Cursive Writing

[Parrothead]

I know this issue came up again in the US, in the Treyvon Martin hearing. One of the students on the stand, wasn't able to read a letter written in cursive writing. Up here, the issue has been brought up a number of times, as it has been removed from school curriculum. There was a story about a month ago, a parent was amazed to find his kid, a teen, was unable to sign his signiture on a passport application form. Apparently, these days in school, they'll teach basics, but it's up to the parents to make sure their kids know how to write, not just print. I read one article that mentioned, pastry arts instructors were having to give some bit of cursive instruction, before letting students have a go at writing on cakes, in class. Yeah, advances in technology, have made keyboarding skills important, but is cursive really falling that far behind? Reading, keyboarding and 'rithmatic doesn't have the same ring to it. In the coming decades are young people going to be amazed by this foreign looking script, as we may look at some gothic text or hieroglyphs?

[The Supreme Canuck]

I can write in cursive. I never do, since I barely write with a pen at all. It's an obsolete information medium, frankly.

[Cyborg Girl]

It'll be obsolete when our electronics stop being fragile and vulnerable, i.e. never.

I don't really get cursive though. If it's legible it slows you down, and if you do it fast it isn't legible.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Well, it's obsolete for me, anyway. I actually went two whole semesters without even touching a pen once.

[Rebis]

Should we also stop teaching children how to read an old-fashioned clock?

Last week I read a news item, wherein a woman in her 50s bought a large collection (tied up with a ribbon) of recipe cards (at a garage sale), which had been compiled by a 1930's housewife. All recipes written in cursive. Those homespun recipes are valuable to some, and may be of historical value.

It'd be a shame if future generations cannot read old documents, written of course in cursive, such as ancestors' shared love letters from college days or etc.

[geonuc]

It is becoming obsolete, whether we like it or not. Society moves on as technology and customs change. Analog clocks, Morse code, 5 1/4 floppies, Latin ... most means of communication have a definite lifespan.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Rebis, the same could be said about your (and my) inability to read Old English.

Hwæt, we gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah,
oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!

Those are the opening lines from Beowulf. They are of profound historical, cultural, and artistic value. Is it a shame that most English speakers can't read it? Or is it reasonable that they can't, given that language has moved on and evolved to be useful in the modern era?

Or let's talk about books. A few years ago, there was much hand-wringing about the rise of the ebook and the obsolescence of paper books. How will people read without ink on wood pulp?! There's something intrinsically valuable to the act of reading off of a page rather than off of a screen! You don't get the same literary value from ebooks that you do from books! Isn't it a shame! Youth will be missing out!

Nonsense, of course.

Or let's talk about letter writing.

Or any number of other things.

The point is, technology moves on. Society moves on. People move on. Things get done in new ways. And some people always - always - worry that something valuable is being lost. It never is.

You can still read Beowulf in the original if you want to badly enough; not everyone needs to.
You can buy paper books; not everyone needs a luxury physical item like that.
You can still write letters; not everyone is served by such a slow method of communication.

Obsolete technologies do not disappear. They are supplemented by newer technologies. And even if the vast majority of people abandon or never learn the old way of doing things, some people still do and the art is never lost. And the important part - the information that the medium is intended to convey - is still conveyed, just differently. Honestly, Marshall McLuhan was wrong: the medium is not the message - the message is the message. Whether it is written in cursive, type, or cuneiform.

[pumpkinpi]

It is becoming obsolete, whether we like it or not. Society moves on as technology and customs change. Analog clocks, Morse code, 5 1/4 floppies, Latin ... most means of communication have a definite lifespan.

Yes I suppose a six thousand year old form of communication has got to come to an end sometime.

[The Supreme Canuck]

It is becoming obsolete, whether we like it or not. Society moves on as technology and customs change. Analog clocks, Morse code, 5 1/4 floppies, Latin ... most means of communication have a definite lifespan.

Yes I suppose a six thousand year old form of communication has got to come to an end sometime.

And why not, if we've finally come up with something better? Appeals to tradition are bad arguments for doing a thing; the only relevant question should be how well that thing achieves the goal we're trying to achieve.

[Cyborg Girl]

What happens when the power goes out?

No seriously. High tech is very useful, but also presents lots of single points of failure. Having a fallback is vital.

[The Supreme Canuck]

What happens when the power goes out?

No seriously. High tech is very useful, but also presents lots of single points of failure. Having a fallback is vital.

You pick up a pen and print. People familiar with the typed Latin alphabet will always be capable of that, since typed characters and hand printed characters are identical.

[Rebis]

It is becoming obsolete, whether we like it or not. Society moves on as technology and customs change. Analog clocks, Morse code, 5 1/4 floppies, Latin ... most means of communication have a definite lifespan.

I'm not entirely disagreeing.

But cursive is still valid to a point, imo.

Though until what point it should continue being taught, isn't for me to say.

[Rebis]

Rebis, the same could be said about your (and my) inability to read Old English.

Hwæt, we gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah,
oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!

Those are the opening lines from Beowulf. They are of profound historical, cultural, and artistic value. Is it a shame that most English speakers can't read it? Or is it reasonable that they can't, given that language has moved on and evolved to be useful in the modern era?

I see your point.

However, a lot more people have been literate and using cursive writing in the past 300 (?) years than in all of Western history combined (or so I'm presuming).

In the USA alone we've got court documents, official and personal (keepsake) letters and correspondences, registrations, official records ... written in cursive, by a good percentage of the population. By contrast, I recently read that the percentage of literacy in 14th century England was 20% of population.

Maybe it won't matter that the bulk of those are someday unreadable to kids in 2050...but there is a huge body of cursive. Not being able to read cursive might be inconvenient in ways we don't yet realize (taking for granted that we can).

[The Supreme Canuck]

And I'm saying that if your profession requires you to be able to read cursive, you'll learn it - just as with Old English. But if there's no need for everyone to know it, why teach it to everyone?

And, hell, if a need to read cursive that we haven't anticipated crops up, the people who have that need will learn.

[Rommie]

Cursive is valuable to a point for sure, but it really makes no sense if you think about how you used to spend over a year mastering it (more like a year and a half in my case). Awful lot of time to spend on a skill that you never use except to sign your John Hancock.

I mean speaking of archaic things, I happen to know Morse Code even though there's no real use for it... except a couple weeks ago where at trivia night they asked what three letters are formed with only dashes. So great to know for that, but on a daily basis not so much.

[FZR1KG]

You are totally wrong TSC. Please read the letter I mailed to you this morning. It will explain everything.

[SciFi Chick]

Obsolete technologies do not disappear. They are supplemented by newer technologies. And even if the vast majority of people abandon or never learn the old way of doing things, some people still do and the art is never lost.

I agree about everything but this. Obsolete technologies do disappear. As an example, there are only two to three barrel makers in Australia. These are people who make barrels by hand, and that art is all but gone. And no one has learned how to replicate it.

It is possible to totally lose an ability. And maybe that's okay, but don't pretend that it's always possible to relearn something.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Sure. I suppose I overstated things a bit. Duly conceded.

I'll limit things to say that communications technologies which are supplanted in the modern era are unlikely to disappear entirely. They are much more likely to be supplemented by new technologies (see: tv supplementing radio) or to be understood well enough that if we wanted to replicate them, we could (see: the telegraph).

But you're right, I did overstate by making a categorical declaration. Mea culpa.

[SciFi Chick]

No worries. Some things go away because we have a better method. I think cars are better than horse drawn carriages. But every new thing brings new problems - i.e. less abuse of horses, more abuse of fossil fuels. But I think, over all, we're progressing towards something better.

At least, I hope we are.