I've been practicing my cursive writing at work lately. I suck. Remember those notebooks that you had to fill - - yellow, thin, not quite a duo-tang -- with the dashed lines especially for the task? I used to wish my name started with an "L" because I loved the way the capital looked. "A" was lame, just a large O-shape with a tail and gerry curl.
Cursive as a modern day function puzzles me. Do kids still learn it in school? Why did we even learn cursive? Does any one still write like that (save for my Nonna, and my enchanted pen pal)? Why then are our signatures always in cursive? Signatures always look like an editing mistake, or an ink kluster. And so, if the purpose of a signature is to secure identification, shouldn't we print clearly? (or maybe that is why we learn it when we are young...so we don't get suckered for fraud). Maybe I should start printing my signature, because right now, it looks like a large "A" on a plain of grass. (no, that wasn't supposed to be a joke about my name...that's just how it looks!)
Granted, cursive does facilitate quick note-taking. But by now, you've all probably developed your own shorthand -- that is like ancient code to everyone else. "restaurant" becomes "rest" (not "resto") and without becomes "w/o." My own lines. Trying to write cursively (?) now is next to impossible. It is like trying to drive straight on the opposite side of the road. There is so much thinking and second guessing (loop here?, attachment there?) in a task that used to be thoughtless. I wrote "motion" and it looked like "martian". "kids" looked like "kicks" (or maybe it was the cursive form of kicks, I'm not sure). Some of the tails and loops are fuzzy. I have to revisit grade 2 (Mrs Duncan and her throat clearing) and grade 3 (Mrs. Gladstone's wobbly neck) memory.
Calligraphy? Don't even get me started...
