US conservatives love cursive handwriting

[Rhea]

I still use my signature to vote.
However, that’s not one of the reasons I promote the study of cursive, since it’s true that the signature does not have to resemble cursive at all, only the previous rendition of the “signature.”

I agree with Don2 that the usefulness of cursive is waning and that it is not at all near useless yet.

It’s interesting to ask ourselves about the advent of cursive - since print came first and humans moved to cursive. Why? I posit that one reason is the one I gave above; that cursive has advantages in certain conditions such as low light or inability to look at the writing surface and in cases when one has to write very rapidly. To me that is an enormous advantage, one that has been useful to me numerous times and it is why I consider it worth learning.

Another entertaining anecdote in this discussion of whether kids are harmed by learning cursive and whether it’s too esoteric and therefor a waste of their time, I enjoy recalling the 6 weeks I spent teaching a 6th grade class how to write in Old German Diploma Letter calligraphy so that they could hand letter their own diplomas. They enjoyed the lessons tremendously and despite the fact that they will probably never again every use Old German formal text, they _can_ use it again if they wish, and they happily engaged in the lessons. I was just a parent volunteering to do a special segment, but we had fun and not a single child in the 6th grade opted out of the class.

 

[bilby]

I still use my signature to vote.
However, that’s not one of the reasons I promote the study of cursive, since it’s true that the signature does not have to resemble cursive at all, only the previous rendition of the “signature.”

I agree with Don2 that the usefulness of cursive is waning and that it is not at all near useless yet.

It’s interesting to ask ourselves about the advent of cursive - since print came first and humans moved to cursive. Why? I posit that one reason is the one I gave above; that cursive has advantages in certain conditions such as low light or inability to look at the writing surface and in cases when one has to write very rapidly. To me that is an enormous advantage, one that has been useful to me numerous times and it is why I consider it worth learning.

Another entertaining anecdote in this discussion of whether kids are harmed by learning cursive and whether it’s too esoteric and therefor a waste of their time, I enjoy recalling the 6 weeks I spent teaching a 6th grade class how to write in Old German Diploma Letter calligraphy so that they could hand letter their own diplomas. They enjoyed the lessons tremendously and despite the fact that they will probably never again every use Old German formal text, they _can_ use it again if they wish, and they happily engaged in the lessons. I was just a parent volunteering to do a special segment, but we had fun and not a single child in the 6th grade opted out of the class.

Yes, speed is the big advantage of cursive. It's much faster to write than other styles.

Which is great for those who write; Particularly those who write a lot.

I almost never write anything, ever. I have no use for cursive. There is nothing more useless than doing with great efficiency, that which need not be done at all.

Writing (of any kind) is no longer as ubiquitous as it once was. The ability to write in certain styles is simply not important enough today to render the universal teaching of it to all students a worthwhile expenditure of their limited school time. Particularly as there are far more universally needed skills that are barely taught to students at all (epistemology and logic, for example).

Signatures are widely used, simply because nobody bothers to review whether something is still secure until there's a problem. As soon as colour photocopiers became able to make decent forgeries of banknotes, the world's reserve banks changed the design of their notes to make forgeries produced on colour photocopiers obvious and therefore valueless. The ability to digitally manipulate images and documents to insert a signature has existed for a while now; But most signatures secure things that are not subject to widespread criminal activity (Voting, for example, is rarely subject to fraud, so a signature is fine - indeed, it's not really necessary to have anything more than a verbal confirmation of a voter's name and address).

As soon as a sufficiently scandalous event occurs that rests on the forging of signatures, that particular system will be upgraded to require genuine security. Right now though, a signature as as trustworthy as a pinky swear - it's only worth anything when a state of trust already exists between parties, making it an empty formality that we retain because we see no particular need to change. But we would be unwise to presume that the presence of a person's signature on a document was strong evidence that the person in question had ever seen that document. And that goes 100x for documents that have ever been stored and/or transmitted digitally (which today, is most of them).

