What's The Most Difficult Letter For You To Form In Cursive?

[Lyssa]

I second the Q's. Also capital I's are annoying for me as well, I usually write them like a lowercase l for simplicity but then if I'm writing in French and the sentence begins with "Il" I find it just looks bad so I print the I and then write the l.

[stonezebra]

w at the end of a word, especially following an o.

[bigstick]

I find it always necessary to mind my p's and q's, be they majiscule or miniscule.

[bigstick]

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii241/bigstickpilot/Bulletin%20Board/FPN100623b.jpg

[Lyssa]

bigstick - your handwriting is beautiful, as is your French (as far as I can tell). Is Winnipeg a French-speaking region of Canada?

[caliken]

This is fascinating!

 

If this thread continues for long enough, it looks as though every letter in the alphabet will be covered!! :roflmho:

Edited June 23, 2010 by caliken

[bigstick]

  On 6/23/2010 at 8:16 PM, Lyssa said:

bigstick - your handwriting is beautiful, as is your French (as far as I can tell). Is Winnipeg a French-speaking region of Canada?

 

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii241/bigstickpilot/Bulletin%20Board/FPN100623c.jpg

[bigstick]

I would like to apologise on my own and Lyssa's behalf for the apparent hijack attempt. We have moved on to other threads. Thank you for your forbearance.

 

Returning to subject, however: I find myself, when in a hurry, adding or subtracting a vertical in letters like y, so I get a weird i or a weirder w instead. Or an a with half an ascender. A g that is an o j instead. Sloppy. Very sloppy. It often earned the yardstick and still I do it to this day.

[Astrea]

Capital E's and Q's are the hardest for me to write. My E's don't look all that great when I write fast, and the Q's end up looking like 2's instead.

 

bigstick- Lovely handwriting! I didn't know there were so many French-speaking cities in Manitoba. I'm from Toronto myself

[Azrael]

for someone who has only just turned to cursive from printing my whole life, the lower case c is killing me. There is no difference between my c's and i's

[kanajlo]

The ascending stroke in the lower case v, y, or c is difficult for me, likewise the decent in the lowercase r.

[FooWriter]

Since the last time I posted to this thread, I've found solutions to my S and r issues. My problem children are now G and c. For G, I've been experimenting with making it a larger version of a g, but with the right side of the loop open. Miniscule c is always an issue, as I have a tendency to be lazy about the top curve and end up making something that looks like a warped i.

[Anne-Sophie]

The book The Technique of Copperplate Calligraphy: A Manual and Model Book of the Pointed Pen Method by Gordon Turner

has a lot of examples of letters in cursive many forms of capitals, it also has lowercase letters and words with capitals.

I think that most U.S states are used as as examples.

 

They are in a big font so it is easy to trace them with thin printer paper or... tracing paper and to get all the curves and loops right.

 

 

Most of the book is Turner going on and on about using a pointed pen, proper this and that which is quite boring but the pages of written examples are invaluable.

 

 

It is available from Dover books for around $5

 

That thin book is filed permanently in my penmanship folder.

 

I printed out the pages with examples and hold them in page protectors, which I bind together inside a pocket folder.

 

It is a very thin package that can be totted around and I can practice anywhere.

 

 

You could print the examples in very fade light gray and write on top of them in pencil.

(I think some fountain pens skip if one tried to write on top of printing)

 

I hope this helps, it has helped me a lot with Z.

[bigstick]

Last night they ALL went to hell in the same handbasket. Doesn't pay to wake up, sometimes.

[kanajlo]

Great article with links to other great articles

My link

 

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 occasionally for situations such as timed tests with large writing portions, where it is considered faster by some. Also being able to write in a fair-hand is still looked as a sign of literacy in many countries.

[caliken]

  On 7/12/2010 at 8:20 AM, kanajlo said:

Great article with links to other great articles

My link

 

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 occasionally for situations such as timed tests with large writing portions, where it is considered faster by some. Also being able to write in a fair-hand is still looked as a sign of literacy in many countries.

This wikipedia article is not just misleading, it is historically inaccurate.

 

Forms of simply slanted characters, termed italic, were considered by some to be easier and traditional cursive unnecessary.

 

The traditional form is Italic. Spencerian/Palmer developed in the 1800s from English Roundhand (Copperplate) which, in turn, developed from Cursive Italic, which dates back to the 16th century.

 

a number of various new forms of cursive appeared in the late twentieth century; D'Nealian, Getty-Dubay

 

There is nothing new about these cursive italic scripts which date directly from the 16th century.

 

these models lacked the craftsmanship of earlier styles such as Spencerian Script and the Palmer Method

 

Simply not true...In no way does Italic lack the craftsmanship of earlier(!?) styles such as Spencerian/Palmer

Cursive Italic pre-dates Spencerian/Palmer by more than two centuries.

 

but were less demanding, because the aesthetics were no longer as valued

 

To write Italic is far from easy; every bit as demanding and aesthetically pleasing as Spencerian/Palmer

 

Also being able to write in a fair-hand is still looked as a sign of literacy in many countries.

 

At least, they got this part right!

 

Once again, Wikipedia has to be taken with a pinch of salt, as this article has been written by the ill-informed.

[kanajlo]

  Quote

I don't particularly like Ts but it's more that I expect them to look more like Fs...

I finally decided to make a capital F the same way I made a capital T, but with the addition of a horizontal stroke through the center. It works for me.

[kanajlo]

  Quote

Once again, Wikipedia has to be taken with a pinch of salt, as this article has been written by the ill-informed.

 

The nice thing about Wikipedia is that those who know better can change the errors. I've done that a few times -- on other subjects. It would take you five minutes, I would imagine.

[caliken]

  On 7/12/2010 at 1:01 PM, kanajlo said:

I finally decided to make a capital F the same way I made a capital T, but with the addition of a horizontal stroke through the center. It works for me.[/i]

Thanks for the info.

 

I've been writing a capital F your way, in my signature for some time, as here -

 

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/Signatureblack3.jpg

[777]

Probably a Z, capital or lowercase.