Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The End of Handwriting

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 338 posts

Re: The End of Handwriting

#301

Post by musicale »

garciansmith wrote: post #245
cyocum wrote: post #111

I 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.…

There are ancient (e.g., Roman) and medieval cursive scripts, so I'm not sure what you mean by it being a couple hundred years old. Unless you just mean the current script we use now? (As for whether it should still be taught or not I'm impartial.)

I'm partial to cursive italic, which dates at least to the Renaissance. You don't have to learn two sets of letter forms (printed and cursive italic use the same forms), and the joins are simple. It is easy to learn, and works well for both everyday handwriting and calligraphy.

Re: The End of Handwriting

#303

Post by ErigmolCt »

cyocum wrote: post #111

I 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.…

The idea that cursive is some kind of sacred civic skill feels more like cultural performance than pedagogy

Re: The End of Handwriting

#304

Post by ErigmolCt »

elros wrote: post #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 practi…

I picked up a fountain pen during lockdown out of sheer boredom and was shocked at how much better my handwriting looked

Re: The End of Handwriting

#305

Post by ErigmolCt »

odyssey7 wrote: post #67

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…

I think copying by hand might seem inefficient, but it forces you to slow down and actually process the material instead of just skimming

Re: The End of Handwriting

#306

Post by ErigmolCt »

chakspak wrote: post #23

I'm a software developer, so I type a lot. Typing is very practical for throughput and speed. But I still make time for writing by hand. I find it to be very valuable, because it forces me to think differently about things and sit with ideas longer. I also find journaling almost impossible to do on a computer but very accessible in a notebook. Writing by hand is also portable and adaptable. You can write on paper, su…

Paper's the ultimate offline mode

Re: The End of Handwriting

#307

Post by TomMasz »

I've been keeping a journal since the '90s, handwritten in cursive. Other than my signature, it's the only cursive writing I do. Everything else I use block capitals. Writing by hand helps you remember things in a way that typing does not (though taking notes of any kind helps).

You can have my Japanese fountain pen and mechanical pencil when you pry them from my cold, dead hand.

Re: The End of Handwriting

#308

Post by asimpletune »

IAmBroom wrote: post #186
XorNot wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teaching cursive seems like a weirdly American obsession, because during school in Australia it just...wasn't a thing. Like teachers did take you through what "running writing" was, but we were never required to actually master it the accomplishments level was just "can you write? Good let's move on to how sentences are structured".

Fascinating! Can anyone from other countries chime in?

Writing in cursive is common in Italy, and signatures are important, must be legible, and will be scrutinized.

Re: The End of Handwriting

#309

Post by tdeck »

IAmBroom wrote: post #190
tdeck wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also fun because every few decades there's a new fad in school penmanship so each generation learns a different cuesive and it's all a mess. I had one teacher who wrote in cursive in University, and her penmanship seemed pretty good. But I always struggled to read it. We are just not used to seeing cursive writing on a daily basis.

How old are you? The rare teachers I remember writing in cursive were very readable.

I'm in my early 30s so I never got used to reading it.

Re: The End of Handwriting

#310

Post by xrd »

When I lived in Japan my method of study was to write down all the kanji I didn't know. I don't really think you can learn a language like Japanese without writing it down. There is something magical about writing that locks information into your brain in a way very different from just reading it on a smart phone.

Full disclosure: I'm making a site that allows you to read books and then practice kanji by hand and then save to flashcards for later review.

Example:

https://community.public.do/t/kokoro-by-natsume-soseki-parag...

Click on the "kanji" at the bottom to expand and show the kanji in the page. Click on a kanji to see the animated strokes and practice it right there by hand.

Post reply on HN