What caused cursive to die?

[Bateluer]

Because most handwritten cursive handwriting looks more like this.

 

[thescreensavers]

^ Dear god, what the hell, I cant read that

 

[MovingTarget]

Perhaps it was the introduction of the ballpoint pen, perhaps the rise of technology, etc. I believe that it is simply the rise of poor penmanship.

 

[mmntech]

I stopped writing cursive in my freshman year of college. I would write notes, then later realize my own writing was illegible. Cursive was faster but I write like a doctor. Got a laptop instead, then just printed everything else.

 

[BoredWork]

so, now we dont have to use cursive to sign a legal document..or did we ever have to?

 

[Blitzvogel]

I like cursive to be honest, but when I quit doing it when I was required to anymore in 5th grade or so. I kind of wish I kept at it, as it really is faster than general print. However, my current style of writing is very print meets cursive where certain letters will tend to connect and flow into each other. I really like the way it looks lol.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Because most handwritten cursive handwriting looks more like this.

Here is as promised, a sample of my scroll. It is not a pretty unit as many people have difficulty reading it. I do have some sympathy us love have been timer when I've been hard pushed is decipher what I've written! Anyway I hope it will be of help till be most interested to know what it reveals about my personality. For your information I'm v2 leau of rye mule tight handed.
1000 head!

How did I do?

 

[nageov3t]

it was pretty sad... I was at the FDR Presidential Library today and all the documents on display were written in cursive.

it looked very pretty, but I could only actually read one in five.

after grammar school, my teachers stopped caring. my high school teachers just told us to write in whichever style was more comfortable/legible for us. ditto in college.

 

[Imp]

I never used cursive except to screw around after I was taught it in grade 3 or 4. Illegible turd. Damn doctors all decided to use it though (admin assitant job in healthcare facility), and some decided a few swiggles made a word. Loved it when they used it for scientific words or conditions I had no clue about.

 

[moshquerade]

 

[halik]

I see fewer and fewer young adults writing in cursive. Personally, I have not used cursive in maybe 25 years. Even when I was in high school I did not write in cursive unless I was made to.

And now, Indiana schools might stop teaching cursive.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07/06...ng-indiana-schools-can-stop-teaching-cursive/

When I was in school, I never understood why students were taught to write 2 times - print and cursive. The whole process seemed like a was of time and effort on the school and teachers part.

I am glad to see cursive die, I can not read half of that hen scratch anyway.

When I moved to us from europe, I had to stop writing in curve, as no one knew how to read it.

 

[fatpat268]

Meh. I'm not the best cursive writer there is (far from it), but I never cared whether I write in cursive or print. Whenever I write, I randomly switch to cursive and back to print in random spots. It's legible, so I'm told, so I don't care.

Also, I had to learn two types of cursive writing... both German and American.
Here's the german:

IMO, the german version is actually simpler. Although, I could never do the damn X correctly.

 

[SparkyJJO]

It's a bear to read. All the loopy loops and then throw in a few years of sloppiness and it becomes near impossible to read.

Besides, who's bright idea was it to make some of the letters so overly complicated, and why does the cursive lowercase z have a tail just like a y? Durrrr

Cursive is named that for a reason, makes you want to curse every time you see it 😀

I use "chicken scratch" printing for most of my random notes as I was always faster at that than cursive anyway. If I want to hand write something that looks nice, then I use italics (basically cursive in a simpler form, makes much more sense). Other than that, I use a computer.

 

[Luzah]

To be honest, ever since I learned how to write cursive I have always wrote in both cursive and print. I have never used just one or the other. Half of any word I write will be in cursive, the other half print. I don't understand why I do this, but I've never received any complaints about it so I will continue to write the fastest way I know how.

 

[makken]

I learned 4 ways to write when I was in school: Print (as far back as I can remember), Cursive (3rd grade), Calligraphy (very different from cursive - 5th grade history), and Drafting Lettering (11th grade)

Of those, the two I still use are drafting lettering and cursive. Drafting lettering I use when legibility is paramount (eg. forms), and cursive I use when I need to write down something quickly.

 

[Loop2kil]

I actually write so seldom now that when I do, I end up doing both and have to redo it or just accept looking like an idiot.

