4 ms·
The sad decline of cursive
- Brajeshwar 3y agoRead the non-paywall version at https://archive.ph/ONRfE https://archive.ph/ONRfE
- jll29 3y agoA range of abilities seem to be in decline: - inability to hand-write - inability to solve an equation system or to calculate the zero points of a polynomial - inability to read a book cover to cover and to summarize its contents - inability to listen to a 2 hour lecture concentrated and to take notes - inability to conduct a scholarly literature search on a topic (other than coming back with 8 blue Web links) - inability to find the library or to use it other than for drinking coffee with friends - inability to read a daily newspaper or weekly news magazine to stay informed about current events
- christiangenco 3y agoDon’t forget: - inability to milk a cow - inability to chisel messages on a stone tablet - inability to navigate the seas using only the stars - inability to light a lantern without spilling the oil - inability to decipher a message sent via smoke signals - inability to troubleshoot a malfunctioning sundial - inability to sharpen a quill
- coldtea 3y agoSome skills similar to those would be great abilities to have still, and way more environmentally friendly and self-succifient than our current dependencies... But the comparison of those with the parent's list, as if to imply the parent's items are equally useless or "deprecated", is indeed very troubling...
- deafpolygon 3y agoSmoke signals environmentally friendly? Fun.
- coldtea 3y agoCompared to the "smoke" emissions of the huge infrastructure for electrical powered signals (whether directly fossil fuel powered or "renewable" using panels and wind turbines still built, transported, and installed with hugely polluting resources and processes, themselves powered by fossil fuels)? You'd be surprised. And that's just a first level comparison, a meta level would include the huge waste enabled by a real-time inter-connected world, over one with limited local signalling abilities.
- _Algernon_ 3y agoIf the material that is burned is wood, no net addition to the carbon cycle occurs. The issue with burning fossil fuels isn't the burning, it's the fossil fuels.
- deafpolygon 3y agoBut knowing people, they'll find some way to make cheap, quickly manufactured smoke signal machines.
- pvg 3y agothe GP's thing is a list of generic, nigh-ageless kids-these-days gripes so it's a decent target for light mockery.
- yawboakye 3y agothe parent list rues lost sharpness of mind/mental industry in the general population. a few people still have it, and it makes them our overlord, inevitably. compared thus, your list is nonsense: a careless slapdash composed in a quick, gotcha-y response to a well-deserved criticism.
- timrichard 3y agoAnd before the gramophone was invented, getting the latest tune for home entertainment often meant bringing the sheet music home and sight reading it at the family piano. I don't have a wider point to make about modern skill levels, but I do admire such things being fairly common.
- LeanderK 3y agowhile some are negative effects of other activities (smartphones etc.), some are just in decline because their usage is in decline, which is ok. I haven't used the library to check out a book in years and I rarely write something by hand except to take notes. And despite me having taken post-graduate level pure math-lectures, I will struggle to solve an equation system that involves concrete numbers instead of variables that also don't cancel, i am just astonishingly bad at mental arithmetic. I disagree for some, like "inability to conduct a scholarly literature search on a topic (other than coming back with 8 blue Web links)" and "inability to read a daily newspaper or weekly news magazine to stay informed about current events". Some don't care and some do, so they either research or try to be as lazy as possible. I can imagine it's always been this way.
- Ylpertnodi 3y ago>- inability to solve an equation system or to calculate the zero points of a polynomial Often overlooked skills in the modern world...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- finnjohnsen2 3y agoThese days I find I spend more time finding an actual pen and paper that writing what I needed
- eesmith 3y ago> Palmer Penmanship Method Is the author at least 70 years old? Or was his parochial school behind the times? "By the mid-20th century, the Zaner-Bloser Method was the most popular style of penmanship instruction in the US, while interest in the Palmer Method had been declining from the 1950s" says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaner-Bloser_(teaching_script) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaner-Bloser_(teaching_script) and "When the D'Nealian Method was introduced in 1978, it quickly became popular and led to a significant decline in the use of the previously leading Zaner-Bloser Method" says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Nealian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Nealian . The author was born in 1950 says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Queenan_(author) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Queenan_(author) so most likely just behind the times. > As for the stately, elegant penmanship of the kind I was taught in grade school, just forget it. Beautiful handwriting is a thing of the past. For elegant penmanship, see Spencerian script at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencerian_script https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencerian_script , where you'll also read "President James A. Garfield called the Spencerian script, "the pride of our country and the model of our schools."" Before then was English roundhand, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_hand . The Palmer Method is a less elegant script so people could write faster and compete with the typewriter.
- alpaca128 3y agoIt's in decline because it's inefficient and almost everything connected to text is done on the PC. When I wrote in cursive after school taught it my handwriting was slow, cumbersome and ugly. Now it's just ugly. And switching from ink to ballpoint pens solved the blue hand problem. I admire how some people can draw flawless cursive letters but calligraphy doesn't seem to be my cup of tea. Would be nice if computers had support for it, though.
