Pluggers by Rick McKee for January 30, 2014

Except me, does anyone still write in shorthand?

Might as well be code, as cursive is not even taught in most schools today.

In some areas most people are bi-lingual with cursive being the second, sometimes primary, language.

to me cursive writing is an art form…..very useful in signing documents etc….that being said…the flying mccoys comic had a funny slant on this topic back on jan 31st 2013

My wife told me I need to use less cursive.

They should keep teaching cursive. For one, everyone needs a distinct signature for legal documents and the like. And second, how will anyone read historic documents if they can’t read cursive?

I need more something.

The older I get the easier it is for me to print everything. Signatures are only need for cursive. Even notes to folks are typed as it is faster.

and you’re a Plugger if you even still WRITE a letter!

Thing is, one reason it is going out of style. Is that many aspies have troubles reading what was written in cursive.

Shameful that kids aren’t even learning decent handwriting – AND learning to read it. We’re a third-world country, for sure.

Years ago when the company I worked for computerized, they gave us hand-held touch screen computers to write our auto damage appraisals (formerly handwritten on 4 part carbon paper forms)The first computers we got were Fusitsus (before the tough books came out.) You could plug in a keyboard and type, or you could hand write directly on the screen. There was a neat little handwriting recognition program which could be taught to read your individual style of writing.

This is like kids not knowing how to use a rotary phone, an AM/FM radio, changing a TV station with a nob, really free TV with rabbit ears. The late Allan Sherman (remember him?) He recorded a song called “Down the Drain”. I have the record 33 and a third, Maybe you can here it on I-Tunes or You Tube. It’s on the album, “Togetherness”.

Brilliant, but unfortunately real.

Once we who learned how to shuffle off this mortal coil, how will these children be able to read 90% of human knowledge that has been written down in cursive?I’m no great shakes at handwriting myself but I can read it and when it comes to my mother’s ‘hieroglyphics’ that’s very helpful. Dad’s writing includes not just cursive but strange spellings; some words are spelt German-style and many are spelt as they sounded to him. That makes it fun to decipher titles on his VHS tapes.Thank heavens for mechanical drawing back in the seventh grade. I’ve adopted those nice square print characters as my ‘handwriting.’

As an SAT proctor, I have to have the kids write a passage in cursive as part of the trappings. I usually write a question in cursive on the boards at the front of the room: “Does anyone not know what cursive writing is?” This year the SAT people started cutting the kids some slack on it: The instructions tell them to write it as best they can and that their handwriting won’t count against them (not that it ever did). But one time, after I pointed out the handwritten questions and told the kids what they were supposed to write (a statement that is printed on the back of their test booklets), one kid actually wrote “Does anyone not know what cursive writing is?” I had to make him change it.