CorrTerek wrote:
Tonot wrote:
True, true, and true.
Quite true, just not to the point. It is a valid skill still, it is hardly rocket science, and it is not the least bit excluded by, or contingent on, typing. We all learnt to type too, you know.
When I see person after person harping on "We use computers now" I begin to see my way clear to being justified in the accusation of laziness. Because the two skills are not exclusive, not in the least.
Apart from anything else, you are all cutting yourselves off from full interaction with all the people and culture before your childhood. That would be fine if what you were replacing it with was so superior and/or what you were replacing was so inferior, but it ain't so.
I don't see how that's true. One can still interact with people from before their childhood without having to read handwriting. Heck, one can even read what those people have written without dealing with handwriting, because somewhere along the line humans realized the value of transcripts and/or setting down important information in clear and concise written form rather than trusting to the fact that everyone will be able to read everyone else's handwriting ever.
More to the point, the superior tone taken by some posters becomes increasingly difficult to justify when we have people with reading disabilities and/or English as a second language admitting they had trouble reading the update. That seems like a good argument in favor of transcripts, and also not being a condescending goofball over handwriting.
That would by and large be the 19th century when printed documents for important stuff became standard. That is also when current cursive practices became standardised. Which means not only is it simple to read the cursive, but important stuff is also often printed.
Now, I can read medieval handwriting, which is a valid skill everybody should learn, etc etc, today's youth cutting themselves of from centuries of sources believing that everything started with ball-point pens, bla bla, sitting on my high horse.
(Seriously, I can read medieval handwriting but I hardly ever get to use it. One of the most pointless skills I have ever picked up.)
In conclusion, the cursive was good for creating an impression of quill writing (though not really realistic quill writing by a novice, etc and so forth). But it was hard to read for some readers, so if used again a transcript could be useful.