 

[bigfield]

Writing (of any kind) is no longer as ubiquitous as it once was. The ability to write in certain styles is simply not important enough today to render the universal teaching of it to all students a worthwhile expenditure of their limited school time. Particularly as there are far more universally needed skills that are barely taught to students at all (epistemology and logic, for example).

Even if we limit our options to writing techniques, I would have been better off spending more time in touch-typing classes (I'm learning to touch-type in my thirties) instead of learning cursive, a skill I also use but far less important than typing speed/accuracy, particularly since I have an (almost) paperless office.

As for children nowadays, both cursive and typing may be rendered largely obsolete by more direct input methods that require little or no training.

 

[Rhea]

I asked my daughter (15yo) what she thought. Her Gen-Delta attitude:

“Yes they should keep teaching cursive because it’s pretty and fun. Also it’s secret code against all those people who don’t know it. Plus your computer has cursive fonts, so you need to know how to use that. And schools are bad at teaching epistemology so they should stick to those things they can pound into our heads by rote. Your friend is wrong. And old.”

(Note: She learns both cursive _and_ theory of knowledge in her school)
(Also, she’s a contrarian, and will take the devil’s side of any argument)
(Although she did seriously answer “yes” immediately when I asked if schools should teach cursive, even before she demanded, “why?”)

 

[Toni]

Writing (of any kind) is no longer as ubiquitous as it once was. The ability to write in certain styles is simply not important enough today to render the universal teaching of it to all students a worthwhile expenditure of their limited school time. Particularly as there are far more universally needed skills that are barely taught to students at all (epistemology and logic, for example).

Even if we limit our options to writing techniques, I would have been better off spending more time in touch-typing classes (I'm learning to touch-type in my thirties) instead of learning cursive, a skill I also use but far less important than typing speed/accuracy, particularly since I have an (almost) paperless office.

As for children nowadays, both cursive and typing may be rendered largely obsolete by more direct input methods that require little or no training.

I seriously doubt you would have benefited much from typing class. They taught keyboarding for a year in elementary when my kids were in school and nothing beyond that. I suppose there might be some kind of 'business classes' available at the high school for any poor soul who wants to become an admin. asst.

 

[Derec]

Reading != writing.

True. But not being able to even read it can be very embarrassing.


What is interesting is that there are several types of cursive, even in US, and certainly between different countries using the Latin script. Thus, reading it is definitely easier than writing it, if by writing it you mean using a specific style consistently, and not just some version of legible jointed writing.

 

[bilby]

I asked my daughter (15yo) what she thought. Her Gen-Delta attitude:

“Yes they should keep teaching cursive because it’s pretty and fun. Also it’s secret code against all those people who don’t know it. Plus your computer has cursive fonts, so you need to know how to use that. And schools are bad at teaching epistemology so they should stick to those things they can pound into our heads by rote. Your friend is wrong. And old.”

(Note: She learns both cursive _and_ theory of knowledge in her school)
(Also, she’s a contrarian, and will take the devil’s side of any argument)
(Although she did seriously answer “yes” immediately when I asked if schools should teach cursive, even before she demanded, “why?”)

Well she is right about me being old.

 

[Hermit]

It’s interesting to ask ourselves about the advent of cursive - since print came first and humans moved to cursive.

Well, it was probably preceded by cuneiform, but as a genre cursive has been recognisably used since at least 600 BCE.



Compare the above document to the style of writing usually found carved in stone.



I am somewhat surprised by the intensity with which the value and teaching of cursive writing is defended here. Yes, being able to at least read cursive writing is advantageous. All knowledge is advantageous, at least in principle. The importance of particular fields of knowledge does vary over time, though. When my father went to school, learning Latin was compulsory because you could not become a doctor or a lawyer without passing your Great Latinum course. By the time I went to school Latin was optional. I did two years of it, and its usefulness is rather limited. I know just enough of it to get annoyed when someone writes "ad nauseum", "the mainstream media is" or commit some such linguistic crime.

