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xkcd #2912: Cursive Letters
(imgs.xkcd.com)
Alt text:
๐ ๐ฝ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ท๐ด ๐ฌ๐ช๐น๐ฒ๐ฝ๐ช๐ต ๐ ๐ฒ๐ผ ๐น๐ป๐ธ๐ซ๐ช๐ซ๐ต๐ ๐ฝ๐ฑ๐ฎ ๐ถ๐ธ๐ผ๐ฝ ๐ฏ๐พ๐ท ๐ฝ๐ธ ๐๐ป๐ฒ๐ฝ๐ฎ, ๐ฝ๐ฑ๐ธ๐พ๐ฐ๐ฑ ๐ต๐ธ๐๐ฎ๐ป๐ฌ๐ช๐ผ๐ฎ ๐บ ๐ฒ๐ผ ๐ช๐ต๐ผ๐ธ ๐ช ๐ผ๐ฝ๐ป๐ธ๐ท๐ฐ ๐ฌ๐ธ๐ท๐ฝ๐ฎ๐ท๐ญ๐ฎ๐ป.
You guys were forced to actually use it? Outside of when I was taught it, no one demanded it. In fact, most teachers I had discouraged it, or hand written at all. They wanted everything typed in 12 point Times New Roman. Double spaced. Indented. With footers and headers.
I'm 39.
I found cursive to be the most useful thing ever for exams because of its speed compared to writing block letters.
You're just below the curve of home computers becoming ubiquitous. I'm 43, and through most of middle school papers had to be handwritten in cursive.
At home my computer was from Radio Shack, hooked to a TV, and had a Daisy Wheel printer - fonts were hardware. I got my first IBM PC in 8th grade, with a 20mb hard drive & dual 5 1/4" floppies.
What, like a printing press?
More like a typewriter, but instead of individual arms for each key, it was a wheel with all the letters that would spin to the correct position before a little piston would whack it. Also, yes, it was loud as fuck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AXerox_Roman_PS_Daisywheel_-_mono.jpg
Oh I've seen these... I thought they were for a typewriter, since they were among the things with the typewriter my mom had when I was a kid. Neat!
I have seen electric typewriters that used the same tech, so it may have been a typewriter wheel you saw.
Yep. 46 here. Rough drafts in print, final drafts in cursive in elementary school.
In my school, we were taught to/made to write in cursive since like 4. And then everyone complained that my handwriting was illegible chicken scratch and yelled at me to write more legibly.
Then I switched to non-cursive (whatever you call writing the same shape as the text in the page here?) and immediately my text became legible. Then everyone switched to complaining that I write too slow.
I just can't win.
I'm 39 as well, and up until 10th grade it was mandatory, only afterwards it was left to us to choose. And that's across all subjects.
We were not allowed to use computers to prepare papers in high school until grade 12 I think.
I'm older than that and I can't believe your teachers actually wanted to try decipher shitty kid writing. After like 6th grade for me everyone pretty much turned up their noses at anything that wasn't typed, and as a teacher now I can say I hate when my students try to hand in something handwritten.
Even before computers I think at least at the college level using typewriters was pretty common. When I was a kid I found a stash of college papers from my folks and a lot of it was done on a typewriter.
They didn't want to decipher it, if our handwriting was bad, we got points deducted or could ultimately fail.
My handwriting is still shit though.
I have a thing with my wrist where I don't have great fine motor control and my handwriting is adversely affected. I once handed in a whole essay and my teacher couldn't read any of it. I also couldn't remember what I had written so I essentially had to make it up on the spot again.
After that no one wanted me to write in cursive anymore. But my handwriting was still pretty bad given the whole wrist thing so they decided that I had dyslexia (I didn't but that's apparently an easier excuse than my wrist doesn't work) so I had to scribe. Finally they admitted that maybe a laptop would be a better idea. The whole thing took them about 5 or 6 years to get through though. With them demanding cursive for at least the first two years.
I don't think I've written anything down at all beyond maybe "happy birthday" in about 25 years.