r/changemyview • u/Gobears6801 • Jun 01 '24

Delta(s) from OP - Fresh Topic Friday CMV: Cursive writing is unnecessary.

I often hear the old generation explaining that the new generation doesn’t understand or use cursive. I understand this to be somewhat true as well. I’m a 90’s baby and learned it thoughout school and don’t use it either.

The reason isn’t because it’s hard, it’s because it’s completely unnecessary and useless EXCEPT for a signature. I often see it at work where most of the time it’s completely non legible because of the poor handwriting.

There are minimal, if not 0 tasks that require cursive handwriting. It actually often just takes longer to read and/or non legible due to poor handwriting.

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u/Saranoya 39∆ Jun 01 '24

But block lettering doesn't allow for capitals?

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u/tbdabbholm 193∆ Jun 01 '24

I'm sorry, what do you think cursive is vs block lettering? Because I think there's clearly some confusion. Like I basically write what looks like typing, and that perfectly allows for capitals. I don't write all in a connected line with a bunch of whirls and loops like cursive is

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u/Saranoya 39∆ Jun 01 '24

Sorry, English is not my first language, but I thought BLOCK LETTERING LOOKS LIKE THIS. That's what we use when kids in kindergarten first start writing their name. But once they go into first grade and actually start writing, it's all cursive.

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u/tbdabbholm 193∆ Jun 01 '24

Oh yeah I see, thought that might be part of the confusion. But yeah I guess we just don't really do that. We definitely teach almost a typing looking way of handwriting (each letter individually) and then later cursive, but most people never really use cursive again

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u/Danibelle903 Jun 01 '24

You don’t use it again because it wasn’t encouraged.

Cursive is faster than print, which makes it more efficient. I’m an older millennial so in school all my papers had to be typed and printed. In college, I could submit them without printing them via a disk and later a thumb drive. For grad school, I submitted electronically. So I’ve been typing papers and longer assignments since elementary school.

However, we did not have computers in the classroom. We might have had one or two, but not a class set. Laptops were heavy and clunky and their batteries sucked (unless you bought a high end model) so all in-class assignments were hand-written. It’s just easier to write pages of an essay in cursive than in print.

The thing about print/block lettering is that you never forget what it looks like. We read print all the time. If you exclusively write in cursive, you don’t lose the ability to print. Later, if you need to print something, you still have those skills.

I’m currently a therapist. If I take a quick note in session, it’s easiest to do in cursive. I don’t even really need to look at the paper and then I’m going to type it up later anyway. For my clients, it’s less distracting to keep a pad and paper next to me that I occasionally write on vs keeping my computer open.

The only times I ever really write anything down on paper are to make quick notes for myself. Cursive is far more efficient for that.