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by LordPyro on September 10th, 2006

LordPyro

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What is the purpose of cursive writing vs. printing?

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  • by canbfrisky on April 28th, 2010

    canbfrisky

    Cursive English
    Cursive in English letter from 1894

    Joined up writing was used in English before the Norman conquest. Anglo-Saxon Charters typically include a boundary clause written in Old English in a cursive script. A cursive handwriting style—secretary hand—was widely used for both personal correspondence and official documents in England from early in the sixteenth century. However, in the handwriting of William Bradford, in the early seventeenth century, most of the letters were separate, but a few were joined as in a cursive hand. By the late eighteenth century, a century and a half later, the situation had reversed; in Thomas Jefferson's draft of the United States Declaration of Independence most but not all of the letters were joined. The presentation copy of the Declaration, written professionally a few days later by Timothy Matlack, was written in a fully cursive hand. Eighty-seven years later, in the middle of the nineteenth century, Abraham Lincoln drafted the Gettysburg Address in a cursive hand that would not look out of place today.

    In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before the typewriter, professional correspondence was written in cursive. This was called a "fair hand", meaning it looked good, and clerks in a firm were trained to write in the exact same script.

    In the mid-nineteenth century, comparatively few children were not taught cursive, and, as it was an important skill, more emphasis could be placed on learning it; there was no pervasive striving for efficiency in the classroom. Few simplifications appeared as the middle of the twentieth century was reached. An example of the timeframe in which cursive came to be taught is that in the United States, it would usually be taught in second or third grade (around ages seven to nine).

    After the 1960s, it was argued that the teaching of cursive writing was more difficult than it needed to be. Forms of simply slanted characters, termed italic, were considered by some to be easier and traditional cursive unnecessary. Because of this, a number of various new forms of cursive appeared in the late twentieth century; D'Nealian, Getty-Dubay, and among them, these models lacked the craftsmanship of earlier styles such as Spencerian Script and the Palmer Method, but were less demanding, because the aesthetics were no longer as valued. With the range of options available, handwriting became nonstandardized across different school systems in different English-speaking countries.

    With the advent of typewriters and computers, cursive as a way of formalizing correspondence has fallen out of favor. Most tasks which would have once required a "fair hand" are now done using word processing and a printer. There exists a backlash against this with some advocating the use of personal notes written in longhand, to provide the sense that a real person is involved in the correspondence, (e.g.) thank you notes. The teaching of cursive has been de-emphasized in many public schools, but is still used for situations such as timed tests with large writing portions, where it is considered faster. Also being able to write in a fair-hand is still looked as a sign of literacy in many countries.
    Source Wikiencyclopidia

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