The Curse of Cursive
Wednesday Workshop
8 August 2018
It appears we will no longer teach cursive writing in our schools. Instead, we will teach our children to print. I will not pass judgement on this decision. Quite simply, my handwriting has always been bad. Very bad. I have never worked out why, but I suspect that it is because I think very quickly and my hand tries to keep up with my brain, and the result is the scrawl that I call my handwriting.
I type with two fingers, too, and stare at the keyboard as I am doing so. I tried to follow a typing course one year. I worked at it for two months. At the end of that time, I tried my touch typing examination and managed a rate of 78 words a minute with an accuracy of 82%. I did the same test with my trusted two fingers: 114 words a minute accuracy rate 98%. Oh dear. I still type with two fingers and I still write badly and no, my thoughts have not slowed down.
Just glance through the above photograph, taken from the journal I keep everyday. “Almas de Violeta,” it reads, “an early poetry book by Juan Ramón Jiménez, the Nobel winning poet, was first published in violet ink. I have a copy of his complete works, Obras completas, in which these early poems still appear in purple, or violet rather, to match the color of the title. He published in green ink too, but personally I prefer the purple. Bruised clouds on an evening sky, dark depths of a rainbow glow, Northern Lights singing at the deep end of their scale … or just a desire to be different … slightly different, as if that one thing, the color of my ink, might tip the scales and turn me from mediocre to celebrity with a wave of a violet wand or the click of a pair of ink-stained fingers.”
Now, wasn’t that easy! And there’s so much personality in tone and color, ebb and flow, the link of a poet to the words on his page.
Once, in a faraway library in a distant, magical land, I was studying an autograph manuscript, written by Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645). The hand-writing began very steadily. Then I noticed a red dot or two on the page. Then a larger stain. Our poet was a notorious drinker. The letters grew large and loopy. The paragraphs sprawled. Punctuation marks and accents, slashed and splashed, and missed their targets. By the end of his evening, with his bottle surely empty and gone, I could just about make out what the good man had written.
When I turned the manuscript folio, from recto to verso, it was a new day and the original handwriting was back, small and neat. I have noticed the same phenomenon when I write late at night. Unreadable words, occasional wine splutters, spelling and grammar mistakes, disjointed readability … but the thoughts and the ideas are still there, still clear. Sure, I need a bit of hard work to interpret some things, but that’s the curse of the cursive, I guess.
I have always blamed my own illegible (except – well sometimes – to me) scribble on the hours sitting in college lectures attempting to make a record of what was being said. Consequently, I could only ever revord about every 3rd sentence. Something which I claim accounts for all those gaps in my learning. A most interesting post, Roger.
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I think I’ll post a Thursday thought on this theme, Roland. Good one.
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Hi Roland, I just posted a ‘knowledge rant’ as my Thursday Thought in reply to your comment.
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I love to use handwriting still. I think it’s a shame it won’t be taught in school any longer. Ah progress. It leaves artistry in the dust sometimes.
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Handwriting is very distinctive, shows personality, and is very much a part of the poet’s persona. Life is very different when tears, smudges, blots of ink, and wine stains are replaced by typos and an emojis. There is something terrible and oh so anonymous about printing and typing, a total lack of individual personality, and becoming worse as the keyboard is computerized and the fake emoji takes over our lives. (Smile = emoji of grinning face).
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I agree! Any more you can type a word (at least on a phone or device) and the keyboard will suggest an emoji replacement. Doesn’t it feel like we’ve actually reverted in communication? Instead of having video phone conversations, we are sending each other hieroglyphics!
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Love it: hieroglyphics and graffiti. The world reduced to memes. I just posted a rant on Knowledge! My Thursday Thought.
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I just read it! I’ll add my comment there!
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Yes, I have a twelve-year-old who doesn’t know how to join letters together. That’ll be the Internet generation. Tch.
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I remember the copperplate used by my grandfather. Beautiful. Just reading up on S. F. Barnes and his copperplate. Fascinating man!
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