Handwriting is irrelevant

[Lazybones]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1165272610506&call_pageid=968332188492

I still remember having to write my tests and notes all the way through high school, and still take notes in post secondary. I never considered it optional.

However now after years of sitting behind a computer, I must say I forget how to form some of the letters as well, I have even gone to look them up on line from time to time.

[Shayne]

I've been "printing" ever since the beginning.  we were taught cursive obviously, but when doing tests and such I always printed.  Handwriting is sort of dead though, i can type over 50 words a minutes and I would be hard pressed to print out 30.

[Darren Dirt]

My 8 year old daughter is very proud of herself with her ability to handwrite (newly acquired skill this year) so I printed a page a b c d e... for her in Word, using one of the better cursive fonts. But I casually mentioned how rarely most adults use it (trying hard to not discourage her of course) and how most people find printing quickly is good enough (or typing, of course).

Surely 30 years from now, after Armageddon and the Pulse make all electronics just ugly paperweights, she will be a renowned caligraphist or poet or something, while the rest of us print along at 30 wpm (more like 10, maybe 20 )


Well, at least most of us can still do long division by hand, adding mixed fractions, etc. etc.

Right?

[Tonnica]

I can still do cursive writing, and it isn't too bad looking either. My printing has degraded badly in quality though - years of taking quick notes has forced some bad habits on me that sacrifices readability for speed. It takes twice as long as me to handwrite something than to print because I watch what I'm doing (and of course the extra time it takes to print without connecting strokes between letters).

I think the heart of handwriting going kaput is because both of the original intended uses are now easier to do by typing or printing:
1) Fast note-taking (someone trained well in cursive writing is supposed to be able to record notes faster than someone printing the letters)
2) Making your writing difficult to read so the church can't tell you're writing crazy flying devices and how the world may not be flat (now replaced by alternate verbiage. See: ROFLCOPTER)

[Darren Dirt]

Goal # 2 is easily accomplished with fonts such as Wingdings/Webdings ... especially when writing technical manuals that you know won't get read

[Thorin]

I don't see the art of handwriting as having died.  The kids are still learning it in school, and they are in fact allowed to write cursively for tests and such.  In fact, my son is just as excited as Darren's daughter to have mastered it, and writes almost everything in cursive nowadays.

When I was little and used cursive a lot in school, my parents also printed most things they wrote down.  I think it's just that as you get older and leave school, typically you simply write a lot less and end up printing to make things easier to read for others.

[Thorin]

Reading the story, I realized that what they're trying to say is not that young kids don't use it, but that older kids don't use it.  That may very well be true.  I plan to keep the art and mystery of writing alive by having the kids write actual letters to family and friends around the world, though.  The in-laws are helping with that - they ask for letters to be sent to friends they made in Cuba.

[Darren Dirt]

As a kid growing up, I remember my mom used to write a half-dozen letters every week, usually 3-8 pages long each. Handwritten.

Looking back, I'm very impressed. And a bit sad that I didn't "carry on the tradition". Email just isn't the same.

Maybe I'll encourage my daughter more to keep alive this artform.

[Shayne]

Why not email?  It takes near 0 time, requires 0 postage and you can have many replies go back and forth in small time period.  For the few people without computers I suppose this becomes an issue and for those few people I still type my letters to be sent, its just faster and if i make a mistake I can hit the backspace key.

If/when I have kids, i wont push the subject, its been replaced with a faster and better system.

[Tom]

I never did learn to handwrite properly. specially the capitals. And its virtually incomprehensible My printing isn't much better. Never has been.

[Thorin]

Why not email?  It takes near 0 time, requires 0 postage and you can have many replies go back and forth in small time period.  For the few people without computers I suppose this becomes an issue and for those few people I still type my letters to be sent, its just faster and if i make a mistake I can hit the backspace key.

If/when I have kids, i wont push the subject, its been replaced with a faster and better system.

Very true.  Email is great for sending quick notes back and forth.  But writing a letter is much more than sending a quick note somewhere.  It's putting your thoughts and feelings down in what becomes a short story (hopefully not fiction) for the recipient to read.  This process helps the writer learn to plan the structure of their writing, to scan their writing for grammatical and spelling errors, to write something interesting.

For the few people without computers I suppose this becomes an issue

Around 86% of the world's population still don't have computers (world population is approximately 6.5 billion according to page 6 of http://www.prb.org/pdf06/06WorldDataSheet.pdf, PCs-In-Use is approximately 900 million according to http://www.c-i-a.com/pr0506.htm).  In Canada, only 28% of the population don't have computers (Canada's population is about 32 million, PCs-In-Use is about 23 million).  Of course, these percentages are based off the idea that each computer is used by a different person.  Some people (like many of the members of this forum) have more than one.  Some people share one computer with others (such as the guy with one laptop who lets his neighbours use it down in Cuba).  My point is, there are still lots of people that don't have (regular) access to a computer to check their email, and snail-mail is more likely to reach them on time.  If you happen to correspond with people outside of the industrialized nations, or even with people who are technology-averse - we tend to forget that members of this forum do not represent the typical cross-section of the city, province, or country that we live in, simply because there aren't any truly tech-averse people on here.

if i make a mistake I can hit the backspace key

Most people don't bother correcting their grammar or spelling when using an Instant Messenger, email, or even posting on a forum.  Most people expect the *computer* to catch mistakes and correct them, thanks to the introduction many moons ago of the spell checker.

