Death Knell

For, like, the second or third time, the death knell of cursive has been sounded. The so-called faster, more fluid way to write is being replaced in elementary school curriculums by (gasp) typing and computer literacy.

As I made abundantly clear in an earlier post, I am not a fan of cursive. Learning it didn’t help me write (my handwriting is still a “child-like scrawl”) and it never made me any faster. Plus all that instruction never let me decipher cursive writing any better. The m’s and n’s look the same! And if someone forgets the dot over the i, forget being able to figure out if it’s an e or an o. And is it a d or is it a c and an l? You’d think context would be able to help me figure this out, but I’d have to be able to understand the rest of the sentence first.

And the nerve, replacing it with typing. It’s not like I can type sixty words a minute on a slow day and actually understand what’s on the page.

Damn these new-fangled ways of communication! There’s no way a text or an email can be filled with as much thought and consideration as a letter just because it’s faster. Soon those beautiful, curved letters forming coherent sentences will be replaced by txt spk and no 1 wll b abl 2 undrstnd ech othr NEmre. Except the people who take the time to understand text speak. For the rest of you, that sentence is just an unbreakable cipher, isn’t it?

Seriously, I don’t even know if that’s real text speak. I’m actually one of those people who spells out everything. But still, I get the gist of it a lot more than I understand cursive.

So, in summation, good riddance, cursive, and the hand cramps you gave me. I’ll stick with the carpal tunnel from spending all day at the computer, thank you.

Typed vs. Handwritten

I love writing. But I hate writing.

Confused much?

If I ever handwrote you a letter, you’d see what I mean. My handwriting is…not good. I’ve always looked at people who write in neat, flowing script and wonder how the hell they manage to do that because nothing I ever try comes out like that. It’s more like a mix of printing and cursive that comes out unintelligibly. I can’t keep a line straight even on lined paper, that’s how bad it is.

It doesn’t help that I press down really hard on the paper and my hand often gets tired after a few paragraphs. Unfortunately, this kept me from enjoying writing for a lot of my younger years. It wasn’t until my family got a computer and took a typing class that I started to love making letters form words. 

There are people who accuse computers of being the down fall of the vile cursive style, but I’d like to say this: bunk. Cursive sucks, and that’s why we invented computers. And no, a typewriter wouldn’t help either. With my spelling skills (a story for another day), I’d end up with something even less readable than my handwriting.

My handwriting is what it is. No amount of using a pen will improve it. I mean, it hasn’t changed since fourth grade. With all the assignments I completed by hand since then, you’d think there’d be something. But there isn’t.

I’m glad I have a computer. I’m glad I can finally put my thoughts to “paper.” Without cramping my hand or having to figure out what I meant yesterday because I can’t figure it out. Is that iyger? 

What about you? I know there are people out there who could write an entire book by hand, but the thought of it makes my hand cramp with horror. But I'm interested to know if you think computers have helped writers or perhaps taken something away, like the dedication it must have taken to write Jane Eyre, Ulysses, or anything by Shakespeare. Obviously, I'm in the pro-computer camp. Thoughts?