Would You Like to Try the Word Buzz?

Today I came across yet another article proclaiming the death of cursive writing.  Any mention of cursive always reminds me of The Dude, who is somehow cursive illiterate.  When we lived together only a few years ago, he used to ask me to read birthday cards from our Nana out loud to him because he could not read cursive script.

For reasons unknown I have always been a cursive enthusiast.  I remember the first time I wrote my name in cursive at the kitchen table.  My Uncle D wrote it for me to copy and I was very pleased with myself when I reproduced the foreign letters underneath his.  We started learning cursive and practicing our script penmanship in second grade.  At the time I couldn't imagine that writing in cursive would ever be quicker than printing because it took me so long to labor over each individual letter.  Years later when I was cranking my way through exam blue books in college, I always wrote in cursive because it was so much faster.

The following line from the article caught my attention:

. . . cursive script could be taught in kindergarten or first grade instead of third grade because it’s not as elaborate as it once was.

Not as elaborate?  What the?  The following illustration blew my mind.  Look at the capital Q and Z in New American Cursive!  Are you kidding me?  Even the capital F and T are super simplified.  I learned all of the extra curls illustrated on the blackboard below.

I will gladly admit that the Keyboarding class I took in ninth grade ended up being my most real-world-useful high school course, but it makes me sad to think that young students will learn to type at the expense of learning cursive writing.  When I took Keyboarding, I hadn't even heard of the Internet.

In conclusion, I am old.  Also in conclusion, Billy Madison's grasp on cursive writing is superior to The Dude's.