Cursive writing & Land Surveyors
As a math teacher, I wrote all lower case variable names in cursive, less chance of mistaking an a for a 9, for example. Always a problem for some students, but most adapted readily.
Years ago, cursive was eliminated from the elementary curriculum. Keyboarding was taught in seventh grade under the assumption that no future person would ever scribble a note. Then budget cuts eliminated keyboarding and we created students who could neither write nor type.
Now NC mandates cursive in elementary school. I'm not sure about keyboarding, but perhaps that wiil be done by thumbs only in the future, so we won't need to teach it.
Brad Ott, post: 368829, member: 197 wrote: I just reported myself.
Feel free to delete this. I thought I was being funny. Turns out I was just rude. I apologize. Must be something in the air today.
WAIT for a second I thought it was the 20th!
I've hated cursive writing since I first learned it. I wish the deed writers from the 1800's hadn't known cursive. If they'd hand printed everything, it'd be so much easier to read the old deeds today.
I'm less annoyed at someone today who hasn't learned cursive than I am at some of these idiots from years ago, who wrote these fancy yet somewhat illegible documents that need to be relied upon forever.
JPH, post: 368862, member: 6636 wrote: I wish the deed writers from the 1800's hadn't known cursive.
We have to appreciate that there were no photo copiers or office printers back then. If you needed a copy of something it had to be transcribed by hand. A while back I was in the county surveyors office reviewing some old road establishment procedings from 1880ish. Some poor sap had laboriously made dozens of handwritten copies of the centerline description - one for every land owner along the route. Must have taken days and been mind numbingly boring. Lettering all that would have made it doubly so.
JPH, post: 368862, member: 6636 wrote: somewhat illegible documents
(West) Virginia about 1836. I actually have read 99% of this court document, but it was a struggle. Somewhere around here I have one that is worse.
JPH, post: 368862, member: 6636 wrote: ...I'm less annoyed at someone today who hasn't learned cursive than I am at some of these idiots from years ago, who wrote these fancy yet somewhat illegible documents that need to be relied upon forever.
I couldn't disagree more.
Survey and engineering field notes (remember those) pretty much killed my mediocre cursive writing skill, but I truly appreciated the quality and readability of those who took the time.
Steve
Cursive writing flowed on to the paper. I have no doubt a good scrivener could cursively write twice as many words as printing. That being said I found that in taking notes in college classes my cursive writing left too much to the imagination. Most of my notes ended up as 50% cursive, 50% text. I have no idea exactly how or why I did it but I can read all those notes yet today.
I had penmanship in elementary school but could write in cursive before I attended kindergarten and would be disciplined from time to time for not printing assignments.
Now a days it takes me 3 times as long to pen a letter as to print it, but there are times when it can not be equaled for impact. Nephews and nieces some times need to ask their parents to read holiday cards, but that does not deter me.
BW, I never heard the word "cursive" in referring to writing in all my years in school.
Paul in PA
I have often thought that I will write all of my job applications in cursive. If you can not read it to fill it out you have Zero chance of being an employee of mine. The only position in Surveying for a person that can not read cursive is a line cutter but I can probably find someone more qualified. Definitely a pet peeve of mine!
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Much like the buggy whip industry, cursive writing is rapidly disappearing for much more than signatures. Personally, I find that to be very sad. The character of the author can be seen in cursive writing.
What really adds to the fun is the really old cursive that is written by people who were born and educated in other countries before immigrating to the U.S. You know, back when an "s" in the middle of a world was made to look like a cursive "f" from today's writing. Back when draft was spelled as draught. Back when monetary exchanges listed pounds and shillings and pence.
I went from elementary school, where I was deducted marks for not using cursive, to survey school where my classmates were deducted marks for using cursive.
