Double yay! Yet more unrealistic statements! Seriously, what do we have to replace reading yet? It will come with time but we currently lack the technology.
You are fully literate if you can express yourself using language. Style or even medium has little to do with it. Eventually, being able to write may be a hobby or special skill such as being able to draw is today.
. . . and if you can't read or write script, you cannot fully express yourself using language.
So we are not expressing ourselves with language when not using script? Well done.
A baby can express iself using language. Koko the ape can express herself using language. Dogs and cats can undestand some words. None of them are literate.
What exactly would change if cursive script disappears?
If there was a viable alternative, maybe nothing. My point is that it's still early days yet. Script reading and writing is still neceassary in the adult world.
Because those are fine examples of what is considered conventional language. Stop splitting hairs. Face it, Joe, cursive script, not that important. Getting rid of it doesn't mean we will then get rid of useful things like punctuation or language. In a somewhat rational world, we probably won't.
Try signing your will in printed capital letters and see if that works out for you.
My living will is signed with a scribble.
Do you sign the lease for your apartment or the mortgage for your house?
The loan for my car was signed with a scribble.
Have you ever had to write a note for a secretary when there was no computer nearby?
I printed it: no cursive necessary or prudent.
What if your boss writes a note for you on a sticky note? What if your boss edits something you've written? How about a police report? A witness statement?
It's almost always printed, and even if not, script is easy enough to read without special training. No one has ever written a note to me in script in my entire professional career.
Do you ever write a check or is that declasse as well?
My old-world landlord is the only person in the world I write checks to. And even then, my signature is a scribble.
I know you think you're so smart you don't need to take notes, but what if you want to use someone else's notes in order to see what happened that day?
If they don't teach cursive, then I won't have to worry about my classmates using it. More to the point, note-taking as it is taught in school seems extremely counter-productive. A better method is to simply listen to what the teacher has to say, making short, concise notes of the items for which you wish to devote further attention or memory later. The more notes you take, the less you've really listened. If you require these additional notes, then the lecture was a waste, and you would have been better served by a text before attempting the lecture.
It doesn't help that many teachers and professors often have little to add beyond the content of their textbooks. The great teachers do, but the average ones often do not. The smarter students simply realize this earlier and rely more on the texts rather than archaically transcribing the words of a person who himself has simply cribbed them from a text to which they have access.
ee, you know, as long as we're talking about what's dead, maybe we should just admit that grammar is dead too.
Apples and Oranges. One is about a medium, another is about a message. If cursive is so important, than cunneform clay writing is equally so.
Arithmetic is probably dead too. I mean, we all have calculators, don't we?
Again, apples and oranges.
If you really want to raed a book, you can find an audio version of it
Audio and text versions of works are different, and both have their merits. Notice how none has supplanted the other? They both have something meaningful to add to the work.
Script is an art form, but it certainly is no longer a viable or useful means of communication.
You are fully literate if you can express yourself using language.
Literacy? ? –noun 1. the quality or state of being literate, esp. the ability to read and write. (emphasis mine) 2. possession of education: to question someone's literacy. 3. a person's knowledge of a particular subject or field: to acquire computer literacy.
Style or even medium has little to do with it.
As Rym pointed out above, language makes a difference, but people who can't read basically can't function in society. You could be a master painter, but if you can't read, you are illiterate.
Eventually, being able to write may be a hobby or special skill such as being able to draw is today.
There may very well come a time where knowing how to write by hand is not an essential skill, but technology is in no way advanced enough for it.
Try signing your will in printed capital letters and see if that works out for you.
My living will is signed with a scribble.
Good luck having it enforced.
What if your boss writes a note for you on a sticky note? What if your boss edits something you've written? How about a police report? A witness statement?
It's almost always printed,
Wrong. I've only seen one typed police report in my life, and that was for a murder. Similarly, most witness statements I've seen have been in longhand. What about clerk notes on the back of case jackets? What about attorney work product notes in the file? If you're going to have a job of any sort in the legal field, you need to be able to read and write in longhand.