If/when I have kids, i wont push the subject, its been replaced with a faster and better system.

Faster, yes, if the recipient has the proper hardware to receive it.  Better, that depends on what qualities you're looking for.  Obviously, you're looking at speed and assuming appropriate infrastructure is in place.  But what if the qualities you're looking for is that you want your communication to be read like a story, treasured, and written while laying on a sandy white beach far away from any blinking machines or computers?

I won't tell my kids they have to write their letters by hand, but I will ensure that they know how so that if they decide on their own to do it, that they can.  And so far, honestly, my oldest would rather write a letter by hand than type it up.  But if he's not writing a letter, just chatting with a friend, he will use email and IM to do so.

[Shayne]

I guess I like to believe that the world is a lot smaller with the invention and implementation of the phone, email and IM that the need to write out a long letter about thoughts and feelings has become a thing of the past.

I used to get a letter from my grandparents every birthday and xmas inside my card.  in the last 3 years they have all gotten computers and now i get emails every few weeks with the simple "hows it going, and these are the events that have happened since last time" it makes keeping in touch and overall communication so much easier.

[Mags]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1165272610506&call_pageid=968332188492

I still remember having to write my tests and notes all the way through high school, and still take notes in post secondary. I never considered it optional.

However now after years of sitting behind a computer, I must say I forget how to form some of the letters as well, I have even gone to look them up on line from time to time.

Totally in the same boat as Lazy. I also find that I can't write paragraphs and essays anymore either, just so used to condencing everything for quick emails, im's, or online chat.

[Thorin]

I guess I like to believe that the world is a lot smaller with the invention and implementation of the phone, email and IM that the need to write out a long letter about thoughts and feelings has become a thing of the past.

Yes, the need is no longer there (so long as we're communicating with people who have necessary infrastructure to receive our electric/electronic messages) but for some people the desire still is.  This is why I agree with the original article that knowledge of handwriting is no longer required, yet I still want all my kids to get good at it in case they want to use it in the future.

On a side note, I agree with the studies that show that the North American population is becoming less adept at writing in general; not just  penmanship, but also grammar, spelling, cohesive on-topic structure, etc.  If this trend continues to the extreme, we'll end up with an elite group who perform writing functions for us as we use pictures to indicate thoughts, feelings, and ideas.  That doesn't sound so bad, until you realize that same sentence could describe a typical medieval European community.

[Mr. Analog]

From now on I'm handwriting all my Latin...

[Shayne]

But Thorin, the Chinese and Japaneses have been using pictures for a heck of a long time.

[Mr. Analog]

While Traditional Chinese text and Japanese Hiragana have some pictographic roots the majority of those langauges do not use pictograms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictographic

[Shayne]

I wasn't being literal, but there language has many symbols that translate to english words and phrases.  seems more efficient (though harder to learn obviously).  Perhaps our penmanship is simply (d)evolving.

[Darren Dirt]

It's all about the heart, baby.

If your loved one is on the other side of the ocean, or the other side of the Rockies, I'm sure it would mean just a little bit more if they received correspondence from you that took more than 10 minutes to compose. And it's tangible, in their hands... It can even contain a fragrance of your choice.

Guess I'm a bit of a sentimental guy when it comes to this (and perhaps I'm sad to see how often I type instead of more intimate ways of communicating). Plus I miss my mom.

Dirtman, over and out.

[Thorin]

Really, the letters in any alphabet are nothing more than symbols with special meanings.  My point wasn't that the masses will use symbols for specific things, but rather that the masses will forget how to record thoughts and ideas.  To use your example of the Japanese using specific symbols for specific English phrases, what if 90% of the Japanese population doesn't know the rules on how to put them together properly?

[Shayne]

but we DO know how to put them together just not so much in cursive which is so very seldom used (outside of letter writing and note taking do we have another example) all legal forms and any form in general its mandatory that printing is used.  I use a pen and paper at least daily even if jotting down notes on my scribble pad beside me, to say that we will lose our ability to put letters together is absurd.

Even if you totally forgot how to write I'm sure that you could copy the symbols that you type with a computer onto paper with pretty good dexterity.  Its really an issue of speed vs legibility, I would wager EVERYONE on this forum could print out beautiful words if taken the time to do so.

