How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
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How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
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Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
#2This is rubbish. Ballpoint pens had long been in existence before I went to school, and I learned cursive. My daughter's French classmates are all, today, taught superb cursive handwriting.
Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
#3It is most telling, to me, to hear people (none of them made from straw) admit that writer's cramp is part and parcel of a single session of taking notes or writing an hour-long exam. Professional copyists and secretaries in the early 20th century weren't biting down on their lower lips to push through the pain every time they put pen to paper during ten- and twelve-hour workdays. They just used better tools for that job (leak as the tools might do) and were taught how to write with focus on posture and movement, not on letterforms alone.
I don't strictly use the letterforms or all the best practices of the Palmer method—see the article for a link—but using a Palmer book as a guide, I managed to teach myself to write with a relaxed grip and no movement in the fingers or wrist, and I can go for hours now and walk away with no more discomfort than the stiffness of sitting without relief.
It is hard to write like this using most ballpoints because you do need to exert more force to get a consistent line out of the things. You don't need a fountain or dip pen, however—just a soft-leaded pencil (try an art supply shop), a good rollerball pen, or some gel pens. None of these write as effortlessly as a fountain pen, but neither do they require the kind of cramp-inducing force that a Bic pen does.
I've read mid-century materials on this topic before. My sense is that this isn't a new argument so much as a forgotten one.
Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
#4...in America.
Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
#5This is rubbish. Ballpoint pens had long been in existence before I went to school, and I learned cursive. My daughter's French classmates are all, today, taught superb cursive handwriting.
Okay. So was I, but primarily I don't see people using it for everyday writing. Why do you suppose that is the case? Most people know how to use cursive, but they choose not to do so.
Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
#6I learned cursive writing in first grade in 1958 (in Detroit) and we were already using ballpoint pens. But the desks we used had working inkwells, emptied of the ink, so I'd guess the change was fairly recent because a few years later the inkwells had been removed just leaving big holes in the desks where they'd resided.
The biggest thing back then was that I was left handed and the teachers forced me to write right handed. My mother ended up getting me 'permission' to write left handed and I have been happily ever since ;<).
Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
#7It is most telling, to me, to hear people (none of them made from straw) admit that writer's cramp is part and parcel of a single session of taking notes or writing an hour-long exam. Professional copyists and secretaries in the early 20th century weren't biting down on their lower lips to push through the pain every time they put pen to paper during ten- and twelve-hour workdays. They just used better tools for that…
The Palmer method descends from Spencerian script, an excessively flowery and not-all-that-legible form of writing from the days when people wanted to make their writing look difficult and fancy.
Writing in a fancy style is fine for calligraphers making wedding invitations or whatever, but is a poor model for teaching children or for everyday use for most people.
Italic (aka chancery cursive), a script of renaissance Italy, is a much better model.
Here’s a great page targeted at teaching children to write, with lots of exercises: http://briem.net
Also see http://luc.devroye.org/Briem1985-IcelandicMethod.pdf and http://66.147.242.192/~operinan/8/2/205.html
Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
#8This is rubbish. Ballpoint pens had long been in existence before I went to school, and I learned cursive. My daughter's French classmates are all, today, taught superb cursive handwriting.
That's exactly the author's point. We still teach a cursive writing style that is better suited for fountain pens, while working with ball-points that require a lot more pressure to start marking. Being trained in a technique is not enough, if that technique no longer works with the tools that are widely used today. When I write with a fountain pen, I too find that cursive is more natural. When I write with a ballpoint, I actually tend to write in short clusters of one, two or three "joi ned le tt ers.", so my hand has a chance to relax between each... diglyph, I guess you'd call it.
Under the discipline of a schoolteacher, I could force myself to write "superb cursive handwriting", but when writing for speed and legibility, I adapt to the limitations of my tools.
Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
#9...in America.
At least in Argentina, the children at school still use a fountain pen and learn cursive. In secondary they usualy switch to a ballpoint.
Re: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
#10It is most telling, to me, to hear people (none of them made from straw) admit that writer's cramp is part and parcel of a single session of taking notes or writing an hour-long exam. Professional copyists and secretaries in the early 20th century weren't biting down on their lower lips to push through the pain every time they put pen to paper during ten- and twelve-hour workdays. They just used better tools for that…
The Palmer method descends from Spencerian script, an excessively flowery and not-all-that-legible form of writing from the days when people wanted to make their writing look difficult and fancy. Writing in a fancy style is fine for calligraphers making wedding invitations or whatever, but is a poor model for teaching children or for everyday use for most people. Italic (aka chancery cursive), a script of renaissance…
Please don't assume my ignorance on other hands, or that I would argue in favor of teaching students the Palmer method. Teaching children outmoded systems ill suited to the instruments they are likely to have at hand is grossly unnecessary. (One of the reasons, incidentally, that I don't think students ought to be required to use italic nibs.) In its time, Palmer was taught under the assumption that a sizeable portion of each class would need a good—not decorative—hand for professional purposes at some point in their lives. That is no longer true.
Palmer descends from, but is assuredly not, Spencerian. Nor is it in any sense of the word fancy, except perhaps in comparison to blockletter print. It is a business hand designed for practical, quick, and legible business communications. It is not a coincidence that Palmer books begin with posture and movement exercises before students are even to lift a pen. It really is meant for everyday, injury-free use.