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> In penmanship class, we learned a standard cursive font. I think it’s the standard cursive font, in fact. He's wrong that there's a standard cursive. Differe

> In penmanship class, we learned a standard cursive font. I think it’s the standard cursive font, in fact. He's wrong that there's a standard cursive. Different countries and different centuries have used a variety of different cursives. Most Americans who were taught cursive in school learned either Zaner-Bloser or D'Nealian, which both derive from Palmer. Both of them are terrible. They have indistinct letter shapes that degrade horribly when written quickly. Cursive Italic handwriting is much more legible, if slightly slower. There are popular systems including Getty-Dubay Italic and Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting. Both of those are fine, and should be strongly preferred to 19th-20th century cursive.

dwringer 5y ago
A few years ago I made a conscious effort to improve my handwriting and got a few fountain pens, to me transitioning from D'Nealian to a Spencerian variant was pretty easy and I think the latter is faster, more legible, and more comfortable to write. Although the differences are more significant IMHO if using a fountain pen.
- slowmovintarget 5y ago
  I'd toyed with fountain pens on and off for twenty years. In 2019, I dug an old Waterman Expert out of my closet, watched some videos for how to use bottled ink and converters and off I went into the hobby. I still use traditional late 20th century American cursive (D'Nealian, I think), but all the practice with fountain pens has made my handwriting more legible than it's been in a long time. Cursive came about because writing with quill and dip pens required you keep the nib on the paper for as long as possible, lest it dry out, or the ink drop to the page. Fountain pens aren't as bad in this regard, but still do better when the ink is flowing than just waving about in the air. I happily take work notes all day long with fountain pens (today I have a Pilot Custom 74 inked up). I wouldn't want to give them up.
  - throwanem 5y ago
    Likewise! And if you've yet to try a Vanishing Point or a Decimo, you've got a pleasant surprise in store, I think - I've found them nearly perfect for work notes in particular thanks to their speed and ease of one-handed operation. (The Vanishing Point was admittedly a little too big and heavy for comfort, but a Decimo has the same nib and mechanism in a lighter, narrower body. Looks a lot more elegant, too, with the smoother rounding of the shoulder.)
    - dwringer 5y ago
      The Decimo is a great form factor, it's also just about the most inconspicuous fountain pen possible so you won't get weird looks from people who've never seen a fountain pen before. That said I have one as well as a Custom 74, both in EF, and somehow I like the 74 a lot more in that size. The Decimo nib seems finer and is noticeably softer (18k vs 14k), and I'd prefer it with a medium nib for maximum smoothness. I think it also dries out a little bit, something that I've never had with the Custom 74. On the other end of the spectrum I have to recommend the Lamy Safari and Kaweco Sport for their utilitarian design and timeless aesthetics.
      - slowmovintarget 5y ago
        The award for utilitarian and timeless has to go to the Lamy 2000. The Safari is very good as a starter (though I'm partial to the Pilot Metropolitan or TWSBI Eco for starters). I don't have experience with the Kaweco Sport, though I hear only good things.
ubermonkey 5y ago
In re: different countries: students who study Russian (or, I assume, other languages that use a similar alphabet) typically learn to write Russian in cursive. The letter forms overlap with English/American cursive, but not perfectly, and of course there are OTHER letters, too, that we lack. (Russian cursive is also notoriously hard to read for non-native speakers owing to a few idiosyncrasies: some letters are entirely different written vs. in print, and the letter forms can lead to ambiguity -- certain letter combinations are effectively identical.) A near-universal phenomenon among people I've spoken with who took Russian in college is the unconscious blending of the two letter sets. Students, myself included, would routinely find themselves using Russian letters in English script while writing without realizing it, and sometimes even reading it later without realizing the presence of Russian letters. I knew it was happening to me, but it wasn't until I loaned my political science notes -- ostensibly in English! -- to a non-Russian-student pal that the prevalence of the swaps were really clear. "Uh, I absolutely cannot read this." Ooops. Anyway, it's tangential to this topic, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. This is the first link I found with illustrations of the Russian cursive alphabet: https://golearnrussian.com/russian-cursive/ https://golearnrussian.com/russian-cursive/
