cursive
- Thread starter laladopi
- Start date
oh...well, we use it for signatures, do identify who wrote what, by having signature written as cursive, we test the person to write faster and thus not fake their signatures.
Physics-wise, if you have your pen under an angle, than the pen and the paper have an increase ability to slip and thus friction does not allow the person who write under an angle (or cursive) to write slow.
Physics-wise, if you have your pen under an angle, than the pen and the paper have an increase ability to slip and thus friction does not allow the person who write under an angle (or cursive) to write slow.
I can hardly write in cursive anymore. When I was in the 3rd grade, we had a quiz, and the teacher asked us to pass our papers back one seat for grading, so I ended up grading my best friends quiz. There were certain answers that he had left blank, so I tried to fill in the answers for him writing in his style, in all caps. I liked it and I've been writing in all caps ever since.
I had to write in cursive in elementary school, but after that most teachers preferred that you print because reading people's handwriting was already difficult enough. I have to admit that when asked to write in cursive now I can't remember what all of the letters are supposed to look like. But I don't know why we learned it though. Aside from signatures most people never use it. (Except older people tend to use it more)
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
I guess your real question is why do we have to learn it in school..
I guess it's because you learn pencontrol easier that way. I remember that when I first started to learn to write in school we had to make all these (cursive) loops and stuff to practice writing neatly.
Like this (although it's a little more advanced than I had in mind):
I got the following text from the same website I got the picture from:
"Young children may want to learn how to write their names and to be able to write short messages. They can use capital letters to do this – simply copying things that you write out for them. This is sufficient for most children up to the age of at least seven. There is no reason why children should be taught to write in non-joined-up, lower-case, letters (printing): it does not look attractive, it makes it more difficult to learn joined-up writing later on and it can cause a lot of distress. It is something that schools do to keep children occupied but it has no educational merit.
The time to learn to write is when a child has become a confident artist, the technicalities of writing then become a source of pleasure. This is usually at the age of about seven. A child does not need to know how to read in order to be able to write: children will learn to write simply because it is fun. This means that children who have been told that they have reading difficulties can learn to write in just the same way as anyone else."
http://www.freedom-in-education.co.uk/newsletter/november02.htm
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Because writing in block letters is slow. As we become proficient at it we start to write a little faster. The next thing you know, we don't quite lift the pen off the paper between letters and presto, we've got letters connected to each other. That's the way handwriting started.
I became a computer programmer back in the 1960s when there were no such things as workstations. We had to write our code on paper and submit it to the keypunch operators to have them transcribe it to punched cards. Since I used a typewriter for my personal correspondence, I didn't have much use for handwriting. My handwriting had never been especially good and with less practice it became awful. I had to slow myself down just to make it barely legible.
It finally dawned on me that with all the practice I was getting at the office, I could probably block-print faster than write in cursive. I was right. So eventually I gave up handwriting entirely and started block-printing everything from my shopping list to my checks to the sweet little notes on birthday and Christmas cards.
And now when I look at my printing, guess what I see? I'm not quite lifting the pen off the paper between letters, so many of them are connected.
I'm reinventing handwriting. It's inevitable.
Yeah I join my printed letters when I write quickly, but why teach it if people do it anyway? It takes me longer to write in cursive because many of the letters are written differently and I forget what they look like, it's almost like a foreign language. When I took the SATs we had to write a paragraph in cursive and that tripped so many people up it was kind of funny in a sad way. Of course I heard that they don't teach it anymore in schools at least at my brother's two elementary schools they didn't.
i remember learning cursive in third grade, and they told us that once we reached junior high, it was the only way we would be allowed to write. they said we woudnt be allowed to print. of course, that turned out to be a load of crap. i could still write in cursive if i wanted to - i still remember it - but its slow (i can print pretty fast) and it doesnt look as nice and not everyone can read it easily. so there is no good reason to teach it.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
This thread might be of interest to someone: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=76950
All of Arabic is cursive isn't it?
cursive is handwriting.
Pretty sure, by the time gen Y gets to be in charge - there won't be handwriting.(I also had no heard of "cursive" until I moved to ontario - must be U.S influence - U.S word).
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
