Cursive (also known as script , among other names[a]) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters.
Almost all young people I know write in block letters. Writing in cursive seems like a thing of the past which I think is sad because I enjoy cursive writing. What type of handwriting do you have?
I’m old enough that I learned cursive handwriting in school as a kid, but I haven’t used it since high school. Block lettering is simply more readable, and producing highly legible text is always my primary goal when I bother to write by hand at all.
Block. I enjoy cursive and if I write a letter to someone it’s in cursive, but I have no friends so letters don’t get written anymore. So if I’m leaving notes or writing things, it’s block letters. These days, if I find a reason to send a letter, it’s normally typed out on an electric typewriter for that extra bit of fun anyways.
Does scribble writing count as both? Block writing takes too long when a college professor is rattling off information, shorthand can be great to combat that but I have yet to master it. So a scribble form of cursive/block is been my go-to.
Cool Topic…I routinely utilize block, script, and scrolls.
From a very early age, I have always had an aptitude for nice script in regard to hand writing. I must have been destine for single stroke lettering early on. I routinely practice “old school” hand lettering to take full advantage of my apprenticeship with a retired sign painter named Darrel Dean Malden…“Dopey Dean!”
Whereas, I’ll be lettering and numbering a Vintage Dragster soon upon request. Drop shadowed…D/A 286 (Dragster/Altered 286ci) Flatheads Revenge.
Sadly, artistic lettering has far less cultural traction in the west than it does in, for instance, Japan. But it’s nice to see the art form continuing on with a new generation.
I learned cursive in grade school but always found it too slow for note-taking as well, so I always printed / half-scripted through most of my schooling. Then in residency, I found the nurses would page me less if I wrote really really legibly, so block printing was what I have been mostly doing. Then I discovered fountain pens about 10 yrs ago and since then have with haphazard practice evolved my cursive beyond that of a 4th grader into something I use for letters or cards. It’s fun to “draw” words and to learn about the different older school lettering styles (e.g., Spencerian, Palmer, D’Nealian, etc.)
You do solid work! There’s a number of cool hand letters that I follow on IG that your lettering remind me of. My favorite is Ray Mawst!
Cursive, just because it’s faster than printing. My penmanship is terrible but usually I’m the only one who needs to read my writing so it’s almost like a secret code.
Ivan
Happy Cake Day!
Thanks! A year ago I was just starting out with my new Replay Pro and didn’t even know the Trapeze. What a good year it’s been.
Ivan
They don’t teach kids how to write in cursive anymore, at least where I live.
When I was a kid, they taught it, but we didn’t actively practice it like block letters - and we only used it specifically when the teacher told us to. I was scolded in 2nd grade for using cursive on regular homework.
Another thing I noticed was the decline of penmanship as a whole over time. In my generation, if you had good penmanship… “you write like a girl.” because most boys penmanship remained at the level of a 3rd grader.
When I was in school this was basically what I did, and is really the only way I found to write as fast as possible. The goal is for you to be able to read it later for reference, so it doesn’t have to be pretty or even legible to someone else (would be nice, but sometimes you just have to pen down a ton of info, diagrams, etc real quick or you don’t get everything).
If you are attending a lecture on anything more information based however (I studied the sciences and math), I find that a laptop keyboard would be ideal. I can type up to 80-90 wpm and wouldnt even dream of being able to pen anything at that rate. And if you develop a shorthand, can basically steno-type a lecture if you are good enough.
As for my daily life and work, I use block letter print. If im writing out a check, I use a block all-caps approach like you would see on engineering/architecture documents. I like to stylize it a bit, but im far from artistic. Otherwise I use “write like a girl” neat print that slides to sloppy if im in a hurry. It has to be legible, and I find sloppy cursive to be impossible to read, whereas sloppy block (to an extent) is much more legible.
When writing quickly for someone that needs to read my writing, I will focus more on letters and numbers that can be misinterpreted when sloppy (7 9 T, c a e o, 2 z, 0 O, 5 S, 6 G, n m, etc). You can tell at a quick glance if your scratch is legible, so if not, make it. I deal with accession numbers (letter/number IDs) in scientific testing, so if you are writing these down they have to be clear.
So basically all caps for style, clean “girl” writing for everything else.
Yep. Actual “girl” handwriting is slightly more bubbly than mine, but “girl” writing to me is synonymous with neat, uniform letters that are very legible. Ive met women with crappy stereotypical doctor script, but nevertheless “girl” writing is neat and clean writing. Boy writing is chicken scratch.
I write in cursive whenever I am writing more than a couple words on something.
At my last job, I had hired on a young lady and realized we didn’t have any good training materials for her to reference after I trained her (corporate material was useless.)
I wrote out about 5 pages of material in cursive. Mind you, my hand writing is very pretty, growing up I was always told it was as pretty as a girls (I’ll take it, woman write very pretty, I’m glad to be on that level )
I gave them to the new hire. She took it to a coworker and expressed she was never taught how to read or write in cursive, she was embarrassed to bring it to me. That coworker told me, and I felt terrible for her, and disappointed with whomever decided to stop teaching it.
The other coworker and myself quickly transcribed thinks over to block print. The new hire went in to be a wonderful employee.
I switch back and forth, although most of my writing is a weird mix of the two.
The youngsters on this forum had to google, “What is Handwriting?”
Immediately followed by, “What is a Pencil?”
My classmates and I started out learning printing for handwriting. Then at about eight or nine years old we learned cursive and were required to submit just about everything in cursive. At the time the feeling was that cursive was something adults and older kids did. Printing was something we of course all knew and used, but it was definitely considered the lesser form of handwriting.
Times and communication needs have changed. I just feel sad that when future generations and many today will visit Independence Hall or look over their family’s letters or journals, what they see will mostly look like a code or some type of hieroglyphics to them.
Today, I jot down quick phone notes, grocery lists, and just about everything with printing, but send letters or notes of thanks with cursive.
Up until a year ago, my notes at work and church were in manuscript and it was ugly because of needing to write fast. Then when my kids were required to do cursive at school I forced myself to use cursive fulltime for everything. Now I really like it, and it’s faster and more legible. It was helpful and fun to revive the skill. On the side, I also think it’s good for your brain.
One quirky addition… I’m naturally left handed for handwriting, but play most sports and yoyo right handed. When I took up fountain pen use a few years back, I remembered using a fountain pen gift set in high school and having smearing problems since I’m a cross writer (my left hand position goes directly over what I’ve just written). To solve the issue and to have a bit of a challenge, I found some old cursive training sheets like the ones I used in grade school, and started writing with my right hand. It was shaky at first, but I was surprised how quickly it came along with just a few sheets practice each day. Funny thing was I had skipped over printing letters, so I had to go back and practice those too.
I still use fountain pens. Left handed for short notes or lists. Right handed for letters or thank you notes. My right-handed writing is neater since I have to go slower, and cursive is definitely faster than printing.
Oh, that reminds me, I need to write a letter back to my high school English teacher (in cursive of course). She recently retired. Maybe I should ask her what the state of handwriting has been in her classes.
As someone that graduated high school last year
If you write in cursive, you get called a boomer