Cursive at the crossroads

[vonwotan]

It is unfortunate that so much of our traditional education, the classics, penmanship, sportsmanship, politesse. Some of these may not have been a formal part of the curriculum but were assumed to part of out teachers' responsibilities.

As for penmanship, I was so very proud when I won the penmanship and mathematics awards in grammar school. Now, with e-mail and the demand that most correspondence be immediate, my hadwriting is quite awful. I keep thinkting that I would like to find a teacher for cursive, caligraphy and allocution.

Time is the commodity I would like most to reclaim. We tend to rush through everything. My impression is that conversation and correspondence have detriorated in large part because we don't allow ourselves the time to think through what we write or say. Deliberately slowing down, when I can, makes conversation more pleasant and meaningful.

If we all stop, listen and consider what our companions say before blurting out the first thing that comes to mind perhaps we can recover some of the civility that has been lost.

 

[Clara Noir]

I do write a lot in everyday life, as I work in a shop which is frightfully behind the times. All our orders are handwritten, and some take a few hours each to do. All our signs are hand illustrated, and the list continues.

Every member of (female) shop staff is expected to be able to write a sign. This isn't gender bias; the manager is never on the shop floor and he's the only male there! Anyway, very little correspondence is even just for staff, most needs to be faxed.

Those of us who write the most, write joined-up. Cursive isn't a word we use here. I'm a distinct leftie, and write Chinese style by turning the page 90 degrees clockwise. People always comment on it, but I have very readable writing. Even my diary, while personal, is well written.

I wonder is this is because of the art link; it is an art and craft shop, so we all have our flamboyant style to get across. Or if we are just old fashioned; all of the staff were born out of time. I prefer my typewriter style numbers to my letters.

I have started to get back into calligraphy again, using a dip pen with leftie nibs. They are angled to counter the angle the en is held at. This is invaluable. I used to do calligraphy with a standard nib, which was unreliable, but left hand nibs make a huge difference. And dip pens are fun.

Yes I went through hand writing hell in school. I had a teacher who continually turned my page so the lines were horizontal, and I kept turning it back around. In the end I gave in one day and wrote slowly, abominably, and smudged all my writing, and upon pointing this out to her she let me write properly. I also pointed out that a month before my SAT and high school entrance exams wasn't the best time o change the habit of a lifetime...