(no subject)

[rmd]

[Poll #1340512]

poll inspired by this article in the globe about the death of cursive writing. NB: back in 2006, 85% of kids taking the SAT wrote in block letters.

Comments

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

When I write by hand, and I don't want people to see my private notes, I will write in a block-style modification of the "Interlac" font that Keith Giffen developed for the comic book Legion of Super-Heroes back in the mid-1980s. I've had people mistake it for Japanese and Hebrew.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

...

this is the nerdiest thing i have read all week. possibly all month.

[smeehrrr.livejournal.com]

For people for whom Klingon and Quenya are just too mundane.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

I want to see this!

[ceo]

I need to introduce you to my former coworker Joe, who besides being a fine software engineer is also an organist and calligrapher. I once saw him writing in some alphabet I didn't recognize, which he described as "a calligraphic shorthand I came up with". He wrote me a note after I got laid off, that I'm tempted to frame.

[solarbird]

I've done typesetting design work in Steve Gallacci's "Standard" from the ALBEDO universe. For a while, I even had it on my business card. But I never wrote with it by hand. Damn.

Check Boxes?

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

The main place I use cursive is writing the amount on a check.

[pale-chartreuse.livejournal.com]

I always write in drafting style block capitals. I have trouble remembering how to write lower case letters and cursive, but i can do it if I concentrate and think about it very carefully. I have recently found that it is very easy for me to write gothic script with a fountain pen, but other forms of calligraphy elude me.

My favorite thing to write/draw/have in my hand is the Stabilo All Aquarellable No. 8008. It is a pencil that has a soft dark lead, it can hold a sharp point and at the same time squoosh down for shading or darkening effects, and it can write on paper, glass plastic and metal (pulls on boots).

[firni.livejournal.com]

My kid is learning cursive this year, and he's actually better at it than he is at block writing.

[istemi.livejournal.com]

Pilot G2 Gel Pen, baby! Second choice, something that grips the paper a little but still moves smoothly.

You left out an important poll question: When you write in cursive, can anyone else read it?

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

Those are the pens I like the best, too! Otherwise, in general, I want a point that is fine enough to not be sloppy, but not so fine that it's 'hard'. If that makes any sense.

[istemi.livejournal.com]

It absolutely does. If they make the scratchy sound, they're too hard.

[cz_unit]

I still write on my Newton in cursive; it contains a lot more information about words than block characters. And it's pretty though it can be tough for some people to read.

CZ

[n5red.livejournal.com]

I still have a MessagePad 110 around somewhere, would you be interested in it?

[cz_unit]

Oh thank you. However I have a MP120 now, and it's really pretty good for what I do (take notes and draw plans). You could ebay it.

CZ

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

On that last question: "What, no Clicky!?"

The problem I had with school penmanship is that I learned to do it "white-knuckle" style. When we had to do penmanship worksheets for grading, I was always the last to finish because I held my pencil in a death-grip and laboriously worked to make the letters look Just Like The Model. Nobody seemed to notice that I was doing this and that I wasn't developing any fluency... to this day it's work to write in cursive.

I really would *love* to learn to write in a fine Spencerian hand or somesuch, but I don't have the time to put into the necessary practice...

[firni.livejournal.com]

My son's teacher told me that part of his problem with block writing might have to do with the schools teaching it at a MUCH younger age than they used to (preschool, in some districts), they pick up bad habits and it sticks with them. He holds his pencil in his FIST to write, even in the 3rd grade. They gave him these little grippy things to put at the bottom of the pencil, showing him where to put his fingers, but I think it's going to take work to unlearn the bad habits.

The age thing is the only reason I can think of for him to be better at cursive than block, although the little grippy things probably help, too.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i have a big thing for sharpies.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

normal, extra thin, extra large, or all of the above?

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

all of the above :) my standard is the standard black medium, but i heart sharpies of all colors, sometimes am especially glad of my "pro" (extra-sticky-extra-pigment) model, and adore the metallics.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I like purple Sharpies, too.

[unclebooboo.livejournal.com]

I flunked handwriting every single year in elementary school, and in the days before the ADA and section 501, having a cerebral palsy diagnosis from your doctor wasn't enough to get you out of this. Now a days they'd probably just give me a computer and let me type everything. As it was, I took typing in junior high and from then on typed all of my assignments.

This would have been kind of funny except that it one point they were about to hold me back a year (despite reading at the 12th grade level in 4th grade!) because of my bad penmanship.

Now, like most mathematicians I write with upper and low case block letters using a pencil. I can type LaTeX almost as fast as I can hand write mathematics, so that's what I use for anything that I give to my students.

[flabosib.livejournal.com]

In the fourth grade, my teacher strongly recommended that my parents get me a typewriter. They did.