- helsinkiandrew 3y agoRelated: Gen Z never learned to read cursive: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32884213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32884213 What Is Killing Cursive? Ballpoints. Probably: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37571180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37571180 The importance of handwriting is now better understood: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37909756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37909756
- coldtea 3y ago[flagged]
- kieckerjan 3y agoI have been a correspondent all my life, starting long before computers and e-mail showed up (at least in my life). Thoughts would be exchanged on paper and in handwriting and through the grateful use of the postal system. (There is nothing like hearing the sound of the mailbox and racing downstairs to find a heavily stamped, bulky envelope on the doormat with your name on it in a familiar hand, but that is another matter.) Part of corresponding that way is becoming familiar with each other's handwriting. This can be laborious but it is rewarding in its own right. When I was at the university I had a lengthy correspondence with a friend who had, even at that tender age, a well exercised hand: thick expressive staccato lines in pitch black fountain pen ink. They looked more like the outlines of spiky mountain ranges than words. Deciphering her handwriting would mean you had to go slowly, letting the words sink in one by one. Which only enhanced their impact for she wrote achingly beautiful letters. Her handwriting befitted her fearless character, complemented her writing and forced me to pay close attention. Try saying that about an e-mail in Helvetica 12pt.
- tifadg1 3y agoSome 15-20 years ago, it was common among Europeans to make fun of Americans for writing in block-style. These days, I imagine, most Europeans have trouble deciphering what they write, so they use a mix of block and cursive - aka cursive as taught to a toddler. I now wish I learned how to write block faster because I can't use cursive without it becoming mostly unreadable and I can't use blocks without slowing down too much. In other developments, I see recursive coming out on a resurgence in some self-help circles - marketed as a tool to unlock your inner potential, relieve stress/anxiety - just shows that forget about something long enough and you can relabel it to make some money.
- jakubmazanec 3y agoAbout 10-15 years ago in Czechia, there was created a new font for teaching kids in elementary school: https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comenia_Script#/media/Soubor:Comenia.png https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comenia_Script#/media/Soubor:C... AFAIK its usage isn't widespread.
- hknmtt 3y agoit's not sad. cursive is horrible writing style. most people cannot even read their own writing. yes, it can be done properly but it takes a very long time to practice and writing this, clear and readable, way is slow. hence why most people switched to small case printed letter writing, or the hand-written style of it. even a bad writer can get his works read. a bad cursive writer can not. and the compromise between speed and readability is better. some go with full on printing style letters but even though they offer best readability, speed of writing is the worst.
- 23B1 3y agoI write all the time as I slowly ramp down my reliance on computers. It has been one of the rare joys in my life to identify which things I don’t actually need a computer or phone for. Next year I’ll go to paper calendar(s). Here’s the thing(s) that I’ve gone full analog on: 1. Reminders. Use a small moleskin notebook in my pocket and cross things off when they’re done. Really satisfying, that crossing-off. 2. Notes. I just use a tear away pad for notes and a self-inking date stamp. As the notes stack up, if I don’t use them in a few months then I didn’t need them and I toss them. 3. Books. I have stopped buying kindle/ebooks and now have paper books. They are far less expensive now and I can browse them both on the shelf, and whichever highlights I’ve made very quickly. Ebooks are a scourge, a censor’s delight, and also are useless for quickly finding information unless you have a keyword etc. The Kindle apps are especially useless for anyone who wants to do serious thinking/research/scanning. 4. Brainstorming. I have a chalkboard, an old one, got it for $20. I put it on casters so I can wheel it around the room. Great for planning and social discussion too. 5. Letters/notes. I can leave them for my wife or write notes to my friends and they’re delighted. Why did we stop doing this? 6. Letterpress! I bought a small tabletop press and a ton of old lead type. I have yet to really master it yet but have made some cool tests/samples for gifts. I think my whole setup cost less than $1000, I have maybe 200 typesets/weights/sizes. Improving your penmanship and doing things analog is quite satisfying. You can keep your futurecel techbro futurist nonsense, when the grid has failed and the surveillance panopticon has imprisoned you, I’ll be happily writing and distributing Constitution 2.0 ;-)
- rob74 3y agoI'm left-handed, so as far as I'm concerned, the decline of handwriting (cursive or not) can continue. As a leftie, you either have to contort your wrist or put up with smearing over what you just wrote - ballpoint pens (only the best - most of them are prone to deposit blotches of ink that can be smeared from time to time) are a relief, fountain pens a bane. Or you can move to Israel or an Arab country and start writing right to left...
- 0x38B 3y agoThis link (1) works to read the article. My usual go-to is archive.today, but I am getting endless captchas there today. 1: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/the-sad-decline-of-cursiveespecially-my-own-2c13930?st=h487nq5ml24r57e&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/the-sad-decline-of-cursiveespe... (link from https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/372943-the-sad-decline-of-cursive%E2%80%94especially-my-own/ https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/372943-the-sa...)
- somedude895 3y agoAre there any good (free) courses on YT or elsewhere for learning pretty cursive?
- nonewupdate 3y agoWith cursive you don't lift the pen so you write faster, which is the point, to me at least. Like touch typing, not for everyone, but comparing it to stone carving is a stretch (although funny and thought provoking).
- timw4mail 3y agoMy print letters flow together so I don't end up lifting the pen(cil) as much.
- rasse 3y agoI can't tell whether the article is a work of sarcasm or the author is unable to grasp the entirely subjective nature of beauty. Very analogous to the numerous articles both on WSJ and elsewhere complaining about "ugly" architecture.
- 4b11b4 3y agoI began writing cursive again on my reMarkable 2 for better undo/redo.
- MongoTheMad 3y agoThen you can send as SVG or PDF via email.
- jfengel 3y agoAlso, the sad decline of onion-belt wearing.
- woleium 3y agoIt was the fashion at the time