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Cursive writing: Lost art or useless skill?
South Florida Sun-Sentinel ^ | October 30, 2011 | Cara Fitzpatrick,

Posted on 10/30/2011 5:16:14 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement

When asked for their John Hancock, future generations might print it in block letters or scrawl some scribbles across the page. But odds are, they won't sign their name in cursive.

They might not even be able to read it.

Cursive, with its graceful loops and perfectly joined letters, seems soon to join the typewriter, VCR player and flip-phone as relics of a past age. Keyboarding skills, not cursive, were included in the Common Core, a set of national academic standards adopted last year by more than 40 states, including Florida.

(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: frenchfries; generations; hamburgers; handwriting; michaelmoore; writing; yoots
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To: ConservativeStatement

Still scribbling in cursive to this day...I even get complimented on it once in a while!


41 posted on 10/30/2011 6:19:50 PM PDT by M1903A1 ("We shed all that is good and virtuous for that which is shoddy and sleazy... and call it progress")
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To: ConservativeStatement
I still use cursive from time to time. Last month I spent a weekend writing out individual thank-you notes to all the people who had regularly visited my sister during her hospitalization and hospice care.

I grew up learning to write long-hand, and used it all through high school, and later, my college years. I never took short-hand in high school. Upon graduation, and for several years thereafter, I worked at mostly office positions. Besides being proficient in typing and dictaphone transcription, I also became accustomed to being able to decipher the various styles of handwriting people presented to me. This came in handy when later in life, I began researching Civil War records and manuscript collections. It enabled me to read the handwritten letters and documents from that period.

42 posted on 10/30/2011 6:21:38 PM PDT by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
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To: muawiyah

Spot-on!

Typing/Keyboarding should be mandatory in place of cursive writing.


43 posted on 10/30/2011 6:24:29 PM PDT by TSgt (Legal Disclaimer: View my profile at your own risk)
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To: Pan_Yans Wife
"What better way to hide the past from those too ignorant to be able to read it?"

Very well said. Wish I'd put it that way in my post.

44 posted on 10/30/2011 6:25:33 PM PDT by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
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To: ConservativeStatement
It is a needed life skill like Morse code, sewing, butchering a hog, ice fishing, or shoeing a horse.

I don't see how one could survive without these critical skills.

45 posted on 10/30/2011 6:29:00 PM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: bert
Me either. In addition to hand lettering I now have the wonderful Ariel font.

Even the real word is being lost. It is typeface, not font. A font is a dirivative of a typeface.

46 posted on 10/30/2011 6:34:15 PM PDT by Inyo-Mono (My greatest fear is that when I'm gone my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them)
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To: ConservativeStatement

When I was a teenager, whenever my sister or I (or our friends for that matter) would say “you know” around my father, he would immediately interrupt us with “why no, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me.”

We all stopped.


47 posted on 10/30/2011 6:43:49 PM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: ConservativeStatement

I overheard some kids complaining about learning cursive and didn’t see the use for it. It rather bothered me.

I like cursive for my book-writing because I get my ideas out a lot faster than print. I can type fast, but it’s not quite the same, that’s for the final version of my manuscripts.


48 posted on 10/30/2011 6:57:10 PM PDT by Thorliveshere
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To: ConservativeStatement
Rirrudo?

Billy Madison : I hate cursive and I hate all of you!

49 posted on 10/30/2011 7:03:26 PM PDT by death2tyrants
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To: Ronin

Here’s the trick to writing left handed. Most teachers never understood that merely tilting the paper would eliminate all the upside down contortionist wrist thing. Ok, so teacher angled your paper with the top at 11 o’clock. That’s backwards for lefties. Lefties should angle their paper with the top at 1 o’clock. Viola! No more upside down wrists and hardly anyone will notice you’re not a rightie.