Bilby is correct. It would be better to devote the time and resources spent on teaching cursive writing on teaching epistemology and logic. The need for being able to read cursive is vanishing. For example most pharmacists, at least in Australia, are hardly ever confronted with a doctor's scrawls any more. The doctors type prescriptions out on a computer, print out the relevant form and sign it.

 

[Swammerdami]

Keno Writer's Digits

I interrupt this thread to ask a very serious question. It's not completely off-topic. But while cursive writing solves the problem "How do I write this so nobody, including myself, will be able to read it?" my question concerns the opposite problem. A hastily written '5' might look like a '6'; '1' might look like '7'; '8' could even look like '9'; and so on. How do we write the digits so that there can be no doubt whatsoever which digit is intended?

In the 1970's I occasionally bought Keno tickets in Nevada. This was before the Era of Computers Everywhere, so the Keno writers prepared the official records by hand (the selected numbers were just checked but the prices and way counts needed to be written out). The digits 0 through 9 were hand-written in a very distinctive way — using glyphs such that no digit could be confused. To distinguish these glyphs from the Hindu digits, the Arabic digits, the Western digits (heck, throw in the Burmese, Thai, Egyptian and Chinese digits if you wish), I will call these the Keno Writer's Digits.

The elegant Keno Writer's Digits deserve to be preserved for posterity. There must have been thousands of full-time Keno writers at one time, each writing thousands of tickets per week. Surely there were at least a billion exemplars each of important glyphs — like '4', '6' and even '7' — written in the style of Keno Writer's Digits. Yet not one single exemplar presents (for me) using Google.

I would love to see, one more time, these special digit symbols, 0 to 9. Maybe my Google skills are deficient. I asked at the famous Message Board titled "We know everything. Ask, receive, and apologize for your ignorance." Even they didn't know. They pointed to a few Google images, but all were irrelevant, none had even a single exemplar of the Keno Writer's Digits.

Can anyone help? Does anyone even know what I'm talking about?

 

[humbleman]

I would like to answer your question showing you a printed page of them but my computer is old and can only print punched cards.

______________________________________________________________________________

About handwriting, this still is very important.

When you need to talk with a bank specialist, there is a paper where you must write your name and time of arrival.

If the bank specialist can't recognize your name, you will be called several times until you guess the attendant is calling you.

So, if your cursive writing is as bad as mine, here is my solution:

When I arrive to the bank and there are about five to ten people waiting before my turn, I check they how distracted they are. Without they noticed it, I scratch all their names with the pen, and write my name and time of arrival.

Any name the attendant pronounces when reading my writing I know is about me.

 

[humbleman]

I interrupt this thread to ask a very serious question. It's not completely off-topic. But while cursive writing solves the problem "How do I write this so nobody, including myself, will be able to read it?" my question concerns the opposite problem. A hastily written '5' might look like a '6'; '1' might look like '7'; '8' could even look like '9'; and so on. How do we write the digits so that there can be no doubt whatsoever which digit is intended?

In the 1970's I occasionally bought Keno tickets in Nevada. This was before the Era of Computers Everywhere, so the Keno writers prepared the official records by hand (the selected numbers were just checked but the prices and way counts needed to be written out). The digits 0 through 9 were hand-written in a very distinctive way — using glyphs such that no digit could be confused. To distinguish these glyphs from the Hindu digits, the Arabic digits, the Western digits (heck, throw in the Burmese, Thai, Egyptian and Chinese digits if you wish), I will call these the Keno Writer's Digits.

The elegant Keno Writer's Digits deserve to be preserved for posterity. There must have been thousands of full-time Keno writers at one time, each writing thousands of tickets per week. Surely there were at least a billion exemplars each of important glyphs — like '4', '6' and even '7' — written in the style of Keno Writer's Digits. Yet not one single exemplar presents (for me) using Google.

I would love to see, one more time, these special digit symbols, 0 to 9. Maybe my Google skills are deficient. I asked at the famous Message Board titled "We know everything. Ask, receive, and apologize for your ignorance." Even they didn't know. They pointed to a few Google images, but all were irrelevant, none had even a single exemplar of the Keno Writer's Digits.

