In the samples of handwriting here, I see a lot of you use some kind of in-between style. Small, unconnected letters that seem like an intermediate between cursive and print (don’t know what it’s called).
Is this typical for Anglophone countries? Is it something that is taught in school?
I learned to write in cursive in school, with fancy capitals, and we also learned “block-letters” for big messages which should be extra clear and legible, like on posters and stuff.
My cursive has always been terrible, and once I went to university, I switched to block-style all the way. Over the years, my block-writing has gained some fluency through automation, with some curly bits and connected letters. Still pretty terrible though.
Here’s a page from my notes on How Prince Quisborne the Feckless Shook His Title:
Call me old fashioned but IMHO nothing beats writing things down by hand to get things sorted out. I kept a little book with my One King scenario written out so I could refer to it when writing and coding my game. Here is an extract of the game (after the player character wakes up):
I learned writing with all letters connected and fancy capitals in primary school, but around high school I switched to separate lettering, which greatly improved legibility for others…
at least for me, writing with connected letters render the writing faster, so I use it when annotating, jotting &c.
Rovarsson’s question is interesting, because our western scripting is called “Latin alphabet” for a reason, the cursive (much later than block letter) can be actually be tailored for some fastwriting in romance languages ? (indeed I raise the pen only on K and X and few uncommon digraphs…)
I learned to write in print first, then cursive around 3rd grade (8-9 years old). Then teachers encouraged print again, so I rarely touched cursive unless it was for fancy titles or something. So now my neat handwriting is print, but if I start writing faster I add cursive-style ligatures.
Yeah, I’m not aware of any Anglophone schools actually teaching the “hybrid” style, it’s just something a lot of people happen upon for faster writing after being taught both print and cursive. I do it too (though I’m not showing off my terrible handwriting in this thread). I don’t think it has a name.
However, I have heard that Scandinavian schools do teach an official in-between form called “joined-up writing”. (Well, I assume that’s a calque.) But that’s a particular thing with specific letter forms associated, so I don’t think we can borrow the name.
My handwriting was never pretty to begin with, and these days it’s downright illegible. Then again, the only occasion where I still write by hand is when I need to quickly take notes and don’t have a computer handy (e.g. during some meetings), so it’s pretty much focused on speed over legibility.
This is an almost intentionally bad example, but you get the idea
(I tried a bit more in the last few lines below the break. Also, no, this is not my text; it’s from a book I’m reading. Also also, my handwriting tends to be a bit better in German than English.)
I think it’s when someone who was cursive-trained is making notes or writing fast, some letters will just connect if the pen isn’t lifted. I know for me there is sort of a rhythm with pen-pressure and release when writing fast, and that can vary between printing and cursive writing.
Here’s a hybrid style - also notable that it leans left:
This is printing by someone who knows cursive, and the habits kick back in. Usually the lines will connect if the end position of a preceding letter is close to the natural start-point of the following character, but otherwise cursive in general tends to start most lower-case characters from the baseline - a cursive lower-case Z is rare, so it weirdly starts on the baseline, articulates the bottom point then dips a loop below the line like a G for some reason (probably researched legibility?) but the writer is lifting the pen to re-start some letters as a disconnected printed character.
note the P and the A are printed in “passport”, then the double ss is cursive style with no upper-crook. Then the next P and O are printed, but the writer connects the midpoint of the O to a cursive R while printing different Rs when it’s the leading character. (a lower-case cursive R is *supposed to * have two pointy parts like a mini-chair or ‘slug antennae’ (teacher called them ‘pillow points’) but most writers don’t articulate them so it’s usually a smooth inverted curve) The T connects from the baseline as a cursive T, but since they’re hybrid-ing, they might have just not lifted the pen ascending to make the downstroke of the T. It might seem that more common letters like R S E are being reflectively written in cursive, when less common letters that start with a downstroke are either disconnected or only appear like cursive since the writer didn’t lift the pen when repositioning.
Many people nowadays say they “cannot read” cursive, so this might be an attempt to disconnect letters but the writer is habitually throwing in cursive letters when they “feel” right.
Here’s one with that leans more toward print than cursive, but notice the R S F N F flow in cursive form, or when connecting letters end and start on the baseline.
From personal experience having written cursive, it’s more natural when writing a T to make a sharp up/down spike from the baseline than to lift the pen and make a single non-connected downstroke. The point of cursive is you rarely pick up the pen within a word so it’s all usually one unbroken line. Hybrid writing happens when the writer is making an effort to disconnect letters for legibility.
(note the cursive Rs in “paragraph” have the correct ‘pillow points’ - this writer is doing an initial tiny loop which happens stylistically, but it’s usually taught as a spike then a cliff-edge.
Here’s a very idealized version of what ‘proper’ cursive is supposed to look like. It’s actually very readable and what people complain about as “illegible” cursive is because someone’s writing lazily and fast. Ts are crossed and Is are dotted only after the entire word is written.
