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

[etoyoc]

Z... I need to slow down to completely form one letter before skipping to the next letter (sometimes I completely skip over letters even), but z always brings me to a stop. Even then it just looks like a wonky y.

[garnet]

Capital G and capital S. But I love writing e,p and f both upper and lower. I have been known to re-write a paragraph or scour the Thesaurus for words without g and s.

[ateebtk]

small b , z, c , k ... big G

[Sesh]

ↁ

 

Seriously, though, sometimes my capitol italic cursive F's look like capitol cursive E's (If I don't do the bottom serif right; always need to take care with that).

[bigstick]

cursive, italic or roundhand, it is O-shaped letters that drive me batty. A distinct tendancy to make'em too small, or somewhat pear-shaped.

[garnet]

A couple of small items to broaden the aspect of this thread. Capital letters are so called as they were originaly the illuminated letters on a manuscript, or 'capital' as in major or senior and not necesseraly the first letter of a name or sentence. 'Upper case' comes from the printing world where the letters (metal or wooden dies) were kept in a three tier wooden case, the 'big' or as we now call them 'capital' letters were in the 'upper case' and the small letters were in the... you guessed it... lower case, numbers and other symbols being in the bottom case.

 

But this don't make my 'big' 'capital' 'upper-case' G 'n' S any easier.....

Edited July 21, 2010 by garnet

[vrixton]

My only real issue is long series of n's, m's, and other such round-topped lower-case letters. They cause my hands to shake and they end up being pointed-top lower-case letters haha

[KateGladstone]

For me it's that stupid lower case "r". Not that it's a problem when I take my time and think about it, but whenever I'm writing in a hurry, my r's look like i's I forgot to dot. Until recently my Capital I and T were also issue, but I've found new ways to write each that I prefer and have quickly adopted.

 

I'd love to see your new-and-improved "I" and "T" -- I've a strong interest in the efficient improvements that many people devise within (or in spite of!) the styles they grew up with. As a handwriting teacher, I believe that the hard-won improvements of "writing rebels" -- as I call people who've improved upon the style they learned -- can show us a lot about how we should teach handwriting in the first place.

 

So -- who else, over the years, has rebelliously devised various improvements to letter-shapes or other aspects of handwriting such as pen-hold (or has accepted improvements that s/he saw others using) to better his/her scribal performance?

[KateGladstone]

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

 

To remove that problem, begin your "c" by starting at the top-right corner of the letter and moving the pen slightly leftward on the paper -- for just a few millimeters -- before permitting yourself to begin moving the pen downward.

 

NOTE: Many people who have trouble writing a distinguishable "c" and "i" also have problems with forgetting to dot "i" -- or with wrongly placing the dot, so that it marks another letter instead of the "i." If you have this problem too, let me know if you'd like my favorite antidote for it.

[KateGladstone]

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

 

Regarding the v, y, and c -- do you mean the ascending stroke that begins each of these letters in cursive, or the strokes that join them to the next letter?

 

Regarding the "r" -- early cursive manuals show an "r" that looks more like a printed "r": you may wish to adopt that form.

[KateGladstone]

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, ...

 

Is the author of that quote saying (or implying) that D'Nealian is an Italic style? Getty-Dubay is, but D'Nealian isn't.

[KateGladstone]

lowercase b kills me. It's even worse when that lower case b is followed by an r... like break....

 

Same here. I always just use a normal print looking b for my cursive.

 

 

Ditto, for "b followed by r." And I have no excuse for not mastering it, since I've been writing it for some 4 decades.

 

-Debra

 

The combination "br" is a powerful argument against those cursive letter-shapes (and against connecting all letters).

Almost as powerful arguments: any combination, in cursive, of "b/o/v/w" with another letter.

 

When I give workshops to schoolteachers (or to others who have power to influence/decide how children shall learn to write), I often give them a simple "spelling test" which consists simply of writing (in cursive) the four words "post, past, port, part." It would amaze you how many teachers -- including the ones who think that cursive is easy, and/or who think that their cursive is good -- notice during this test that they have written "post" and "past" indistinguishably, and that they have writing "port" and "part" indistinguishably.

 

Glad to see I am not the only one. Since I posted this, I have worked on it, and i think its gotten worse

[KateGladstone]

I can agree fully that italic nibs help me in writing "m, n, and r," in fact they help my writing in general. But, they still do not help me much with "e," the bane of my writing existence.

 

A good way to make "e" less accident-prone -- if it tends to close up and become "c" or dotless "i" -- is simply to resolve to lift the pen very quickly and briefly from the paper (even if only for a microscopic instant) as you move into the letter "e" from whatever letter preceded it. (On coming out of the "e," of course, keep the pen on the paper if you would normally do so.

 

For example -- here using dots to indicate the pen-lifts -- "el.em.ent" and "b.e.ek.e.ep.er" -- try it!

 

If this fix doesn't work for you -- it works for only about 50% of my students -- another fix may serve you better (as it serves the other 50% of my students). For that second fix (which is historically older, and which is the one that serves me best for my own handwriting), go to http://www.exodusbooks.com/Samples/CEP/CEP-Manuscript.jpg and look at the alternative two-stroke "e" (shown under the more usual "e"). Myself, I also make the back of "e" straight rather than curved: which further eases this letter.

Edited July 25, 2010 by KateGladstone

[KateGladstone]

I am still working on finding different G, I, and T's to use. I do not like them in their standard Palmer form.

 

The "G/I/T" on this graphic -- http://www.exodusbooks.com/Samples/CEP/CEP-Cursive.jpg -- have inspired some writers who want to make these capitals simpler without making them glaringly inconsistent with Palmer. Some simple-capital seekers use some or all of the forms there without changes, while others work up a capital form intermediate between that style and their childhood Palmer Method or whatever.

[KateGladstone]

No so much individually, but as a group, writing in cursive, egypt is a pain in the wrist. Three descenders in a row. Similarly, gryphon is also a pain. Anything with multiple, consecutive, or nearly consecutive descenders are difficult to do with any finesse.

 

Donnie

 

Does it get any easier if you allow your pen to leave the paper for part (even a microscopic part) or all of the upward motion within the descenders?

[kanajlo]

Somewhere along the way, I picked up the notion that lower-case "v" and lower-case "u" should be written in the same way, the only difference being that the "v" is pointed at the bottom. Of course, After I took a good luck at Kelcher, I realized that something had been missing from my education -- or that I hadn't been paying attention. Notice there is an ascender that precedes the "v" and "y." These last two ascenders are often neglected when we are in a hurry.

[mstone]

absolutely, the upper-case 'X'. That basically never comes up, though, so practically speaking the answer is 'r' and 'b'.

[Edgar Allan Bo]

The only letter I have "problems" with is the capital "T"

[jgrasty]

"E" always vexes me.

[Deirdre]

Capital D, strangely enough. My D is more printed than cursive for that reason.