Dirt Nap City

What Was Writing In Cursive? A Dirt Nap City Dead End

• Dirt Nap City • Season 3 • Episode 61

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Cursive writing, once a cornerstone of education, has seen a dramatic decline in recent decades. The elegant loops and flowing connections that adorned historical documents are increasingly a relic of the past. But what factors led to this shift?
The rise of technology is a major culprit. Typewriters, introduced in the early 20th century, offered a faster and more efficient way to produce written documents. Later, computers and digital communication further cemented the dominance of keyboarding. As a result, schools began to prioritize keyboarding skills over the time-consuming practice of cursive.
However, the decline of cursive isn't without debate. Some argue that the fine motor skills developed through cursive writing benefit children in other areas, like reading comprehension. Additionally, the ability to read historical documents written in cursive remains valuable for research and understanding the past.

Despite these arguments, the practical advantages of keyboarding and the evolving nature of communication make a compelling case. While the beauty and historical significance of cursive may be undeniable, its widespread use seems unlikely to return. The future of written communication appears firmly rooted in the click-clack of keyboards and the rapid swipe of touchscreens.

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Kelly:

Sup, man. Well, you know, do you ever miss the everything on a keyboard, you would just write things down?

Alex:

I missed those days. Sure.

Kelly:

Yeah. Do you ever do that? Like as a as a college know, grade papers by hand or write things?

Alex:

I just I like I like writing stuff down. You know Internet access to read it. Yeah, yeah.

Kelly:

Well, so we we hold up your, your legal pad one more look at it. Just just a little bit of it. I

Alex:

mean, I can't I don't want to show you the contents

Kelly:

just, I just want to see how you write like what

Alex:

Oh, my handwriting is decent. It's yeah.

Kelly:

So you cursive for your print.

Alex:

I print only? Yeah, yeah.

Kelly:

Well, that's kind of what I wanted to talk about writing and cursive? cursive.

Alex:

And, and it was something that we all hated soon as we got a chance to not do it anymore, we didn't. And cursive people older than us didn't even seem to know what experience? Like if you take your grandparents, you raise writing and there was printing and writing meant cursive?

Kelly:

Oh, well, you know, I mean, first of all, it is curse in it, right? So you immediately think of, of than it is? Yeah, yeah. Well, cursing, cursing can be fun, curse when you're frustrated. Right? That's true. It's sort is a style of penmanship in which the symbols of language or flowing manner, generally, for the purpose of making

Alex:

and harder to and harder to read. harder to read

Kelly:

and faster but but faster, is relative, because I one is the capital Q, when it looks like a two.

Alex:

Seriously, I remember I used to get letters from my letters, and I couldn't read them. I could not read them. a code that I couldn't crack. Just because she had very hard and then you'd be like, Oh, that's how she makes her ends, And then over time, maybe you could go back and be like, Oh, older ones. Yeah, very frustrating. It was almost different language.

Kelly:

Was it? Was it sloppy? I mean, what's it like, you

Alex:

it was very neat. It was just right. She, you she had a couldn't read it. So

Kelly:

so your grandmother would see you? And she'd say,

Alex:

Did you read what I wrote? Say? I guess I did. pretty

Kelly:

she thought she thought you know, she'd send you $5 or And all that time she thought you couldn't read. And

Alex:

then later on, my grandfather started typing me so happy because I was like, I read those. But you know, called me Alec. And I always thought that was just like a he started giving me typed letters, he would spell out a

Kelly:

K or a C, or a c k, just to see oh, you know why?

Alex:

Yeah, that's what he would say. But I actually started typing those, I realized that he just didn't

Kelly:

I'm gonna start calling you Alec. I like that. It's

Alex:

no, no, that was Alex Trebek.

Kelly:

Yeah, but I'm gonna call you Alec. Alec. I'm just

Alex:

How long that lasts.

Kelly:

All right. Trebek. So, so really, we wanted to talk grandparents, our parents, grandparents, they didn't call learning. When did you start learning like third grade, learning person like that? Yeah.

Alex:

And you get stressed out about it. They're like, All learn cursive.

Kelly:

Right. Right. And you're gonna stop using I pencil to a pen.

Alex:

Yeah, take a little school. Yeah. Take off all the

Kelly:

Yeah. Well, so it's interesting because I think of words for it. If you start looking up synonyms, there's, writing, but penmanship that's actually so So cursive is know, a certain type or style of writing, but penmanship is having excellent handwriting. So if you have good very neat, your letters have the same height. You know, think with mine, a lot of times mine would end up going write in a little bit of a diagonal and it would amplify And by the end, I'm not within the lines anymore. Did you for writing or penmanship called script skriver journey? kind of like scribe like, also, ductus ductus is text writing by hand? Nope. Well, a lot of people kind of think because mostly because of technology, right? You know, unnecessary, but especially writing cursive, because how write something that takes you a long time? But what's there's actually a lot of people now that are saying benefits. Have you heard about this? No. They say that young write cursive it actually helps you with your fine motor a part of your brain like a hemisphere of your brain that and memory. Having to remember what those things are. It cursive well do it well, because it has a flow to it. flow, it's easy to move from word to word. They actually cursive have a better demonstrated understanding of writing.