 

[Jeff7]

Technology.
Businesses stopped wanting handwritten memos and reports a LONG time ago. Too inefficient. Needed to be on a computer so everyone could see it in a split second.

College is pretty much supposed to prepare you for the work force so........

And it's funny how inefficient paper has become in terms of spatial efficiency, when pitted against something like a PDF or Word file on a hard drive. You've got drives out now with >600Gb/in² areal density per platter, and of course the manufacturers can just toss multiple platters into one drive.
My preference is to have something as an electronic copy, rather than paper. Paper takes up too much space by comparison, and it lacks the searchability of something on a computer.

Cursive's main goal is to be faster than printing. That's gone out the window with electronic input being much faster, with none of the disadvantages of cursive (harder to read, harder to teach/learn).

Well-written cursive is readable, but about a third of the cursive I see is totally illegible. Suitable for personal notes to be read only by the person who wrote them (although in many cases, the writer can't even read their own handwriting!).

Good riddance I say. My handwriting might not be pretty, but it's completely legible to anyone who can read English.

I always preferred printing to cursive, because printing was faster.:\
(And I preferred typing over printing, because I never could write quickly and have it be legible as well. That was likely something that held back my cursive writing speed - it seemed to take more coordination to do it neatly and legibly. As anyone who I ever had gym class with could attest to, physical coordination on any level was never one of my strong suits.)

 

[Synomenon]

I still remember this thread:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=281822

 

[Inspector Jihad]

i take notes in cursive cause its way faster than print or typing for me.

 

[Nox51]

I learned cursive originally, pretty much the same as that German cursive example above. Over the years I modified it, mainly by printing all the capital letters as it is faster than making them loop around and round.

Most people that try to read over my clean set of notes for uni say that I have very neat handwritting but can't really read them. Serves them right for trying to read my notes in the first place!

That said, and after marking exams for Uni, I feel really sorry for the ppl who have to mark my essays!

 

[vi edit]

Cursive is way too open for "artistic interpretation". There's a reason why so many documents have a line that says "PRINT LEGIBLY" and then another for "Signature".

Humans are an interesting combination of wanting to be unique little snowflakes and put our own mark on the world as well as being natively lazy when it comes to basic tasks like writing.

I don't agree with the argument that not learning to write in cursive will prevent us to from being to read past documents. There's a huge difference in recognition of something and being able to reproduce it. We all know what an ampersand, the "@" symbol, and squigly bracket {} mean...but how many can reliably draw them cleanly?

Same goes for other things like logos, paintings, symbols, ect. We are programmed to recognize based off of patterns and shapes. That's how we function. Learning letters is easy.

Reproducing them legibly is the real art.

 

[Blackjack200]

I ignored cursive for about 20 years until someone in my company left a note on my desk written in very neat cursive. It looked really classy, so I decided to relearn it. My cursive is passable now, I want to get to the point where I can write as fast as I can print, and have it look much better.

 

[SagaLore]

Here is as promised, a sample of my scroll. It is not a pretty unit as many people have difficulty reading it. I do have some sympathy us love have been timer when I've been hard pushed is decipher what I've written! Anyway I hope it will be of help till be most interested to know what it reveals about my personality. For your information I'm v2 leau of rye mule tight handed.
1000 head!

How did I do?

Here's it as promised, a sample of my scroll. It is not a pretty sight as many people have difficulty reading it. I do have some sympathy as there have been times when I've been hard pressed to decipher what I've written! Anyway I hope it will be of help will be most interested to know what it reveals about my personality. For your information I'm 52 years of age and right handed.

That is a really terrible example of cursive. That's actually not cursive at all, its just a very sloppy print/cursive hybrid and for some reason has a leftward lean.

 

[edro]

I had a heated argument with a jury when I was on jury duty.
They were all old bags and 2 of them were teachers.
They were complaining that none of the youth know how to write cursive and that schools are taking it out of the curriculum.
I told them that it is useless and all you need is printing and typing.
They got pissed and asked me how I would write a signature.
I told them the kids could simple print their signature. A signature is just a personalized writing of your name.
They said NO, it MUST be in cursive.

It's fun arguing with old people who think the old way is the best.

 

[rasczak]

I use a mix of both in my handwriting. It's sloppy, but it works.