Cursive Writing

[brennan]

I needed to get some information on which fonts were easiest to read so I studied a bit of typography a while back. Typographists recommend serifed fonts for main body text as studies show people tend to read them slightly faster (no-one seems to know quite why) and sans-serif fonts for headings as they look clearer.

Edit: Verdana and I think Tahoma were designed for maximum contrast between letters that can look similar in other fonts, such as a lowercase l, a number 1 and a capital I; I would guess that similarity between such characters given the relatively low resolution of a computer screen is why different fonts are used on computer displays as opposed to printed text.

 

[Mise]

It's so strange, I was reading an article about this just this morning... http://www.design-by-izo.com/2011/10/18/what-should-i-look-for-in-a-ui-typeface/

 

[BvBPL]

One significant benefit that cursive has for me over block printing is that my hand doesn’t cramp up when I am writing in cursive as opposed to when I am block printing. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this ergonomic advantage.

 

[Midnight-Blue766]

My handwriting is awful, so I eventually switched to cursive. I actually enjoy it a lot.

 

[Jan H]

I think I have only learned to write cursive (can't really remember, because it's so long ago ). I don't know many people that always write in "block letters" (as we call it here). The first time I saw someone do that, I was very surprised...

In my personam handwriting, I have noticed that in the course of the years, I have replaced a couple of letters by their "block" equivalent, especially the p and often also the b. But I still write them joined up with the other letter. For capitals however, I almost always use the "BLOCK" version. For most of them, I think I have even forgotten how they are supposed to be done in cursive...

Of course nowadays, most of my writing is done on computers, and my handwriting has become very sloppy. If I need to write a longer text by hand, the first few lines usually look ok, but then it starts to degrade

 

[7ronin]

The schoolboards in this neck of the woods are considering dropping cursive writing from the curriculum.

 

[mangxema]

I wonder if we're seeing two quite different approaches to cursive/joined-up writing here:
- Americans seem to be learning it for cosmetic purposes: hence the "many extra BS flourishes and stuff" (Dachs). It's supposed to be different, so if "most of their lowercase letters aren't very different from print", that's seen as a disadvantage. Because it's an added extra for special occasions, they never get enough exposure to write or read it fluently.
- Commonwealth citizens seem to learn it for speed, and use it all the time, so there are no "unnecessary curls" (Zelig). If they want to be regarded as a mature person, they are expected to be fluent in it, so they are.

Is that fair?

Sounds good to me. Except... some curls/strokes actually are unnecessary IMHO. My print r is one stroke, but the script version is actually two (or one-and-two-halves, I guess). The k loops are particularly inefficient.

Here readability is emphasized a lot more than any particular style. They do teach cursive, but beyond a certain point, nobody cares to write in print, cursive, or small caps, so long as they can read it. Seems sensible.

I was rather stunned by this part of the Wiki article: "On the 2006 SAT, a United States college entrance exam, only 15 percent of the students wrote their essay answers in cursive."

There was no essay section of the SAT when I took it--they added it the year after, I think--but I swear, the part that was the most vexing for me was not any of the actual content of the exam, but the required writing of this little paragraph to effect of 'I am who I say I am, and no I'm not cheating', which for some reason just had to be written in cursive. No one had asked me to write in cursive for somewhere between 5-10 years.

I think that in the UK, someone who printed the answers to their university entrance exams would be in serious danger of losing marks, simply because many examiners would have an unconscious prejudice that the candidate was immature.

I find this ironic, because some of the most immature people I knew in school used cursive. All the overachievers had really neat print. (Well, at least the girls did; the guys were a little more hit or miss.)

 

[carmen510]

It's actually faster for me to write in print than to write in cursive. I only ever use cursive for my signature. Plus, it's neater (my handwriting has a weird quirk: it looks messy when viewed from farther away, but looks much neater as you look closer. No idea how that works, but there you go).

 

[puglover]

Just had this discussion in school! I like writing in cursive, but I think it's a total waste of time to teach it to children, considering how little it is used in daily life.

 

[Luckymoose]

I use my own form of cursive for notes which makes all my ideas completely unreadable to anyone other than myself. Everything else I write in perfect print.

 

[IglooDame]

But if the younglings don't learn cursive, how will they sign their signature?

 

[suiraclaw]

If I saw someone writing everything in block letters (without there being a good reason to do so), I'd assume they were dim. I'm sorry for this prejudice, but I simply can't remember seeing someone not using cursive writing for a large text (and I see quite a lot of handwriting in uni).

