Cursive Versus Printing

[domnortheast]

When I went to school, MANY years ago, in the US, Palmer style writing was called script. The term cursive was never used. In fact I never used it until I found this forum. It was always script. Although I don't know what todays kids call it.

 

Someone once said of the US and England, "two countries, separated by a common language."

The Queen's english vs. American english.

English is great like that, you can take it home pet it, feed it and make it your very own then send it back out there for someone else to pick up.

 

I'm not a language historian but perhaps the use of the word 'script' in American English to denote joined up flowing handwriting comes from an older original use in British English pre-dating the more modern adoption of 'cursive' in the last couple of hundred years. This has occurred with a good number of other words (he says frantically wracking his brain to come up with some examples).....such as the word Truck - U.S. English (middle English origin) and Lorry - British English.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Stanley Howler

[httpmom]

 

Same article stated that the longer one goes to school, including advance degrees, the worse the penmanship gets. The author extrapolated that as one reason doctors and lawyers are notorious at handwriting, blaming the penmanship of too many years of note taking in school.

This was certainly true in my case, that is why I got reacquainted with FP's. Between the college penmanship fail and the introduction of email my cursive and my print hand became a total fail. Now I am on a quest to improve both. The use of a fountain pen forces me to slow it down and think about the formation of each letter. A good thing!

[Katharine]

"Cursive" to me does indeed mean the Palmer (or D'Nealean, or whichever it is we were taught) "joined-up" writing.

 

My handwriting is bad at the best of times, but I find that my printing looks more characteristically "male" (more angular, messy, as opposed to most women I know, who have a rounder and more-legible hand), but my cursive looks more characteristically "female" (rounder. Besides the fact that I know almost no men who use cursive except in a signature). As far as speed? Cursive, all the way. I'm sure I CAN write as quickly in print... but even I may not be able to read it later. (and yes, the letters do sometimes get somewhat "joined up" when I try to write very quickly in print, but this is not intentional and merely comes from me not having time to lift the pen[cil] from the page-- it is more mess than joining.)

 

Then again, strangely enough, my letterforms have deviated very little from those I was taught in school (aside, obviously, from the personal quirks of my own handwriting that make them imperfect). Several years ago, I changed some of the more-ridiculous cursive capitals (and am still looking for a good solution for a couple of them, that doesn't look like an out-of-place print letter thrown in), but that was it. Even my signature is legible (most people I know have just a scribble, but with mine, you can clearly read every letter spelled out). IOW, I'm kind of boring on the handwriting front.

 

(I'd love a great italic handwriting, but I just can't stand to write slowly most of the time.)

[fountainpenlady]

Actually when I use the term script I really only use it very occasionally but do use it instead of cursive to refer to joined letters. The term I most generally use in conversation is "handwriting". And when I say handwriting I am referring to a person's personal style of writing be it script or printing. For example, I would say that I am practicing my handwriting or that my son's handwriting is terrible. Although, you can also talk about handwriting in general. For example I could say, "Most of my students have poor handwriting."

 

It is interesting the way words are used differently around the world.

I agree with you. When I think or refer to handwriting, I also mean the distinctive strokes of how a person writes. There are some people I have encountered who write a cross between script and printing so they would not apply to any other descriptions. Also, in jest what about the historical referred physician's writing or person whose writing is simply a combination of scribbling and some straight or dancing line and fits into no category of cursive, script, or otherwise?

Edited April 13, 2015 by fountainpenlady

[fountainpenlady]

Actually when I use the term script I really only use it very occasionally but do use it instead of cursive to refer to joined letters. The term I most generally use in conversation is "handwriting". And when I say handwriting I am referring to a person's personal style of writing be it script or printing. For example, I would say that I am practicing my handwriting or that my son's handwriting is terrible. Although, you can also talk about handwriting in general. For example I could say, "Most of my students have poor handwriting."

 

It is interesting the way words are used differently around the world.

I agree with you. When I think or refer to handing writing I also mean the distinctive strokes of how a person writes. There are some people I have encountered who write a cross between script and printing so they would not apply to any other description. Also, in jest what about the historical physician or person whose writing is simply a combination of scribbling and some straight or dancing line and fits into no category of cursive, script, or otherwise?

[ac12]

 

"Cursive" to me does indeed mean the Palmer (or D'Nealean, or whichever it is we were taught) "joined-up" writing.

Then again, strangely enough, my letterforms have deviated very little from those I was taught in school (aside, obviously, from the personal quirks of my own handwriting that make them imperfect). Several years ago, I changed some of the more-ridiculous cursive capitals (and am still looking for a good solution for a couple of them, that doesn't look like an out-of-place print letter thrown in), but that was it.

 

I too decided to change some of my letters;

- upper case S from the Palmer style to look like "S" Unfortunately, the ending stroke of the S goes to the left rather than the right.

- upper case Q from the Palmer style that looks like a "2," to look like a "Q." I simply do an O and put a slash in the right corner. I don't know what is so hard about that, that they had to create that odd 2 for a Q.

- I'm still working on the Z. I don't like both Palmer upper case Z nor lower case z.

[Katharine]

I'm very stuck on "I." I could use a print I, but it looks very "print" and looks out of place. I've not yet found a good alternative, even after looking at various exemplars.

[Tack]

This is a topic close to my heart. I have spent my adult life taking care to write everything in "cursive" completely illegibly

I, too, was taught outside of the USA - initially in a British colony until age 10 (Hong Kong) and them in Australia. For us, printing was the "baby step" before "joined up" writing. To be honest, I can not really write in a printing style at all! The term "cursive" never entered our vocabulary.

Fast forward to medical school..... Huge amounts of notes takes at high speed and written with a ballpoint pen. All in cursive. Many of them illegible after a month or two.. (Ie after the recollection of the lecture had passed). I have no doubt my handwriting progressively deteriorated over that time.

 

Now I look back and remember my mother - she had beautifully legible cursive writing , and could - if the occasion demanded it - write in a copperplate script that was well remarked upon.

 

More recently, I have had discussions with several friends from the USA who seem at a loss to understand why one would write in cursive at all. I don't know if this is geographically specific or not....

 

Anyway - I for one find joined up writing the only way I can write anything at speed and am now in the process of actually slowing it down and concentrating on trying to make it more legible...

Edited May 22, 2015 by Tack