Comments on: Curtains for Cursive?

By: Grapho-fétichistes et discrimination « Disparate

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:10:24 +0000

[...] motivation à écrire ce billet provient d’une discussion plutôt dérangeante pour moi, au cours d’un épisode de la balado-diffusion Open Source animée par Christopher Lydon. [...]

By: Train Your Horse & Cure Bad Habits! | 7Wins.eu

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:32:18 +0000

[...] l Development Carnival, September 2, 2007 Edition | Personal Development for the Book SmartOpen Source » Blog Archive » Curtains for Cursive? Tags ho [...]

By: cjuma

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 07:14:09 +0000

Writing is not about creating letters, which you can do with any electromechanical devices such as computers; it is the ultimate expression of our creative being. A cursive writing club will do more for our culture than most of the elite sports put together. Through pen and paper we can touch the souls of others in ways we cannot with their lesser substitutes. http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/global/

By: mimsong

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 18:10:28 +0000

here's news of the death of another obsolete technique, morse code: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-269012A1.pdf we won't be getting such an announcement for cursive, because writing is not regulated as radio is; morse the pity!

By: Kate Gladstone

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:31:38 +0000

Yoav, please contact me. I have taught quite a few people how to read cursive handwriting even if they didn't also want to write that way ... http://learn.to/handwrite

By: zensparrow

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 06:26:13 +0000

My handwriting is a combo of cursive and printing. I use email to communicate quickly, but handwriting to reflect - in my journal or in letters to my friends who live in monastery, without computer access. In my experience, pen and paper - whether cursive or printing or both - lend an intimacy to thoughts and a meditative quality to writing. One of my correspondents, a prisoner in San Quentin, writes the most beautiful cursive. You can tell it's a meditation for him.

By: himasf

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 15:56:54 +0000

Neat cursive is too slow. I have the patience to maintain a handwritten blog but I only use cursive occasionally.

By: William22

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 20:36:40 +0000

As the father of a child with Cerebral Palsy, I have a creative intelligent little man locked inside a body that doesn't work too well. For the guest of the program to claim have the ability to predict honesty or loyalty or other personality inferences based upon legibility is folly and crass at best.

By: Ozymandias

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 14:49:19 +0000

Chris made reference to the "Coca-Cola" cursive logo. Whilst corporate identity is a costly confection contrived by sophisticated graphic geniuses in concert with marketing mandarins these days, originator of the ubiquitous beverage John Pemberton's accountant, Frank Robinson, is credited with naming the product, and the famous logo is said to be in Mr. Robinson's distinctive handwriting. When a bean counter's penmanship has such astoundingly pervasive and enduring impact (ledger domain legerdemain? ) who can doubt the potential power of the written word?

By: David Weinstein

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:08:24 +0000

A few remarks, a contradiction and a question: I suffered from moderate dyslexia growing up. Needless to say learning to read and to write were an ordeal for me. I never learned the Palmer method or another but I do rememeber my third grade teacher stopping me as I was about to board the bus home, and relating in what I perceived to be a sort of paniced concern that I needed to practice my handwriting, particularly practicing the difference between a 'p' and a 'q.' All I could do was board the bus as quickly as possible, assuring her through the window that I would make the necessary effort, hoping for a swift departure of the transport to speed me away from my shame. I never could manage any semblance of a pretty handwriting so I had to settle for a utilitarian style. In my late teens however I realized that I had an aptitude and interest in calligraphy, particualrly letters written large. Later I practiced Hebrew calligraphy. This apparant contradiction has something to do with speed. Handwriting was invented to speed up the writing process as compared to block lettering. The calligraphy I enjoyed was block lettering. In any case I am a professional writer now. My fear that writing on a word precessor instead of a legal pad would somehow crimp my creativity turned out to be a supersition. In fact the editing capability, and, more dramatically, the spell check feature (rememeber the dyslexia) of word processing has made creative writing easier without crimping inspiration. Where the new process of writing really had a dramatic effect is when I returned to school to get an advanced degree. Computer word processing helped to vastly improve my paper writing. Of course all those years as a writer helped me to learn to organize my thoughts and to find apt expression of them. But this is one person who will not miss the typewriter. All this remains true in longform writing. But I cannot imagine writing poetry on a computer. I need the pen in my hand and to touch it to paper to write poetry at all. Certainly this has to do with the rhythm, sound and image of poetry and the intergration of all these features somewhere in the brain that is just incompatible, at least for me, with the keyboard. I am one who has experienced the pleasure of an exchange of letters with other human beings, the epistolary relationship ib both friendship and romance. This practice, this art is all but vanished. In a certain nostalgia, I would say that we are less fully human for its absence. There was a self discovery and deepening of bonds in the epistolary realationship not to speak of the attention to and development of language. But are relationships any worse now that the epistolarly realtionship has gone by the wayside like buggy rides into the country or the parlor discussion? I think not. Certaianly less romantic. But think how tortured those nineteenth century lovers were, at least in those French, Russain and English romanrtic novels we love. Perhaps in the accelerated, to-the-point, utilitarian e-mailing and text messaging friends and acquaintances get to the point. And lovers get real, have the opportunity to work things out. Can we hope for the best of both worlds, rapid and far reaching communication online but when we get together we can enjoy the art of verbal communication - sort of the template for ROS? Or have we just become speeded up and numbed out to our respective humanity?

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