All bundled up in a drawer at my house are some very old letters. They were written at the beginning of the last century, in the early 1900s, by my ancestors. Some were written by my great-great-grandfather; some were written by my great-great-great-grandmother to my great-great-grandfather.
To tell the truth, it takes a little bit of work to read the letters. The handwriting is very flowery with lots of flourishes. They were obviously written with a fountain pen and are just beautiful, but the 100-year-old writing is quite a bit different from what I learned.
And, I did learn to write cursive. I don't remember when...third grade or so, it seems. I remember it was a big deal. For so many years (and to a 9-year-old, one or two years is a long time!), we kids had been forced to write in the babyish "print." We couldn't wait to learn to write — and read — cursive. Finally! We'd be able to figure out what our parents were writing.
From the looks of it, I learned to write cursive in the D'Nealian style. Although, I never was very good at slanting my letters. And, as I got older, I started adjusting the standard handwriting I was first taught, morphing it into something with my own style. Now, I'm not saying it was artistic or anything like that, but back in high school, we thought our way of writing was much more "cool" than the standard way. Nowadays, I suppose I write in some hybrid of cursive and print, a simplified handwriting that uses a print-style Q and S, for example.
Within the past few years, there have been several articles and studies done about how today's youth isn't learning how to write cursive. One Associated Press
article in the past few months details the decline in cursive writing and explains some of the reasons and discusses the potential future of handwriting.
I've read such articles but never really thought the topic had much of an effect on my life. I know how to read and write cursive, and my 9-year-old daughter practices her handwriting at home, no matter whether or not they teach it at her school. But, earlier this week, I received a letter from a young, high school-age pen pal I met online through one of the letter writing blogs. She commented that she had some trouble reading some of my last letter to her — because she doesn't read cursive handwriting very well.
Wow. That kind of jolted me a little bit. I didn't expect my way of communicating to be obsolete so quickly. I do write some letters in print, especially to pen pals whose first language isn't English, in an effort to make sure my words are readable. Maybe I should write them all that way...
I do wonder what the future of handwriting is. I used to be a "Star Trek" fan, especially the "Next Generation" episodes of the sci-fi TV series, and I don't remember much handwriting going on there. It will be an interesting experience to witness first-hand the rapid evolution of written communication.
