I am absolutely gobsmacked by some of the penmanship I have seen. While some of it resembles true 'chicken-scratch', others have the most beautiful penmanship I have ever seen. Here is a death record for a second cousin of mine from 1894:
I have heard that many schools no longer teach cursive writing. Someone even told me that they had a student filling out forms for college who did not know how to sign his name. Truly a sad state of affairs when we no longer can spell, write, or send a message without emojis. And that is no LOL matter.
Am I old-fashioned? Well, I suggest that if you think technology is so great and infallible, you look at today's headlines from Iowa. Nuf' sed, LOL.
That is beautiful! Looks like calligraphy! It is sad that they don't teach cursive writing any more! A lost art. Texting is wonderful but it sure has messed up people's capacity to spell correctly and use grammar correctly!
ReplyDeletebetty
I took calligraphy classes years ago, but my writing was not this good. They wrote all of their births, marriages, and deaths like this. Just exquisite.
DeleteYes, it is a shame that cursive is no longer taught in primary schools. My grand daughter likes to copy my cursive style and wants to learn calligraphy but her own writing is not so good because it is not important in their education these days. I love looking at the old handwritten records, and your relative's death certificate is exquisite.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.
Music, art, cursive and now our legislature wants to get rid of the physical ed requirement for graduation so kids have more time to work after school. Idiots.
DeleteThanks for visiting.
I studied caligrafy at school. Now I can't spell it let alone do it! I can barely read my own handwriting and I blame that on this keyboard I'm prodding now.
ReplyDeleteI think ahead of what I am writing and that really messes up my penmanship. And I hate typing on this Kindle!
DeleteI used to love to try to perfect my handwriting and always tried to make it look beautiful. Unfortunately, 2 years of college note-taking took care of that. No time for beauty when your trying to keep up with a professor lecturing!
ReplyDeleteVery true. And then trying to read the notes afterwords is quite the challenge. Especially in biochem classes.
DeleteThat woman had a beautiful style. I was shocked to learn schools are no longer teaching cursive writing! By the looks of things, they may have also stopped teaching grammar and spelling. :P What kills me is NOBODY seems to care.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I am not sure any of my boys ever really learned to develop a nice penmanship, but at least it ws taught.
DeleteI don't know about cursive writing, but they are not teaching any kind of writing any more. They didn't call it cursive at one school I went to and then I moved to another school - I was 8 - and they were horrified I was writing each letter individually and insisted I joined them up. Never really learned how to do that properly. I too have lost much of the art of writing since I took to keyboards - originally on a good old fashioned typewriter. Now, I never scribble if I can help it. I sometimes have difficulty reading what I have hand written.
ReplyDeleteI had a secretary who wrote beautifully, someone about your age. It was a requirement here in Michigan for all of the 20th century. The secret to writing is to take your time. I only seem to do that now when I address Christmas cards.
DeleteI have always had the worst penmanship. It's a good thing I live at a time when it is not so highly valued.
ReplyDeleteI do think having bad penmanship is more of a 'guy thing', no offence, as all my sons have horrible penmanship. Maybe it should be called pen'woman'ship.
DeleteThat is incredible handwriting!
ReplyDeleteI made my boys learn cursive. It is a skill, one that is not taught much anymore.
The handwriting makes reading the documents very pleasant.
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