It started as a pleasant but intense discussion on the future of cursive writing. But before we get into it, let me pre-sanitize all implications of the word. You see, even though I’d used it most of my life, I’d never even heard the term, until much later in life.
Disclosure: It has nothing to do with profane language; no, it’s not akin to cursing. Strange that as a person in education for a third of a century, I’d either never come across “cursive” or hadn’t been aware of it. Then when I met the woman I later married, a woman who’s taught elementary school much longer than my shorter tenure, I became familiar with “cursive,” also thinking initially it dealt with offensive language.
OK, so cursive is the writing that links letters together. Ostensibly, it was created centuries ago as a means of speeding up written communication. In theory, printing one’s words is neater: When I write my email address for others, I don’t trust my cursiveness and also always need to print the address, as I’ve lost the ability to make an “a” look different from an “o” in cursive. And the “r” and the “v” — well, let’s not discuss them.
All of these thoughts came to mind Monday as I sat in an Optic editorial board meeting at which we discussed the future of cursive writing. Some states have stripped cursive writing from their curriculum.
As we discussed this trend — and as far as I can determine, cursive writing will disappear in a few years — I recalled the beautiful loops, curves and swirls that characterized my dad’s handwriting.
His Bible, which he received in 1906, at age 3, was passed on to me after Dad’s death, almost a century later.
I still admire the soft, flowing handwriting, and I got a taste of that each time he signed my report card from Immaculate Conception School. He signed the card even if I had played that grading period in the key of “F.” I was not a music student, by the way.
Did Dad leave any kind of handwriting legacy? Well, it seems my three older sisters have distinct, and even attractive handwriting. My older brother — well, we needn’t say much, except that his penmanship is neater than mine.
It’s easy to write flippantly about handwriting experiences of my childhood, in a way that people might find amusing. I can state now, without any qualms, that learning penpersonship was not my idea of good times.
I’m serious when I say learning to write was far from a many-splendored thing. I don’t recall cases in which any of Sister Mary Pecata Mundi’s other students needed to spend long periods at the board, perfecting the “o’s,” which looked strangely like eggs cracked at the bottom.
There’s been a slight evolution for me. As a busy newspaper reporter, both in New Mexico and Illinois, I recall using cursive in order to jot down whatever my sources recited. It’s impossible for anyone to write as fast as another speaks. Later, going over my notes was a challenge, as the faster I had written, the worse things looked.
And I’ve noticed that — for whatever reason — I find myself beginning all capitalized words with a printed first letter, even when the rest is cursive.
This past Saturday, I joined a group of people who’d spent the morning picking up more than a ton of trash as part of the Keep American Beautiful program. We met at the Plaza Park bandstand for a lunch of those six-foot-long Subway sandwiches. I took some photos of the gormandizers and then noticed three young volunteers on a bench, each engrossed in texting on her cell phone.
Before texting became such a preoccupation, I used to wonder when I noticed people — sometimes as many as four — sitting at a restaurant booth pecking away at their cell phones. “Why don’t they just talk to each other?” I’d wonder.
Well, the point was that they probably would have spoken if they wanted to communicate. I assume each of them was texting someone else.
And so it must have been with the young ladies at the park Saturday. How long has cell phone texting been the sine qua non of cell phone owners? When was a law enacted requiring all to own a cell phone, regardless of age?
And more importantly, has texting been as integral to them as handwriting ever was? My question concerns whether the three on the park bench learned cursive writing before possibly giving it up, with the advent of the iPhone.
I have no doubt that students in school today will never need to resort to handwriting anything. In fact, they might not even need pencils.
Two years ago, when my grandson and namesake produced a series of Optic photo pages for the weekend editions, he erred in the spelling of a name on the first photo he took. He decided then to ask the people he photographed to write their names on a paper, which he then photographed.
Will Arthur Roland move into the pencil-less society now that he has his own phone and now that’s he’s in his freshman year of college?
On trips to Denmark, I used to shudder when I watched my granddaughter Ellen Vestergaard, then age 3, handling her iPad, flipping through pages, tuning in games and educational programs.
My shudder quotient was based solely on my fears that were she to drop the costly piece of electronic equipment, it might shatter. Well, that didn’t happen during our visit that year, nor since.
Just like the heavy, clattery typewriters we learned to operate years back, another wave of technology is here, and with that arrival, the demise of penmanship is assured.
But I still will miss the ornate penmanship of many who lived decades and even centuries ago, when handwriting was an art, personal and attractive.