5 ms·

I know zero people who write in cursive. I know very few people who even hand write anything.

coldtea 9y ago
I know few people who read anything worthwhile too, but that's not an argument.
BrandoElFollito 9y ago
I do not know anyone who writes in non-cursive. I live in France where cursive is the norm. Everyone I know hand writes on a whiteboard of a piece of paper. Or when they make a note to the teacher. Or when they use a post-it.
- tootie 9y ago
  In the US it's a dead art. I learned it as a kid and never use it. My kids are actually not learning it. It's been removed from the curriculum in New York and I'm pleased.
  - cglace 9y ago
    It's still very useful for taking notes. I find taking notes on a computer is not nearly as effective as taking notes with pen and paper.
  - BrandoElFollito 9y ago
    My reply was mostly for the "zero people" - contrasting it to "everyone" in other cultures. I think that cursive is hardly readable (mine certainly, other too - and we almost see only cursive here in France). Block letters (which I understand being separated letters, but still lower and upper case) is much better, but also much slower. Maybe that it is OK when someone is trained (where "OK" means " good enough for everyday handwriting, including taking notes"). A lot of discussions in this thread are probably due to the fact that we have, in France and most of Europe, either cursive, or capital block letters. We do not have the equivalent of typed text, where every letter is distinct (it is not that we cannot imagine how it looks like - it is just something we are not used to). The recent US handwriting I saw was by Donald Trump - and is is all uppercase. I hope that this is not the non-cursive everyone discusses about but just his own style of "uppercase block letters".
    - groovy2shoes 9y ago
      Here's some handwriting sample for you: https://i.imgur.com/0Pdq8Ci.jpg https://i.imgur.com/0Pdq8Ci.jpg Sorry for the poor photo quality, but it's the best I could manage to do at the moment. On the left is some writing that I did just now, just for you! On the right is a page of notes that I wrote a few weeks ago. It didn't occur to me to get anything in there for scale until just now, but the larger notebook (the one on the right) is roughly 13 cm across by 21 cm high. The smaller one 12.7 cm by 19.6 cm according to the cover. You can see on the right that I've written some elaborate headings... I'd imagine I'm one of very few people, if not the only person, who writes headings in such a script. Below that, you can see that I employ cursive and block for different purposes: most writing is in cursive, but "foreign" language (Old English in this case) words are written in block. I do similar things in other sorts of notes; for example, I might write source code or command names in block to keep them visually distinct from the commentary. In the US, it seems that most people these days "learn" cursive at some point, but abandon it the first chance they get. This wasn't always the case (my mom and my grandma write exclusively in cursive, for example). Personally, I tend to only write with block letters if the scribbles are intended for a recipient (or, as mentioned above, as a semantic device).
- bearbearbear 9y ago
  > I live in France where cursive is the norm. I live in Silicon Valley where I don't care where people who live anywhere else do it because they don't matter.
internetman55 9y ago
Do you know any undergrads? Writing notes in cursive was was essential to me taking a bunch of math and CS courses at once and doing well.

I know few people who read anything worthwhile too, but that's not an argument.

I do not know anyone who writes in non-cursive. I live in France where cursive is the norm. Everyone I know hand writes on a whiteboard of a piece of paper. Or when they make a note to the teacher. Or when they use a post-it.

tootie 9y ago
In the US it's a dead art. I learned it as a kid and never use it. My kids are actually not learning it. It's been removed from the curriculum in New York and I'm pleased.
- cglace 9y ago
  It's still very useful for taking notes. I find taking notes on a computer is not nearly as effective as taking notes with pen and paper.
- BrandoElFollito 9y ago
  My reply was mostly for the "zero people" - contrasting it to "everyone" in other cultures. I think that cursive is hardly readable (mine certainly, other too - and we almost see only cursive here in France). Block letters (which I understand being separated letters, but still lower and upper case) is much better, but also much slower. Maybe that it is OK when someone is trained (where "OK" means " good enough for everyday handwriting, including taking notes"). A lot of discussions in this thread are probably due to the fact that we have, in France and most of Europe, either cursive, or capital block letters. We do not have the equivalent of typed text, where every letter is distinct (it is not that we cannot imagine how it looks like - it is just something we are not used to). The recent US handwriting I saw was by Donald Trump - and is is all uppercase. I hope that this is not the non-cursive everyone discusses about but just his own style of "uppercase block letters".
  - groovy2shoes 9y ago
    Here's some handwriting sample for you: https://i.imgur.com/0Pdq8Ci.jpg https://i.imgur.com/0Pdq8Ci.jpg Sorry for the poor photo quality, but it's the best I could manage to do at the moment. On the left is some writing that I did just now, just for you! On the right is a page of notes that I wrote a few weeks ago. It didn't occur to me to get anything in there for scale until just now, but the larger notebook (the one on the right) is roughly 13 cm across by 21 cm high. The smaller one 12.7 cm by 19.6 cm according to the cover. You can see on the right that I've written some elaborate headings... I'd imagine I'm one of very few people, if not the only person, who writes headings in such a script. Below that, you can see that I employ cursive and block for different purposes: most writing is in cursive, but "foreign" language (Old English in this case) words are written in block. I do similar things in other sorts of notes; for example, I might write source code or command names in block to keep them visually distinct from the commentary. In the US, it seems that most people these days "learn" cursive at some point, but abandon it the first chance they get. This wasn't always the case (my mom and my grandma write exclusively in cursive, for example). Personally, I tend to only write with block letters if the scribbles are intended for a recipient (or, as mentioned above, as a semantic device).
bearbearbear 9y ago
> I live in France where cursive is the norm. I live in Silicon Valley where I don't care where people who live anywhere else do it because they don't matter.

internetman55 9y ago

Do you know any undergrads? Writing notes in cursive was was essential to me taking a bunch of math and CS courses at once and doing well.