[Thorin]

Yes, I think we both agree with what the article says: the ability to write using cursive script in day-to-day activity is no longer a requirement.

the North American population is becoming less adept at writing in general; not just  penmanship, but also grammar, spelling, cohesive on-topic structure, etc.  If this trend continues to the extreme, we'll end up with an elite group who perform writing functions for us as we use pictures to indicate thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

I don't think we're at the extreme end of this trend of declining writing skills, although the decline is definitely evident.  Just examining the posts in this thread, there are examples of incorrect capitalization, punctuation, or word choice.  Incorrect capitalization usually doesn't cause problems for the reader, although there are times where whether the word is capitalized or not means it has a different meaning.  Incorrect punctuation causes problems quite easily, because the reader has to guess at what the correct punctuation and therefore meaning of the written words is supposed to be.  Incorrect word choice very frequently causes problems, as the reader has to start finding other words that match phonetically to the one written, to see which word makes the most sense in the sentence.

Some examples:

The Rock: Newfoundland (or that wrestler who thinks he's also a good actor)
The rock: a piece of stone on the ground

Phones ringing: More than one phone ringing
Phone's ringing: A single phone is ringing

there language has many symbols: ??
their language has many symbols: Ah-ha!  Substitute the phonetically-similar "their" for "there", and the sentence makes sense!

Last but not least, there was that nasty thread where the incorrect use of quotation marks caused confusion and rather too much name-calling (sorry Darren).

all legal forms and any form in general its mandatory that printing is used

This is an excellent example of where it's important to know how to print your letters, at present.  Some day in the not too distant future, though, this could easily be replaced by requiring you to swipe your identity card over a reader so that they can get all your vital information that way.  Presto change-o, you no longer need to be able to write to fill out the form!  If this technology came to be, it would decrease the reasons for being able to read and write.

Even if you totally forgot how to write I'm sure that you could copy the symbols that you type with a computer onto paper with pretty good dexterity.  Its really an issue of speed vs legibility, I would wager EVERYONE on this forum could print out beautiful words if taken the time to do so.

You're just talking about not knowing how to write in cursive script, right?  I consider writing and reading to be intimately linked.  If you know how to read, you'll be able to write (although not necessarily very well).  If you completely forget how to write in any manner, there's no way you should be able to read.  And if you completely forget how to read (or never knew in the first place), then anything you type on the computer will be gibberish.  But again, this is what I see happening if the decline in creating prose continues to its extreme.

About 41% of adults in Canada are considered to have "low-literacy skills" (http://www.abc-canada.org/media_room/news/all_survey_summary.shtml#figure_1).  Almost no one is completely illiterate anymore, but these 41% have enough difficulty reading that they can't complete secondary school (levels 1 or 2 as defined in http://www.abc-canada.org/media_room/news/all_survey_summary.shtml#terminology).  If these people are faced with writing that is grammatically incorrect, has incorrect word choices, or contains other errors, they probably won't be able to adjust and determine the true meaning of the text - they're already having a hard enough time trying to read what's been written.  They certainly won't be writing books or technical manuals or recording any other great ideas or inventions they dream up.

[Shayne]

I think we are getting a bit away from the topic at hand. We have all pretty much agreed that the requirement of cursive scripting today is pretty much nonexistent.

My point about penmanship decreasing was in response to the likes of Tom who said "I never did learn to handwrite properly. specially the capitals. And its virtually incomprehensible My printing isn't much better. Never has been." in that he is saying that his printing is almost incomprehensible.  If given the time I cannot see how you cannot make accurate and neat printing or cursive as the English alphabet requires very little dexterity.

Grammar and spelling are an issue for sure.  With the invention and quick reliance on Spell/Grammar check found in all word processors the ability for people to build and punctuate proper sentences has most certainly decreased.  The only way to get around that is to simply remove the helping hand, but to what end does that really help other then personal well being.  There is still a chance that you will mess up and it will go unfound (this is apparently not a word) (unless it is Edited by either an Editor or an automated system).

Reliance on these tools is so very apparent.  Big publications the Wall Street Journal and online publications like Slate consistently have grammar issues and other word problems by relying on the tools.  I have seen the "their", "there", "they're" substitution wrong a lot.  Most times its not even that, its examples like "The house was on fire and the fire department was on the scene" turning into something like "The house was on fire and the fair department was on the scene" as perhaps the automated fixer chose the wrong word from a common misspelling.

Spelling and Grammar are not the only problems.  Driving is quickly becoming another.  People relying on 4x4, ABS and traction control to allow them to drive as per normal under ALL conditions.  The "I drive an SUV therefore I am invincible" is a much bigger threat to our friends and family then the inability to figure out which "to, too, two" to use.

[Tom]

I would wager EVERYONE on this forum could print out beautiful words if taken the time to do so.

No matter how I try, I can't print legibly for very long. My hands cramp up, I can barely keep in the lines, and there's very little legibility. And this was back in school when I still had to do it all day every day. Its only gotten worse.

The only way to get around that is to simply remove the helping hand

Certain issues leave me with no option but to use the spell check. Of course, I actually will remember the spelling of a word if I see it popup more than a few times (hopefully), but half the time I won't know if it was spelt wrong in the first place. Its part typo's, part recall, and part lexdysia (not necessarily in that order)

[Darren Dirt]

Its part typo's, part recall, and part lexdysia (not necessarily in that order)

I think you mean lysdexia.

[Tom]

I think I meant lexdysia