Alex:

I could see that in they have a better like vocabulary.

Kelly:

like they they know the definition of the words board here in the US not bored people in college but you that see colleges? Yeah. Yeah, they found that actually on wrote their essays in cursive, generally score higher than essays.

Alex:

Now Calligraphy is like the highest form of cursive,

Kelly:

Yeah, I think Calligraphy is a is an art much an art form. But and

Alex:

I love calligraphy. I love watching people do that

Kelly:

Yeah, it's supposed to give you actually better motor fine motor control, which, I guess typing on a on a phone, message or chat or whatever, is a motor skill, but it's a skill. Whereas I think with cursive you're, you're you're You're kind of moving. Left, right, up, back across down,

Alex:

Yeah, I suppose I could see that.

Kelly:

Well, there's also handwriting analysis of people a certain way, it's considered cumulative thinking. Yeah. And really curved or round, like M's and ends tend to be really style of thinking and they can tell things about your

Alex:

junk science.

Kelly:

They also they also say they also say that know, people that so there's cumulative thinking and Comprehensive thinkers use really sharp points in their loopy cursive or sharp? That's

Alex:

all sharp junk science. Really? I remember all the with their purple and, and right the pen with four that gel pens and yeah, the gel pen seems like all the writing. Yeah, and to this day, sometimes I'll catch with real loopy writing, I think but you were cute when

Kelly:

And Bob says thanks

Alex:

University guys with loopy writing.

Kelly:

So I have horrible handwriting. I don't write in once in a while. I kind of find it fun to write something can remember how to do it. But what are some synonyms for for

Alex:

You got any chicken scratch? Yes. scrawl scribble

Kelly:

Oh, yeah, yeah, there's lots of good. chicken scratch

Alex:

Yeah. Doctors, people, people will look in, they'll you never see is somebody signing their name printing it Yeah, you're a psychopath if you write if you if your letters you look unstable, or if it's just an x, but mine my crazy.

Kelly:

Which by the way is worth a lot. And if you are a will get both Alex and I's autographs and you will get to that is kind of that doesn't look that doesn't really say

Alex:

It does to me. But but if I wrote it out, it would if you're allowed to do that. Are you allowed to have your letters?

Kelly:

I think that's why they have you sign it and then

Alex:

A lot of versions. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Now, my, I Adobe PDF gives me kind of wish I

Kelly:

could actually, actually I like mine, too. I never

Alex:

be able to duplicate that. Yeah, no, I would never can

Kelly:

modify it though. Yeah, well, okay. So actually, I was I was looking up can you improve your handwriting? And You could you could actually take your Adobe signature, it over and over. Like, like writing sentences. Yeah. I during dirt nap city. I will not interrupt Kelly during her Kelly during her

Alex:

nap. That's how forgers learn how to do it properly.

Kelly:

Right, Bart? Simpson? Is forgery

Alex:

still a thing?

Kelly:

Yeah, yeah. I think it is,

Alex:

like real forgery. Like, yeah, like actually, well,

Kelly:

I don't know, like, when you when you use a credit supposed to sign on the little tablet. Right. And that still think it's less common now with the RFID. And the Apple Pay and such. But the signature I put on those like my actual Yeah,

Alex:

I don't think there's any software that actually right, because you've seen mine and I, you know, there's whatever on there.

Kelly:

I'm going to take a guess or I'm not going to take the answer to this question. But I'm going to ask you bring cursive back to school?

Alex:

I do not. You don't? Totally useless, as though you thought you'd say. Yes. But yeah, I think it's a waste of

Kelly:

So even if even if you did, even if scientists did skills, and all the things I talked about earlier, you out logical pathways and the fact that the sad the college their essays and cursive got higher scores, like all of should bring it back? No,

Alex:

because those aren't. That's that's correlation not because they're using cursive. There's probably other things do that indicate they're just just more learned people don't think that that would change anything.

Kelly:

Imagine if the Constitution if the declaration of independence had been printed instead

Alex:

of in like Comic Sans.

Kelly:

So So last thing I want to mention about this, because loopy, I think of two signatures that are very in my life, my grandmother who is 98 years old, still alive. loopy signature. And her name is Colleen. But her see looks I've often call her Lolly because

Alex:

and it's cool, because that name is like there's no Every letter as a lute. Yeah, it's all curves. Yeah, it's Yeah, that's great. And

Kelly:

yet my dad's signature was very sharp, all sharp no, he didn't really have any curves in his at all. I mean, couple o's and so I guess he had to, but even the O's were of squished a little bit. It's, it's interesting and I personalities that kind of fits.

Alex:

That's junk science.

Kelly:

All right, well so as cursive writing, let us know cursive writing back if we should start a start a crusade campaign for bring back cursive hashtag bring back

Alex:

want to do cursive Do you man if you want to bring don't make it compulsory in schools. Okay,

Kelly:

there you go. dirt nap city dead end cursive writing

Unknown:

a graceful dance. He gon paper. Take and chance. line by God truly divine. Each letter linked a flowing chain More than marks a crafted soul. Story whisper taking touch is gone. But beauty lingers carrying on in fade cursive dream for a blessed cursive writing where have you miss your charm. We know one day you make it back to give

People on this episode

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Alex Milam

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Kelly Shores

Host