[marith.livejournal.com]

Hm, I can't offhand come up with a good argument for why everyone should still learn and use cursive, other than signatures.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Penmanship was my least favorite subject in grade school. I tried really hard but never got really good at it. I had huge fights with my teacher over it about how it was tedious and a waste of time. Despite that, I was trained to use cursive and used it in my writing almost exclusively. Once I learned how to type, at 16, I began to rely on word processing for in-depth writing and block printing for quick notes, and my cursive writing become less common. However, I still used cursive whenever I was writing anything of length and didn't have access to a keyboard.

At some point, my reliance on the keyboard killed my cursive writing, and it's in the process of destroying my block lettering too. I'm not sure exactly when I decided to abandon cursive. It would be interesting to look back at writings I still have and see if I can discern the switching point. I do recall that I used a hybrid style for a while where some of the cursive letters at the beginning of words, particularly capitals, were block printed. Ls and Ss and Gs and Qs--anything where the cursive version looks nothing like either the lower case cursive or block printing version.

[solarbird]

I was taught another writing system called Italics. I don't use it; I just print really fast. (Not 'block letters' as I understand the term, unless you're using that to mean "any printing." I use distinct upper and lower cases and there's nothing particularly blocky about the characters.)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah, i used "block letters" to mean "any 'ordinary' printing".

[n5red.livejournal.com]

I prefer to use a Pilot Extra Fine Rolling Ball pen (V5). So much so that I often wind up providing my own office supplies at work.

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

When I got my first real writing job, my then-wife gifted me with a wonderful Sensa pen, gel grip, takes space-pen refills. It's comfortable, attractive, and pretty much indestructible, which turns out to be a good thing because I think Sensa went out of business, so parts might be hard to find. I've carried it to work every day for the last seven years now.

I suppose it's technically a ball-point pen, but it's as far from a 39c bic pen as the AMG SLK F1 pace car is from a clapped-out Ford Pinto.

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

FWIW, Philip's (second grade) class is starting to learn cursive.

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

My handwriting flows between a nearly-cursive script of my own evolution (merging print and cursive) to a nearly-block script of the same, often within a sentence, and usually within a paragraph. But if I'm writing for someone else to be able to read it, I write in small caps. It's clear and hard to mistake one letter for another.

And I agree with the statement above about writing implements: fine enough to be clear but not so fine it's hard and scratchy. I find that combination most with gel pens and good pencils.

I do have a nostalgic fondness for the oversized little kid pencils, though, and will scoop them up at any opportunity. ;^)

[dpolicar]

I answered based on pre-stroke behavior; the answer now is more complicated but not fundamentally different.

Kinda

[mooshjan.livejournal.com]

I actually never did learn cursive z and q. I've always done them printed.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

I do printing, but not quite what I think of as "block printing." I used to write cursive, and it's kinda readable, but, really, not as readable as my printing is.

The fact that I use a fountain pen sometimes makes me wish I had a more ... archaic writing style of some sort, but what I've got is what I've got.

In high school I knew someone that took notes in a printing style. It looked perfectly type-written, and he could do it fast enough to keep in perfect pace with the lecturer. It was scary.

[smcmullan.livejournal.com]

My handwriting has been polluted by Graffiti. While it was already practically illegible, throwing in Graffiti T's and Y's and such really makes it tough for people who haven't seen it before.

Greeting cards and white boards are the only places I tend to hand-write anything that others are expected to read.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

graffiti only occasionally leaks into my handwriting. often when i'm writing in my checkbook, i'll find myself using a graffiti "A", for example.

[xthread.livejournal.com]

I use cursive for cards and letters - ie, 'it's just for special'

In part, this is because my hand-writing is rather appalling (I should probably work on that).
So, if I want readability, I'll go for block-printing. Unless I explicitly want someone to read what I've written slowly.

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, I hated penmanship worse than I hated stepping in dogshit. I can write in cursive, but I never do. If I have to write for someone else to read, it's block caps. My handwriting sucks and I can't bring myself to care even slightly.

Whoops! Rowan was me. :P

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

I write cursive, but do not know if I learned 'Palmer' style or some other style. I write what I learned in school, or some approximation thereof.

I like to write with pens, but am not particularly particular about what sort of pen.

I often want checkboxes when all I get are radio buttons.

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

I generally write in cursive because I'm much faster at that than writing in block letters. But my handwriting is really awful, so if I need it to be more legible, I'll take the time to write in block letters.

[cme]

If I can't use a fountain pen, I prefer a roller-ball, then gel or felt-tip. Ballpoints aggravate my wrist issues.

[jessicac.livejournal.com]

I am in the process of learning calligraphy. :)

I prefer to write in ink, with a primary preference for green/purple/burgundy inks and a secondary preference for black ink. I think the standard bic blue is my least favorite color to write with.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

ooh! it hadn't occurred to me to poll on preferred ink color.

i sense another poll coming on. :-)

[corivax.livejournal.com]

My "regular" handwriting has some cursive elements, I think? I modeled it on an italic font I found in an old novel as a kid.