>Well, my penmanship (ie, cursive) sucked back then so as soon as I was able to I switched to printing Same here [if by 'printing' you're referring to handwrit

>Well, my penmanship (ie, cursive) sucked back then so as soon as I was able to I switched to printing Same here [if by 'printing' you're referring to handwriting in a non-cursive way]. My English teacher took me to one side at about age 12 and asked me to print in future as he couldn't read my 'joined-up writing' [as we call it over here]. I've been printing ever since. But, over the subsequent decades, my printing handwriting has evolved into a cursive format all my own, which is also an odd mix of small caps and lower case, which join together in various ways. I think it's quite elegant myself, though I doubt my old English teacher would agree. Anecdata: I was involved in teaching at university level, for quite a few years, and was shocked at how 'infantile' most of my students' handwriting was. As per above; all of my generation could do 'joined-up writing' even if, as in my case, it was barely legible. But my students' writing was like the clumsy handwriting of children just learning to write; each character printed separately, leaning in all directions and all different sizes. And these were art students who [allegedly!] should have been amongst the more dextrous, when it came to handling a pen. Not so many years ago, you could make a reasonable guess at someone's age, by their handwriting. Printing for young children, clumsy simplified cursive for older children, more practiced simplified cursive for adults and the older, more involved style cursive for their parents' generation. It won't be long now til everyone is only able to write like infants.