Today I had an emergency & went to the Murfreesboro VA facilty instead of Nashville. Not to say Nashville is bad, but the Murfreesboro emergency care was incredible. While I was there I started reading a board of letters written by students to veterans. All were nice letters printed in the style of 2nd Graders. Even though my generation degraded the cursive style to an unreadable form, the 2nd Grade writing I was reading turned out to be by Middle School students!

Hukt ownn Foniks werkt 4 Mee!

If you want to feel bad over your own handwriting, watch some caligraphy videos.

Funny you should mention you saw this in a hospital. I'll take readable handwriting over that of a typical doctor.



This shit could kill somebody if a nurse or pharmacist misreads it and administers the wrong drug or something. As for myself, I gave up cursive as soon as I could get away with it, and only print in all caps. It doesn't look like second-grade, however, and I have received compliments for it. On occasions when I have to sign a check or document, my cursive has devolved into unreadability.

I have a friend that works at the Murfreesboro va. He works on the mentally handicapped floor for many years. He always tells me he will take care of me when it’s my turn...great hospital.

I cannot write at all somehow over time I switched to a left handed slant and it was all downhill.I print everything except my unreadable signature.

 
I fondly recall the cursive alphabet above the blackboard in school (do they even use blackboards any more?). I learned it, and at one point picked up calligraphy as a hobby. Now my cursive stinks, my signature is illegible. When some places (such as on financial instruments) they insist you sign with your full name, it takes me about five minutes to struggle it out.
 

I used to get written statements from witnesses or accident victims,back when I was still on the Cop job. Many of them were incomprehensible.

Insane spelling mistakes, one long, run on sentence, unreadable printing. Sadly many of these were written by College graduates.

I always get a kick out of this:

Jeanne Robertson - "Learning Cursive ... Or Not"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4OxmFfKStA

quote:

Originally posted by FN in MT:
I used to get written statements from witnesses or accident victims,back when I was still on the Cop job. Many of them were incomprehensible.

Insane spelling mistakes, one long, run on sentence, unreadable printing. Sadly many of these were written by College graduates.

Give them a box of crayons and ask them to recreate events by drawing stick figures.

quote:

Give them a box of crayons and ask them to recreate events by drawing stick figures.

Yeah it worked for Mr. Wu.

when I was in grade school, back in the 1950s, handwriting was actually a graded subject on report cards. I am a lefty. I failed cursive every semester. Finally, I got permission to print everything. Now, at 68, I find my cursive ain't half bad.

I still enjoy cursive and my fountain pens.

Recently went to cash a check I wrote at a bank and the teller complimented me on my "calligraphy."
I hesitated but decided to set her straight. It was simply cursive script written with an extra broad oblique italic nib.

quote:

when I was in grade school, back in the 1950s, handwriting was actually a graded subject on report cards. I am a lefty. I failed cursive every semester.

Yeah I can relate. Penmanship was the only subject I ever failed. My old man told me that I could never be a cop because no one could read my handwriting on traffic tickets.

Wut R U talkin bout?

I never could get my handwriting neat enough to pass writing class. I was relieved to learn it was in elementary school only.

Cursive was required when I went to school, but I found it wasn't in the cards for me. I haven't used it in decades, and I print. Everyone else I know does too. My father did too.

I write extensively. I do some of the rough draft work on the keyboard, but a lot of it when traveling in a workbook, writing by hand. All the editing is done on a computer. When I handwrite, it's not in cursive.

Handwriting is communication. There's nothing wrong with printing it.

My computer doesn't default to cursive. Neither do I.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
Cursive was required when I went to school, but I found it wasn't in the cards for me. I haven't used it in decades, and I print. Everyone else I know does too. My father did too.

I write extensively. I do some of the rough draft work on the keyboard, but a lot of it when traveling in a workbook, writing by hand. All the editing is done on a computer. When I handwrite, it's not in cursive.

Handwriting is communication. There's nothing wrong with printing it.

My computer doesn't default to cursive. Neither do I.

I agree with this. I was told in school if I didn’t learn cursive I would never survive in the real world, so I learned it. But I’ve never met a single person/business that required me to write in cursive and it’s not my default style of writing. It would probably take me 5 times longer to write something in cursive than it would to print it because I would have to put a little thought into the letters to write in cursive.

What does drive me crazy is people’s inability to print legibly. If you leave me a note or write a report on something I should at least be able to read it without having to stop and decipher the words.

My cursive went to hell when I stated doing intakes and interviews. I just had to collect so much data that a nice cursive didn’t work. Then I was adding shorthand terminology.
My signature is a mess. However,I’m told that this is a good thing as forging it is difficult.

It is not taught anymore, and now that it was mentioned, I just went to my sons 6th grade orientation the other day, and no they do not have blackboards anymore.

quote:

and no they do not have blackboards anymore.

And how does a teacher explain a math problem?