- bombcar 5y ago
  It’s very likely that English cursive is insufficient to really write the English words - since English pretends to only have 26 letters but so many do double or more duty - sometimes distinguished by diphthongs or other mechanisms but often just assumed you’ll know which pronunciation is right. I wonder if the Russian cursive slips in because it has sounds that are closer.
  - ubermonkey 5y ago
    "It’s very likely that English cursive is insufficient to really write the English words" That is a very, very weird assertion. In any case, the letters that would get swapped in were 1-for-1 replacements for the English ones, though, so I don't think that's the factor.
  - e_quaint 5y ago
srik 5y ago
This is a good comment. I do have a contrary opinion however as I generally recommend a spencerian derivative over an italic one to new learners these days. One could say simple Spencerian derivatives are like Rust with a steep learning curve to inculcate the core shapes into muscle memory but have lesser overhead during runtime owing to their dependence on muscle memory. Italic derivatives otoh more like Go, easier to pick up initially, but relative to penmanship variants have a higher runtime overhead. This is a silly analogy, but drawing from my experience teaching penmanship and calligraphy to people of different age groups is what I’ve seen to be true, mostly in younger age ranges. Older people usually do better with italic variations. A good reason, I recommend spencerian/penmanship derivatives is that they let one write more efficiently with higher precision during flow moments as letting muscle memory do the work helps with learning the task at hand. A small nitpick, Zanerbloser doesn’t derive from palmer script, but they both absolutely do belong to the same family.
- dwringer 5y ago
  Great point about muscle memory, I found it fascinating to learn Spencerian as it kind of distills the essence of writing to a surprisingly low number of forms (7 or 8 I think?), a kind of local optimum for Latin-based cursive. The hardest thing for me to learn about it, with which I still struggle, is keeping the arm posture correct and using the upper, rather than lower, part of the arm for control. I also found it really interesting to discover that the prescribed 52 degree writing angle for Spencerian is almost exactly what you get matching the diagonal on an 8.5" by 11" piece of paper (I'm surprised that's not more widely known!). Thus, rather than a difficult and seemingly arbitrary requirement, it's a super easy way of attaining consistency by simply rotating the page so its diagonal goes straight away from the writer. (If you're using US Letter paper, anyway)
  - srik 5y ago
    > The hardest thing for me to learn about it, with which I still struggle, is keeping the arm posture correct. It’s great that you recognize this handicap as dealing with it sooner rather than later is a good; bad posture is indeed harder to correct later as we know. The first measure you can take is course correcting yourself over shorter intervals i.e.Move The Paper towards yourself with no shame, even during the length of a line, as often as need be. Even Louis Madarasz did it, so don’t hesitate. But I think your fix becomes a habit, it becomes a non-issue later. > ... the proscribed 52 degree writing angle for Spencerian is almost exactly what you get matching the diagonal on an 8.5" by 11" piece of paper If this is true, you just blew my mind, thanks for sharing the discovery.
airstrike 5y ago
Here’s an image comparing the systems mentioned by the parent (excuse the .ru…) http://www.calligraphy-union.ru/EditorFiles/image/news/66315739ca7f84a7d0f3faf156792a93.jpg http://www.calligraphy-union.ru/EditorFiles/image/news/66315...
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  Nice. I learned cursive italic from a different source, but my handwriting looks almost exactly like that sample of Barchowsky Fluent.
squirt 5y ago
> Zaner-Bloser or D'Nealian, which both derive from Palmer. This is not accurate. Zaner predates Palmer. > Both of them are terrible. They have indistinct letter shapes that degrade horribly when written quickly. I would more attribute this to... 1. Unskilled modern penman 2. An eye that's unaccustomed to reading old script ... rather than something intrinsic to the style. Business penmanship was, after all, created to be fast & legible. Historical pieces of penmanship are most often legible, particularly when written by skilled penmen. Source: was professional penman, specifically studying 1860-1920 American penmanship.
musicale 5y ago
I like cursive italic a lot. + beautiful; consistent letter forms between printing and cursive - better with chisel vs. round tips; joins are still somewhat complicated
potta_coffee 5y ago
I'm almost certain I was taught Palmer in Christian school when I was a kid. I still hate how certain letters look but it's hard to change how I write now. 34 I've been at odds with the letter "r".

