a…
For what it's worth, I'm not a big proponent of fountain pens or cursive, but I do think they go hand-in-hand.
Re: The End of Handwriting
#178I find these articles both baffling and frustrating at the same time. I find it frustrating because I spent recess after recess locked inside to practice cursive. After many months of this, my handwriting had not improved. The teachers finally relented and stopped punishing me because the punishment never actually improved my handwriting. My handwriting is now print only and is still horrible and has never improved.…
Lol I have a friend whose handwriting was so bad, his mom found the leading expert in teaching how to write correctly (at the time / wherever he lived at the time), that eventually broke him and he gave up. We are all very unique and different. What's funny is I gave up on cursive as long as I hit the internet in the mid 2000s because I instinctively knew it was fruitless.
Re: The End of Handwriting
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cursive as taught in schools today is useless at best and dangerous for your health at worst. The cursive that made the world run between 1850 and 1925 was called business penmanship and it lets you write at 40 words per minute for 14 hours every day for decades on end without pain or injury. If you're interested here's the best book about it: https://archive.org/details/tamblyns-home-instructor-in-penm... Note the a…
I was about to reply that that most people probably can't easily read this hand anymore, but after looking at the book examples they're pretty readable to me, despite always struggling to read cursive (e.g. in birthday cards from my grandparents).
Re: The End of Handwriting
#180For me, cursive ended decades ago when I started college. Printing I can still do and do it rather quickly. But as always, I am the only one who can read it. This devolution started will before Email became a thing. But I wonder how many young people are comfortable with writing in general, printing or cursive.