Regarding the above post: Can you not write using a computer? It's called typing.
What I said is that technology isn't advanced enough to phase out hand-writing at this point. If there ever comes a day where I can walk into any business, no matter where it is, and apply for (and begin) a job without ever having to pick up a physical pen, then I will say fine, don't bother teaching kids to write by hand.
Also, I said in the first post that I do think that keyboarding should be more of a priority than learning cursive, since signatures (Iegible or otherwise) are the only place where cursive is considered necessary in today's society.
It's the same scribble on every other official document I have, from my driver's license to my contracts to my credit cards. It's been accepted by everyone who's ever need my "signature." Besides, more to the point, relying on signatures is absolutely useless and silly. The fact that people put more stock in a scribble that is attached to a piece of paper and faxed than a mathematically verifiable signature is ludicrous.
What I said is that technology isn't advanced enough to phase out hand-writing at this point.
We're not talking about handwriting: we're talking about script. Script is dead. If you write in cursive on a job application, I doubt many people will be able or care to read it. Most people tell you explicitly to print.
@misakrya Surely the better idea would be to improve authentication given how unreliable signatures can be?
Given that we have established there is little actual need for joined up writing. Is it worth learning for the times when you might want to use it, even if it isn't necessary? What are these situations? Are they more decorative? Can we give examples? What advantages does cursive writing provide over print or typing? Are they worth it?
As I've said before, if any of you are planning to have a job in the legal field, you should be prepared to read and write longhand.
Joe, Your going to use the legal system as a example of a highly effective, efficient and adaptive system? I mean some of those jobs still require you to wear a wig.
In the legal system, you have to be able to read what is written by people across the entire educational and economic spectrums. It isn't so much that the lawyer is unable to adapt, it's that the lawyer needs to be well versed in all forms of communication. Of course this depends on what area of law you practice in. In-house counsel for Google probably doesn't face too many of these issues.
As I've said before, if any of you are planning to have a job in the legal field, you should be prepared to read and write longhand.
Joe, Your going to use the legal system as a example of a highly effective, efficient and adaptive system? I mean some of those jobs still require you to wear a wig.
No one asked for an example of a highly effective, efficient and adaptive system. Omnutia asked for an example of an area in which longhand was still required. I'm here to tell you - if you can't deal with longhand, don't try getting a legal job.
In the legal system, you have to be able to read what is written by people across the entire educational and economic spectrums. It isn't so much that the lawyer is unable to adapt, it's that the lawyer needs to be well versed in all forms of communication.
And thus in the case of a lawyer or law professional, script and other things of that ilk should most certainly be taught and grasped, much as how I learned food-related sign language when I worked at the bar under the dorms at RIT. If a specialized tool is necessary for your job, you should learn it, but specialized tools are not necessary for the general population. There is no general applicability for script.
No one asked for an example of a highly effective, efficient and adaptive system. Omnutia asked for an example of an area in which longhand was still required. I'm here to tell you - if you can't deal with longhand, don't try getting a legal job.
They should just make you all write in shorthand :-p
If you write in cursive on a job application, I doubt many people will be able or care to read it. Most people tell you explicitly to print.
Except at the end, where they tell you to sign it.
And yes, I do think that signatures are an unreliable method of verification, as they are often illegible and can be forged. However, students that are learning cursive this year will find themselves in situations where they need a signature in about seven years (assuming that they're learning script in third grade). Unless this improved verification system can become universally implemented and accepted within that time, they'll still need to learn script.
And yes, I do think that signatures are an unreliable method of verification, as they are often illegible and can be forged.
That's why we have notary publics. You know what they do? They sign their name. In cursive.
I agree with misakyra. Not learning cursive or being indifferent to it is a form of self-handicap. There might very well come a day when it's not needed. That day is not now. Until that day comes, if you don't know how to read and write in cursive, you're handicapped in the adult world.
