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The End of Handwriting

wired.com

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Re: The End of Handwriting

#331

Post by Doxin »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #327
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.…

Almost the same here. Could read everything fluently before school, or even kindergarden, which I've skipped, because 'too playful'. Whatever, I didn't learn it by reading cursive, but reading printed stuff. So that never really made sense to me, though depending on who is writing, it can look nice. So I do a few fast strokes of lines and/or curves or dots to form a letter, and hop to the next. I wasn't slower than t…

Cursive is wildly easier with a fountain pen. You don't know how much pressure a ball point requires and how much friction it has until you try a fountain pen. My "regular" handwriting is mostly legible but rather ugly. If I do cursive with a ball point it's nearly indecipherable (even to me). If I do cursive with a fountain pen it's legible and decent looking. If I take my time it'll almost look like the examples in the school books I had as a child.

It's a shame fountain pens are slightly too fiddly for every-day use since they still have some real advantages over more modern writing instruments. I've never had a fountain pen fail to produce a line unless out of ink. With ballpoints I feel like they don't work more often than they do.

Re: The End of Handwriting

#332

Post by kleiba »

1718627440 wrote: post #212
kleiba wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany consists of 16 states, and they all have different school systems. Where I live, children are not taught cursive at all.

I switched from Thuringia to Saxony and have younger siblings that were in Saxony and they don't differ in that regard. I thought "Schulausgangsschrift" was mandatory. Where do you went to school? What did you do in class two in German lessons? This was basically the main thing we learned there (I think).

I didn't go to school in Germany, but my kids do/did. They learn something that is called "Grundschrift" (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grundschrift).

Re: The End of Handwriting

#333

Post by 1718627440 »

kleiba wrote: post #332
1718627440 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched from Thuringia to Saxony and have younger siblings that were in Saxony and they don't differ in that regard. I thought "Schulausgangsschrift" was mandatory. Where do you went to school? What did you do in class two in German lessons? This was basically the main thing we learned there (I think).

I didn't go to school in Germany, but my kids do/did. They learn something that is called "Grundschrift" ( https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grundschrift ).

That's interesting. That Wikipedia article claims, that the idea is in fact not to not get the children to use cursive, but let them develop their own cursive. So they are still supposed to write in cursive eventually.

Re: The End of Handwriting

#334

Post by 1718627440 »

gyomu wrote: post #247
IAmBroom wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was sternly told by a nun that, with my handwriting, I would never get a job. The only thing in my entire career I've ever been asked to write something in cursive is my signature, which I reduced to a squiggle for efficiency reasons. (The history of signatures is fascinating, BTW. Illiterate Charlemagne "signed" documents with a single horizontal stroke of the pen, inside of a premade 99%-completed "signature".) I…

Signatures seem to be completely useless. Like you, my signature has devolved into a squiggle that is never the same, and it has never mattered. I remember experimenting as a bored young adult with my first credit card, before tap to pay, when you often had to sign with a stylus on a terminal (in the US) - I would sign something different every time, sometimes nonsense, sometimes a little drawing, sometimes writing “…

I'm from Germany and you need to redo your signature if it doesn't match you official's, when for example opening a bank account. I needed to draw my signature on a tablet to get my ID, and was unable to do so properly, because my hand is just gliding on a glass surface. After several tries they gave me a paper to write my signature on.

I've heard stories from friends that their bank mails them whether a transaction is supposed to happen, because their signature was sloppy.

Re: The End of Handwriting

#335

Post by CRConrad »

robocat wrote: post #289
deadbabe wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must know how to at least read cursive, otherwise you will see a word like minimum written in cursive and think it’s just a scribble.

I could imagine a web page saying "you must be over 50." to enter this page. A capture saying Please read this cursive script and type in what it says...

Ah, seems you missed the glaring issue there:

"Sure, it says >, clear as day, but damn, 'typing it in' on these tiny little buttons on this darn 'keyboard' thingy..."

Re: The End of Handwriting

#336

Post by CRConrad »

bayindirh wrote: post #65
ljlolel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick is to realize that you never even needed to write it at all

Writing while thinking is more productive than prompting a Markov chain. Also it's free and benefits your brain.

"The trick is to realize that you never even needed to think at all"...

Re: The End of Handwriting

#337

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

Doxin wrote: post #331
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost the same here. Could read everything fluently before school, or even kindergarden, which I've skipped, because 'too playful'. Whatever, I didn't learn it by reading cursive, but reading printed stuff. So that never really made sense to me, though depending on who is writing, it can look nice. So I do a few fast strokes of lines and/or curves or dots to form a letter, and hop to the next. I wasn't slower than t…

Cursive is wildly easier with a fountain pen. You don't know how much pressure a ball point requires and how much friction it has until you try a fountain pen. My "regular" handwriting is mostly legible but rather ugly. If I do cursive with a ball point it's nearly indecipherable (even to me). If I do cursive with a fountain pen it's legible and decent looking. If I take my time it'll almost look like the examples in…

I know that. I had to use fountain pens in early school. It just didn't make sense to me to write cursive with them, for my stated reasons. Regarding fiddlyness of FP vs. BP, I'm not sure. I had cheap GEHAs and Pelikans only, which I 'tuned' by exchanging the tip/feather, that helped with the fealing of 'scratching' when going over paper. Which may not be necessary at all with better FPs, and/or different paper. Never had a problem with leaking ink btw.

OTH all of that just went away with using ball pens. OFC there are cheap ones, with the thin, brassy pen refills, which often show what you describe. For me that went away with using Parker and Lamy. I guess that would go for whatever fits into Rotring and Montblanc too.

Or the endless options obsessively discussed in fora commited to stuff like this. I just couldn't be bothered so far. My stuff is good enough for me :-)

Lamy Unic

Re: The End of Handwriting

#338

Post by CRConrad »

ourmandave wrote: post #131

Overheard a bank teller the other day saying they're teaching cursive in school again. And she makes her kids hand write thank notes for b'day gifts. Back In My Day we did cuneiform on stone tablets, and were grateful. Postage was a lot less back then too.

Cuneiform? Bah, fancy-pants! Soot from torches onto the stone walls of our cave was good enough for us, shoulda been good enough for you too.
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