• Deuces@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I find cursive is very useful when writing notes that only I will ever need to read. Reading and writing another persons cursive has never been easy for me and it has never impacted my life with one exception. I cannot read post cards from my aunt. Oh, and that time a decade ago when I had to fill out the “I will not cheat” pledge on the back of the SAT.

    Turns out if you need to write something with speed we have these things that are like typewriters, but they don’t even jam!

    • Lemmygizer@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Oh, and that time a decade ago when I had to fill out the “I will not cheat” pledge on the back of the SAT.

      One of the hardest sections of the SAT, right there

      • Deuces@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Never tried. Apparently yes, but I sound like a child reading each word like, “yeah, that’s definitely’vested’ I’m sure!”. I doubt the next generation will except a few people.

        I see your point, but I’m not sure I believe somebody could lie about it’s contents even in the distant future with how many legible copies there are.

        On another note, this website exists which is super cool! https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/downloads

          • Soggy@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I’ve never once encountered such a book. The only times I see cursive are stuff from older relatives, and they all write differently to each other so it’s just a matter of familiarity, and on headings or labels trying to look fancy.

            Sometimes it comes up in old stuff for academic or personal interests but “knowing cursive” is often secondary to understanding those. Letters or papers intended for others are often perfectly legible, personal notes are a total mixed bag. (Looking at you, Charles Darwin.)

      • Uranium3006@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        I have heard of this argument many times and it never made any sense. Is it really a big deal that kids these days might have trouble reading the original 1787 hemp copy, The one they keep in a climate controlled room in dc? Even the Supreme Court Justices use print transcriptions. This always seems like a purely sentimental arguement

        • Nepenthe@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          Voicing pride that you’ve never read the constitution of a country you don’t even live in is weirder 😬

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        You mean the one that starts with “congrefs” because the long s was a thing at the time and the letter f had a different meaning?

        How much time should we spend teaching school children about 200 year old antiquated orthography?

          • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            Because it’s a waste of time, and a lot of people were taught in a way that wasn’t the easy, quick way you seem to think it was.

            The way they taught me was to write the alphabet in a new script over and over for about an hour a day twice a week for several years. If you had poor handwriting you had to do it more, and you could fail lessons based purely on “didn’t shape your cursive S correctly”.

            Then you leave elementary school and teachers immediately switch to saying they won’t accept assignments in cursive, and then in highschool and college they won’t even accept handwritten.

            Slide rules are also easy to learn, but we don’t teach them because there’s no point to it.

              • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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                11 months ago

                Welcome to why so many people hate it. You’re taught it, it’s an awful experience, and then you never use it again.

                We may as well teach slide rules and abaci.

                  • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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                    11 months ago

                    Skipping, of course, that cursive is a technical skill and not cultural knowledge.

                    Cursive lacks technical value, and if there’s a pointless technical skill that most teachers seem incapable of teaching maybe the answer is to cut it from the curriculum.