I've just had a word with my mother who was a literacy consultant for a few years and she raised an interesting point, in that: Writing joined up helps children, especially dyslexic children, learn to read words a whole as they recognize the shape of the whole word as they make it.
On a somewhat related note: She noted that, in France, children are taught cursive from the absolute beginning.
Not learning cursive or being indifferent to it is a form of self-handicap. There might very well come a day when it's not needed. That day is not now. Until that day comes, if you don't know how to read and write in cursive, you're handicapped in the adult world.
As an adult, I have never in my life run into a situation where reading or writing in cursive was necessary. ^_~ The last time I ever used it in any capacity was in fourth grade, my last year of parochial school.
Writing joined up helps children, especially dyslexic children, learn to read words a whole as they recognize the shape of the whole word as they make it.
Now, if there are studies showing a clear benefit like that, then by all means we should teach it to children. Even if it has no use in the real world, it could still be used as an educational tool.
Not learning cursive or being indifferent to it is a form of self-handicap. There might very well come a day when it's not needed. That day is not now. Until that day comes, if you don't know how to read and write in cursive, you're handicapped in the adult world.
As an adult, I have never in my life run into a situation where reading or writing in cursive was necessary. ^_~
Since when have you been living in the adult world? You're not out of your twenties yet. You're still living in Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. Come talk to me after you've had a heart attack and a divorce, when you start living in Definitely, Maybe.
Hey Scrym, Can we get a poll on the main site to ask whether people write cursive or print? I'm kinda surprised that people of my own generation don't write joined up.
Comments
Seriously, what do we have to replace reading yet? It will come with time but we currently lack the technology.
You are fully literate if you can express yourself using language. Style or even medium has little to do with it. Eventually, being able to write may be a hobby or special skill such as being able to draw is today.
All hail Omnutia - President of the Idiocracy! Here's a special message from the President in our new, improved, more modern langauge: Ugh! Oog! Argh!
What exactly would change if cursive script disappears?
Face it, Joe, cursive script, not that important. Getting rid of it doesn't mean we will then get rid of useful things like punctuation or language. In a somewhat rational world, we probably won't.
It doesn't help that many teachers and professors often have little to add beyond the content of their textbooks. The great teachers do, but the average ones often do not. The smarter students simply realize this earlier and rely more on the texts rather than archaically transcribing the words of a person who himself has simply cribbed them from a text to which they have access. Apples and Oranges. One is about a medium, another is about a message. If cursive is so important, than cunneform clay writing is equally so. Again, apples and oranges. Audio and text versions of works are different, and both have their merits. Notice how none has supplanted the other? They both have something meaningful to add to the work.
Script is an art form, but it certainly is no longer a viable or useful means of communication.
Also people, we are not talking about getting rid of writing here. We're just phasing out an old style for a (possibly, not even) newer one.
Regarding the above post: Can you not write using a computer? It's called typing.
Also, I said in the first post that I do think that keyboarding should be more of a priority than learning cursive, since signatures (Iegible or otherwise) are the only place where cursive is considered necessary in today's society.
Given that we have established there is little actual need for joined up writing. Is it worth learning for the times when you might want to use it, even if it isn't necessary? What are these situations? Are they more decorative? Can we give examples? What advantages does cursive writing provide over print or typing? Are they worth it?
And yes, I do think that signatures are an unreliable method of verification, as they are often illegible and can be forged. However, students that are learning cursive this year will find themselves in situations where they need a signature in about seven years (assuming that they're learning script in third grade). Unless this improved verification system can become universally implemented and accepted within that time, they'll still need to learn script.
I agree with misakyra. Not learning cursive or being indifferent to it is a form of self-handicap. There might very well come a day when it's not needed. That day is not now. Until that day comes, if you don't know how to read and write in cursive, you're handicapped in the adult world.
On a somewhat related note: She noted that, in France, children are taught cursive from the absolute beginning.