 

[Valka D'Ur]

ah yes, that bright thing...terrifying I'd rather not have to write for a extended period using only light from candles or oil lamps....just thinking about it gives me a headache ...but the point is rather moot for me as I can't remember a single time in my live where power was gone for more than an hour or so.

You've never had a power outage that lasted more than an hour?

But to be honest, I'm not quite sure what you were referring to in the first place. have you actually ever met anybody (young or old) who claimed that they don't need to know how to write? (with 'write' I assume you mean at least one of cursive or print)

There have been a few people on this very forum, in a previous thread about handwriting, who claimed that they have no need to know how to write, because they always have their computer handy.

Given a lot of people apparently don't find cursive largely ineligible, it be awesome if they help me decipher these comments on an essay I recently got back. I can't for the life of me!

Spoiler :

Thanks in advance!

I could make out the second photo with no problem. I made out the word "developed" in the top photo, but the first word(s) are illegible to me.

Or is writing cursive fast largely mutually exclusive with writing it legibly?

Not at all. Some people are quite capable of writing both quickly and legibly at the same time. Part of the problem is that when you're trying to write really fast, your hand and fingers may cramp up, and to ease the pain you may slow down, or lose legibility, or maybe switch to printing.

More efficient then what? The people who write out their words (as opposed to printing them) had no problem reading your professor’s scrawl whereas you had to scan it and post it to a message board for a transliteration. Maybe if you wrote yourself you’d have been able to read your professor’s comments.

Maybe if the professor would make the effort to write more legibly, Camikaze wouldn't have as much trouble reading it. That handwriting isn't as abominably bad as some I've seen, but it's definitely not that good.

Missed this first time round:

Handwriting is often illegible. While BvBPL's post-it at the bottom is perfectly legible, his upper note would take far too long for me to decipher (and for far too little gain, I'm sure).

But your prof's handwriting is quite legible. It's not the neatest handwriting in the world, but it's certainly not something anyone should need 5 friends to help them read

Actually, Camikaze should print off this thread and take it to the prof, and show it as proof that he/she needs to be more careful with writing notes on essays. Such notes are useless if the student can't read them.

Anecdote from my own first-year college English class: Our midterm exam was a short-answer/essay test. The second-last question was short-answer (the student was supposed to write short paragraph responses to each part of the question). In the margin the prof had scrawled "7 each" in cursive writing, meaning that the paragraphs were worth 7 marks each.

Some students couldn't read her writing and thought it said "7 evils". So they dutifully listed the 7 evils, aka "7 sins" of greed, gluttony, sloth, etc. Considering that this particular English course covered a lot of Old and Middle English literature and poetry, the students didn't figure this was an outlandish thing to put on the exam.

(and no, I'm not one of the ones who couldn't read her writing!)

I’m curious how you and taillesskangaru will deal with writing when a boss, coworker, or student gives you a written note. It’s easy to avoid writing, but you can’t realistically hide from reading it during your adult life.

I spent many years as a home typist, with college and university students as the majority of my clients. Some had extremely good handwriting/printing and I sailed through their papers with no problem. Others had so-so handwriting - not too bad, but not the best. And a few people had such horrible handwriting that I had to tell them to go home and rewrite it, because I literally couldn't read it. With repeat business, it got to the point where I could tell immediately who wrote what, just on the basis of the handwriting - which came in handy on the odd occasion when they'd forget to put their name on the rough copy!

The schoolboards in this neck of the woods are considering dropping cursive writing from the curriculum.

That's insane. They're going to turn out a generation of kids who are incapable of reading a lot of their own families' mementos and keepsakes, such as Christmas cards, letters, diaries, etc.

 

[7ronin]

But if the younglings don't learn cursive, how will they sign their signature?

We will all get signature seals à la China and Japan.

Seriously speaking, it will be one more thing for which the parents are responsible. Here in California they now expect kindergartners to start school already knowing their ABC's and their basic numbers. Five year old Kid: "I want to play." Mom: "Not until you've practiced your signature."

 

[MrCynical]

On the increasingly rare occasions I handwrite stuff it's cursive if I'm the only one who is going to read it (notes, etc.) and block capitals for anything read by anyone else. Cursive is faster, but is not always particularly easy to read. It's also important when discussing this not to mix up "neat" with "legible". At school I had a couple of teachers with immaculate cursive writing, that was nevertheless totally unreadable because they only had about twelve different shapes to cover the entire alphabet. Letters like t, l, i and f were identical, and they never seemed to grasp that unless you had a pretty good idea of what the text said anyway you were reduced to guesswork based on the general shape of the word. By contrast my own cursive, while messy and irregular, never caused the same kind of legibility problems.