Can anyone help? Does anyone even know what I'm talking about?

You might find what you are looking for at this site.

https://www.revolvy.com/topic/Place-value system&item_type=topic

 

[Swammerdami]

Interesting site. I see several renditions of Thai numerals, Burmese numerals, etc. but not the "Keno Writer's digits" I'm looking for. These are ordinary Western digits but drawn in an exaggerated manner to avoid any possible ambiguity.

It seems a loss if these unique glyphs have disappeared from human knowledge(!) but — despite that they were almost ubiquitous in Nevada 35 years ago — I've yet to come across a single example with Google.

Perhaps I need to place a want ad: Any old Keno writers still around?

 

[bigfield]

Interesting site. I see several renditions of Thai numerals, Burmese numerals, etc. but not the "Keno Writer's digits" I'm looking for. These are ordinary Western digits but drawn in an exaggerated manner to avoid any possible ambiguity.

It seems a loss if these unique glyphs have disappeared from human knowledge(!) but — despite that they were almost ubiquitous in Nevada 35 years ago — I've yet to come across a single example with Google.

Perhaps I need to place a want ad: Any old Keno writers still around?

You've piqued my curiosity. I modified my numerals to remove the ambiguity between my 4 and 9.

Can you write your version and upload a scan? Might be easier to identify an exemplar if we aren't dependent on "Keno" as a search term.

 

[humbleman]

Interesting site. I see several renditions of Thai numerals, Burmese numerals, etc. but not the "Keno Writer's digits" I'm looking for. These are ordinary Western digits but drawn in an exaggerated manner to avoid any possible ambiguity.

It seems a loss if these unique glyphs have disappeared from human knowledge(!) but — despite that they were almost ubiquitous in Nevada 35 years ago — I've yet to come across a single example with Google.

Perhaps I need to place a want ad: Any old Keno writers still around?

Another guess,

Number seven is written this way

In some countries, in order to avoid confusion with number one, they write number seven with an additional line crossing its stem

 

[Swammerdami]

Can you write your version and upload a scan? Might be easier to identify an exemplar if we aren't dependent on "Keno" as a search term.

That's what's sad. :-( I only dimly remember the Keno Writer's glyphs. I do remember thinking "Wow! What an elegant collection of glyphs to avoid ambiguity." But I cannot remember any specifics. It's knowing that these elegant glyphs exist but not remembering them that seems slightly sad.

My guess is that this way of writing the numerals was standardized throughout Nevada. (Perhaps it was used by sportsbooks as well as Keno?) Surely someone is still around.

(And I don't even remember the procedure. Did the writer make TWO copies of the ticket, giving one to customer? Or was there just one copy made? And, as I mentioned, it was only 'Way' tickets, or when the price paid was unusual, that there would be several of these writer-written digits on the receipt.)

 

[humbleman]

I don't see anything special in the hand written ticket

A blank ticket

Ticket with hand written digits.



Perhaps you are talking of older tickets wrote by hand only, something hard to find but someone might have posted them online. (Better to check with old dudes in Facebook)

 

[funinspace]

The need for being able to read cursive is vanishing. For example most pharmacists, at least in Australia, are hardly ever confronted with a doctor's scrawls any more. The doctors type prescriptions out on a computer, print out the relevant form and sign it.

Well, in my parts the doctor typically now does some stuff on his touch pad or laptop, and confirms that he should send it off to your preferred pharmacy. They one heads off to the pharmacy with empty hands...

 

[Swammerdami]

Ticket with hand written digits.

View attachment 14524

That ticket is a 'Way' ticket (see the "2-3 1-6" at the right) and "should" have used the special Keno handwritten glyphs. :-( Maybe some casinos were more casual.

 

[humbleman]

Ticket with hand written digits.

View attachment 14524

That ticket is a 'Way' ticket (see the "2-3 1-6" at the right) and "should" have used the special Keno handwritten glyphs. :-( Maybe some casinos were more casual.

No idea what glyph is that one but indeed looks "cursive"