Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Cursive...


This past weekend I was in Brandon, Manitoba (with my brother) to attend the Battle in Brandon, a kickboxing/muay thai event (held at the Wheat City Golf Course/Curling Rink) where Guardian Dojo members, Sean Devlin and Rox Lui competed. Anyhow, while having dinner with my brother, we couldn't help but notice the diversity of the handwriting on the wall (signatures on charity donation cards)... it was interesting to see the variety, which brings us to the topic of today's post. When was the last time that you wrote/used cursive handwriting?

Now, I handwrite on a daily basis but, it's definitely not in the traditional cursive style (as seen in the above image)... I don't even recall the last time I wrote in true cursive. I wonder how many people today, can write the cursive alphabet without reference (do they even teach this in school anymore?). We tried while waiting for our dinner and both of us failed miserably... sad.

Give it a whirl! Don't look at the image above! See how well you recall your cursive - cheers!

Image via Wikipedia

4 comments:

KateGladstone said...

Those of us who have forsaken cursive can always point out (to those who haven't yet) the research showing that the fastest and most legible handwriters avoid cursive anyway.

Highest-speed highest-legibility handwriters tend to join only some, not all, letters -- making the easiest joins, skipping the rest -- and to use print-like forms of those letters whose printed and cursive shapes notably "disagree."

To find out more -- and get your very own "I Hate Cursive" button -- visit my web-site:
http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com

Adrian J.K. Shum, CGD said...

Thanks for the comment Kate!

Personally, I haven't used cursive handwriting in ages... I'm definitely in the camp of those who 'print-write' (a cross between cursive and printing, with some unconnected letters and some connected).

Cheers!

James said...

I only messed up the Uppercase D,F, Q and Z.

God it's been a while.

I don't know how people have trouble reading cursive. Personally I only communicate by illuminated manuscript.

I'm off to check out HandwritingThatWorks.com

Noel Santiago said...

I am a new follower of your blog (which I got through someone else's blog through someone else's, etc)...and I personally enjoy the discussions on design.
Yes, I still write in cursive; in fact, I am almost retentive at it. I would constantly write-erase-rewrite my notes BEFORE transferring it into a Word document. And yes, I can even write using imaginary grids so my notes are legible and orderly. I am probably the only person in the office that still uses steno notebooks.
You see, penmanship was a required class at my elementary school - you can ace your other classes but fail the year if you fail penmanship. We were trained rigorously under the Palmer method.