I learned to write cursive in school and switched to block later in life (except for things that really have to be neat).
I never encountered print handwriting until I saw samples of Anglophone people’s handwriting. Is it learned in school, or do people switch/teach themselves because it’s neater/more legible?
I actually love the flow of cursive. My own never was pretty, probably because my body took a long time to decide whether it was left- or right-handed for a lot of tasks, but I think cursive is the most beautiful, and perfectly legible if done right.
“Hybrid” isn’t taught, it’s usually developed as a style. We only were formally taught block printing early starting in kindergarten and then cursive writing later. Touch-typing was an optional class in high school.
Most of us remember these pages with a mid-line for alignment:
block and cursive, together with underline, are the basic handwritten mean of evidentiation. and this is why I criticise WYSIWYG wordprocessor developers, IS annoying that the concept of “user font palette” escapes everyone since MacWrite 1.0, a thing sorely needed when fonts are myriad…
(yes, I know that bold can effectively replace block writing, but, being an historian, even in these days when digital pictures of .pdf scans are the norm in historical research, the need of faithful transcription is still around, and doing faithful transcription of manuscripts isn’t easy, as Sophia, Hidnook and Rovarsson proved beyond doubt)
It’s interesting that you say that. I was born after 2000, so computers were already well-established, and I first started doing in-school typing in second grade (7-8 years old). My brother started in third grade (8-9 years old) a few years later, and we went to the same school. Then we kept learning to type in school until fourth grade (9-10 years old). After that, we were left to our own devices.
My exposure to technology was kind of weird compared to a lot of my peers. I was introduced to using a desktop computer, with a keyboard, when I was ~five years old. I did not get a cellphone until I was sixteen, (and it was an iPhone.) So while I’m pretty alright on a cellphone, it’s notably slower than on a laptop for me, and I am much faster than those who grew up primarily using cellphones or tablets on a laptop/desktop.
Growing up, I used the family desktop as my computer essentially, and was given a personal laptop at a very young age (I can’t recall exactly, but I know for sure I had a Lenovo of my own around the time of the accident, so by ten or eleven.) I got a nicer one when I was sixteen and changed OS ecosystems. I’ve basically always had a laptop of my own since, and cellphone too- just had swapped out the one I’d had from sixteen about… a year ago I think? (Time is fuzzy.)
But yeah, writing was always one of my major hobbies. I got into more of the social side of things (roleplay, fanfiction, TTRPGs) as I got a bit older. I have always maintained writing by hand, though, because I enjoyed the tactile sensation- and then later curating my preferences around pen, ink, paper, etc. But I used to fill out whole stacks of sun faded legal paper from my English teacher with scribbled stories. I went through those 32 count Bic pen packs in a little under a month or so. Later, I stopped writing on loose leaf and switched to bound journals. I still have a bunch of diaries, though most of them are from highschool, onwards- I’ve journalled more consistently from age 13 and up, but dabbled from about age 4 or 5. Most of the childhood stuff was destroyed, unfortunately. But anyways, I also write by hand very quickly, and with much more endurance than a lot of my peers.
My amount of keyboard use has definitely influenced my typing speed. But I am very slow on tablets. Especially on Android devices, which tend to be less smooth/easy to use out of the box as Apple stuff, though you can customize them more, if you know how.
I never did. Straight to cursive. Separate letters first of course, but already starting from the baseline and with each letter’s connecting lines present.
Yeah. I actually benefitted in that I enjoyed Infocom games, so I had a legitimate reason to practice touch typing.
I would seriously love to type on one of those heavy duty plug in IBM Selectrics again. Where you turn it on and a motor spins up. And that ball slamming the page it was very gratifying and like BAM that’s a permanent letter c on the paper there now. When you type fast on it it was so loud - in class the teacher would have to flash the lights to signal 40 students to stop typing and kill the engines!
In Sweden in the ’80s, we were first taught to write in block print, and then a kind of hybrid print-cursive with less flourishes and connections than the classical kind (EDIT: similar to the joined up writing style Hanon linked to above). The kids who had learnt old style cursive at home had to re-learn. We were told that in the future, our handwriting will be read by computers, and they won’t be able to understand old style cursive.
Here is an attempt to write the way I was taught in school (my actual handwriting is much worse):
(I’ve heard this study referenced, but am not familiar enough with the field to judge it myself.)
I struggled with cursive as a kid, but eventually got the hang of it and use it pretty regularly for longer-form notes. My handwriting recognition project still has a little trouble with cursive, though…
) ànd mý fìrs týpng cĺaseś ìn śchòôĺ sťiĺĺ uśd ťypèwŕťèrś. 1śt còmptèrs in cĺas wàś Jùniòr ýŕ, bùt Ingŕew ùp ìn pòor rùràal šchòol dìstŕìvt. Òthŕs sàmè aģe màaý hvè dìffèrnť expèriènces.