dwringer 5y ago

A few years ago I made a conscious effort to improve my handwriting and got a few fountain pens, to me transitioning from D'Nealian to a Spencerian variant was pretty easy and I think the latter is faster, more legible, and more comfortable to write. Although the differences are more significant IMHO if using a fountain pen.

slowmovintarget 5y ago
I'd toyed with fountain pens on and off for twenty years. In 2019, I dug an old Waterman Expert out of my closet, watched some videos for how to use bottled ink and converters and off I went into the hobby. I still use traditional late 20th century American cursive (D'Nealian, I think), but all the practice with fountain pens has made my handwriting more legible than it's been in a long time. Cursive came about because writing with quill and dip pens required you keep the nib on the paper for as long as possible, lest it dry out, or the ink drop to the page. Fountain pens aren't as bad in this regard, but still do better when the ink is flowing than just waving about in the air. I happily take work notes all day long with fountain pens (today I have a Pilot Custom 74 inked up). I wouldn't want to give them up.
- throwanem 5y ago
  Likewise! And if you've yet to try a Vanishing Point or a Decimo, you've got a pleasant surprise in store, I think - I've found them nearly perfect for work notes in particular thanks to their speed and ease of one-handed operation. (The Vanishing Point was admittedly a little too big and heavy for comfort, but a Decimo has the same nib and mechanism in a lighter, narrower body. Looks a lot more elegant, too, with the smoother rounding of the shoulder.)
  - dwringer 5y ago
    The Decimo is a great form factor, it's also just about the most inconspicuous fountain pen possible so you won't get weird looks from people who've never seen a fountain pen before. That said I have one as well as a Custom 74, both in EF, and somehow I like the 74 a lot more in that size. The Decimo nib seems finer and is noticeably softer (18k vs 14k), and I'd prefer it with a medium nib for maximum smoothness. I think it also dries out a little bit, something that I've never had with the Custom 74. On the other end of the spectrum I have to recommend the Lamy Safari and Kaweco Sport for their utilitarian design and timeless aesthetics.
    - slowmovintarget 5y ago
      The award for utilitarian and timeless has to go to the Lamy 2000. The Safari is very good as a starter (though I'm partial to the Pilot Metropolitan or TWSBI Eco for starters). I don't have experience with the Kaweco Sport, though I hear only good things.

ubermonkey 5y ago

In re: different countries: students who study Russian (or, I assume, other languages that use a similar alphabet) typically learn to write Russian in cursive. The letter forms overlap with English/American cursive, but not perfectly, and of course there are OTHER letters, too, that we lack. (Russian cursive is also notoriously hard to read for non-native speakers owing to a few idiosyncrasies: some letters are entirely different written vs. in print, and the letter forms can lead to ambiguity -- certain letter combinations are effectively identical.) A near-universal phenomenon among people I've spoken with who took Russian in college is the unconscious blending of the two letter sets. Students, myself included, would routinely find themselves using Russian letters in English script while writing without realizing it, and sometimes even reading it later without realizing the presence of Russian letters. I knew it was happening to me, but it wasn't until I loaned my political science notes -- ostensibly in English! -- to a non-Russian-student pal that the prevalence of the swaps were really clear. "Uh, I absolutely cannot read this." Ooops. Anyway, it's tangential to this topic, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. This is the first link I found with illustrations of the Russian cursive alphabet: https://golearnrussian.com/russian-cursive/ https://golearnrussian.com/russian-cursive/