 

[BvBPL]

So we recently had a discussion, in an MRA thread of all places, about writing versus block printing. That thread has since been closed, but I figured this one would be a good on to report that around a month ago I took a professional licensure exam. As part of that exam, I had to write out a statement on my answer sheet that I was not going to cheat or help others cheat. The proctors told every to be sure they write the statement, rather than print it.

Given the decline in teaching writing, one wonders if and when they will change that policy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I value legibility over scribbling nonsense faster.

In most observed cases of "cursive", it looks like the latter to me. I'm not so self-important to assume that mine's better in the eyes of others.

 

[Quintillus]

I was able to figure out "not developed enough" in Camikaze's picture without too much difficulty, but "was this justified" was a challenged - "justified" wasn't bad, but it took a lot of looking to tease out "this", and then "was" was as much because it would make sense as because it really looked like it.

I'm not much of a fan of cursive myself. I remember learning it in elementary school, and in 5th grade they said that we'd have to write everything in cursive in 6th grade, which I didn't really believe. In 6th grade, we didn't, and they said we'd have to write everything in cursive in high school, which I didn't believe. And sure enough, we didn't. So I rarely wrote things in cursive. Often enough that I could today if need be - though I'd have to think about a few capital letters such as G - but other than signatures, I probably do so maybe once every 4-5 years. Whereas printing, while still rare compared to typing, is at least something that I do on a semi-regular basis.

I read an interesting article on pens recently at http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...-history-handwriting/402205/?single_page=true. It got me wondering if I may have involved writing, including cursive, more with fountain pens than with the ballpoints I used back in the day, and still use. I can still recall the wrist pain from writing longer essays, or days when I had essay exams in multiple classes in a row. While it went away quickly after ceasing to write, having to apply less pressure to write may have meant it never occurring at all.

 

[BvBPL]

A ballpoint has its role, but it certainly is not as pleasant to write with relative to even inexpensive alternatives.


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[Quintillus]

Reading screens and reading printed text is different.

IIRC, Verdana was specifically designed as the Windows XP screen font after tests to see what worked best.

Tahoma is actually the default screen font in Windows XP, not Verdana, though Verdana is also included on a fresh XP installation - at least SP3; I don't have an SP0 VM to verify with.

I'll admit to being a big fan of Tahoma, and XP's font-rendering system in general, and have spent an inordinate amount of time comparing it with the later versions of Windows in that regard. Basically, XP has three settings:

- No font smoothing, which means nothing is smoothed
- Standard font smoothing, which means only font sizes 14+ are smoothed, and without subpixel antialiasing
- ClearType font smoothing, which smoothes all fonts, including subpixel antialiasing, and is similar to what ClearType does in Vista and later, though less sophisticated.

Vista, 7, and 8 don't have the Standard font smoothing option, only No Font Smoothing, and ClearType, with various settings. With registry tweaks, it's possible to disable sub-pixel anti-aliasing in Vista/7/8, but I haven't found a way to disable smoothing of smaller fonts while still enabling smoothing of larger fonts like in XP.

There also are more programs in Windows 8 in particular that don't honor the setting to disable font smoothing if that is chosen, with File Explorer (the Win8 version of File Explorer) being a prime example.

What it all boils down to is that, at least on my 96 PPI 24" Dell LCD, the XP setting of Standard font smoothing, with crisp non-anti-aliased small fonts, but smoothed large fonts, looks best, and the smoothing of small fonts simply doesn't look good. But neither do non-smoothed larger fonts generally look good. And while I'm sure it varies by the technology and pixel density of the monitor - Windows 8 looks good enough on the 133 PPI LCD of my 17" laptop with a bit of tweaking - differences in font rendering are a significant part of why I've stuck with XP on my desktop. So far, KDE is the only other system that I've found (except perhaps earlier versions of Windows) where I've been able to find rendering that I like equally. And I did try a lot on Windows 8, including setting Tahoma as the default font. It did help, but it still wasn't as good on the whole.

Granted, a point could be made that switching monitors would solve the problem. But other than that, I'm quite happy with the monitor - excellent viewing angles, no glare or eyestrain, it does well even in fast-paced games, fairly good colors and black levels. And XP x64 SP2 has patches through July. Bottom line though, I probably would've already switched if Windows 7 had the same font rendering options.

Handwriting, I'm not so exacting in my demands. If I can read it, it's probably good enough.

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