Hey, we lefties have it better anyway. Food! Look at table settings. The fork is set on the left of the plate so no crossing over with the right hand and dragging your sleeve through the gravy. The knife is set on the right of the plate so, again, no sleeves in your food or dropped utensils with righties having to switch hands to cut their food. Also, glasses are on the right so they can easily be picked up with the empty hand.


50 posted on 10/30/2011 7:21:59 PM PDT by bgill (The Obama administration is staging a coup. Wake up, America, before it's too late.)
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To: Sawdring

The new rules of language now require a comma before the and In a series:

Apples, oranges, and bananas are all fruits.


51 posted on 10/30/2011 7:22:35 PM PDT by mommyq
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To: wally_bert

subpar doctor

I’d love to see a font by that name.


52 posted on 10/30/2011 7:22:56 PM PDT by freedomfiter2 (Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission both strengthen the hand of the devil.)
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To: VanDeKoik

“Some people hang onto it just to feel like they haven’t submitted to modern technology.”

....and some people hang onto it because it’s what they learned in school and have been using their whole lives. It’s faster, more fluid, lends itself to analysis, is elegant to the eye when done right, allows versitality and the ability to read historical documents and old letters, etc. on one’s own. And submitting to modern technology is very do-able along side of it.


53 posted on 10/30/2011 7:35:52 PM PDT by kelly4c
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To: IDontLikeToPayTaxes

Judging someone on they way they spell and punctuate on a public board is ridiculous. Especially when half the time people are posting using their phones with minute buttons. And they are probably in a hurry. What is this, compostion class??


54 posted on 10/30/2011 7:36:50 PM PDT by Reddy (B.O. stinks)
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To: IDontLikeToPayTaxes

Judging someone on they way they spell and punctuate on a public board is ridiculous. Especially when half the time people are posting using their phones with minute buttons. And they are probably in a hurry. What is this, composition class??


55 posted on 10/30/2011 7:37:05 PM PDT by Reddy (B.O. stinks)
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To: ConservativeStatement

Very soon, only homeschoolers will be able to read cursive. Mwahahahahahah


56 posted on 10/30/2011 7:38:20 PM PDT by Reddy (B.O. stinks)
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To: Sawdring

“Just look at the posts on this forum. Misspelled words, nonsensical sentences, and punctuation errors abound.

The comma before the “and” isn’t needed in your sentence...”

Disagree. The comma is there to separate each individual multiple item being listed. Without it, you are connecting “nonsensical sentences” and “punctuation errors” as one item in the list as opposed to two separate items.

Example-

“I like ice cream, candy, peanut butter, and jelly.”......vs. “I like ice cream, candy, and peanut butter and jelly.”

In the first sentence I am separating two commonly combined items into two separate thoughts while in the second I combining them into one common thought.


57 posted on 10/30/2011 7:50:57 PM PDT by JoenTX (?)
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To: KoRn

This is exactly as myself.

My signature is basically first initial, last initial...followed by some scribble but I always leave a dotted eye. However, it rarely looks the same way twice. Never gets questioned nor am I asked to pronounce it for anyone requesting it. If asked later if that’s my signature, I know how I do it and that’s actually my little secret...if you can ever read my name in cursive then I know it was not I who made it.

However, I love to print and do it very well. It looks much more appealing to me and I learned over the years to print more legibly, yet slower, than to hand-write with less clarity. For whatever reason, writing in cursive always made my hand much more tired for the given period of time versus printing. It seems counter-intuitive, but, that’s just the way it felt to me so I moved away from it.


58 posted on 10/30/2011 8:03:38 PM PDT by JoenTX (?)
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To: UB355

My newborn grandson will be taught at home by me when the time is right.


59 posted on 10/30/2011 8:04:36 PM PDT by My hearts in London - Everett (Still searching for the new tagline!)
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To: ConservativeStatement

I can’t lie. I stopped using cursive writing 15 years ago and I am 50 now. I can barely write it any more and can barely read it either.


60 posted on 10/30/2011 8:46:05 PM PDT by packrat35 (America is rapidly becoming a police state that East Germany could be proud of!)
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