bombcar 5y ago
It’s very likely that English cursive is insufficient to really write the English words - since English pretends to only have 26 letters but so many do double or more duty - sometimes distinguished by diphthongs or other mechanisms but often just assumed you’ll know which pronunciation is right. I wonder if the Russian cursive slips in because it has sounds that are closer.
- ubermonkey 5y ago
  "It’s very likely that English cursive is insufficient to really write the English words" That is a very, very weird assertion. In any case, the letters that would get swapped in were 1-for-1 replacements for the English ones, though, so I don't think that's the factor.
- e_quaint 5y ago

srik 5y ago

This is a good comment. I do have a contrary opinion however as I generally recommend a spencerian derivative over an italic one to new learners these days. One could say simple Spencerian derivatives are like Rust with a steep learning curve to inculcate the core shapes into muscle memory but have lesser overhead during runtime owing to their dependence on muscle memory. Italic derivatives otoh more like Go, easier to pick up initially, but relative to penmanship variants have a higher runtime overhead. This is a silly analogy, but drawing from my experience teaching penmanship and calligraphy to people of different age groups is what I’ve seen to be true, mostly in younger age ranges. Older people usually do better with italic variations. A good reason, I recommend spencerian/penmanship derivatives is that they let one write more efficiently with higher precision during flow moments as letting muscle memory do the work helps with learning the task at hand. A small nitpick, Zanerbloser doesn’t derive from palmer script, but they both absolutely do belong to the same family.

dwringer 5y ago
Great point about muscle memory, I found it fascinating to learn Spencerian as it kind of distills the essence of writing to a surprisingly low number of forms (7 or 8 I think?), a kind of local optimum for Latin-based cursive. The hardest thing for me to learn about it, with which I still struggle, is keeping the arm posture correct and using the upper, rather than lower, part of the arm for control. I also found it really interesting to discover that the prescribed 52 degree writing angle for Spencerian is almost exactly what you get matching the diagonal on an 8.5" by 11" piece of paper (I'm surprised that's not more widely known!). Thus, rather than a difficult and seemingly arbitrary requirement, it's a super easy way of attaining consistency by simply rotating the page so its diagonal goes straight away from the writer. (If you're using US Letter paper, anyway)
- srik 5y ago
  > The hardest thing for me to learn about it, with which I still struggle, is keeping the arm posture correct. It’s great that you recognize this handicap as dealing with it sooner rather than later is a good; bad posture is indeed harder to correct later as we know. The first measure you can take is course correcting yourself over shorter intervals i.e.Move The Paper towards yourself with no shame, even during the length of a line, as often as need be. Even Louis Madarasz did it, so don’t hesitate. But I think your fix becomes a habit, it becomes a non-issue later. > ... the proscribed 52 degree writing angle for Spencerian is almost exactly what you get matching the diagonal on an 8.5" by 11" piece of paper If this is true, you just blew my mind, thanks for sharing the discovery.

airstrike 5y ago

Here’s an image comparing the systems mentioned by the parent (excuse the .ru…) http://www.calligraphy-union.ru/EditorFiles/image/news/66315739ca7f84a7d0f3faf156792a93.jpg http://www.calligraphy-union.ru/EditorFiles/image/news/66315...

NoGravitas 5y ago
Nice. I learned cursive italic from a different source, but my handwriting looks almost exactly like that sample of Barchowsky Fluent.

squirt 5y ago

> Zaner-Bloser or D'Nealian, which both derive from Palmer. This is not accurate. Zaner predates Palmer. > Both of them are terrible. They have indistinct letter shapes that degrade horribly when written quickly. I would more attribute this to... 1. Unskilled modern penman 2. An eye that's unaccustomed to reading old script ... rather than something intrinsic to the style. Business penmanship was, after all, created to be fast & legible. Historical pieces of penmanship are most often legible, particularly when written by skilled penmen. Source: was professional penman, specifically studying 1860-1920 American penmanship.

musicale 5y ago

I like cursive italic a lot. + beautiful; consistent letter forms between printing and cursive - better with chisel vs. round tips; joins are still somewhat complicated

potta_coffee 5y ago

I'm almost certain I was taught Palmer in Christian school when I was a kid. I still hate how certain letters look but it's hard to change how I write now. 34 I've been at odds with the letter "r".