For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 04, 2018

another dying art is writing in cursive

I am with Elly on one point. I do cherish old communication that I have saved. In family my grandmother was the family letter writer. As a surly youth, I viewed my grandmother’s long letters about everything little thing going on in her life as very boring. Now that I am older, reading them is like a conversation I am having with someone I can no longer talk to. I cherish those old letters like Elly does.

As for Michael, he is dead wrong. E-mail serves the same function. If anything, e-mail causes people to write more because it is so easy. I have old e-mail from now dead relatives going back decades and sometimes I enjoy reading through them in the same way I enjoy reading my grandmother’s old letters.

My sister says that they don’t even teach cursive in school for kids anymore. Writing is now a lost art.

I don’t think this strip is original – adapted to today’s technological culture. The original is probably more simple in that nobody writes anymore. This strip was written before Microsoft Windows. This strip was originally published during the DOS generation – a software which was not easy to use and required a lot of coding and complicated log in process. During that time, typewriter was still the preferred document equipment. This strip was published when I was in college and I remember going to the library with my floppy disk to put in the CPU slot to begin the long process of logging in and coding before the word document program appeared. It had no spell check or anything. Resembled a typewriter. I preferred DOS to the typewriter only because I didn’t need to use the white-out for errors. Oh boy, Thank Goodness Microsoft Windows made its appearance.

I still write nightly, in a notebook, things important that day, or a note for things to do tomorrow, it helps me relax before going to bed

As someone who does a lot of historical research, little is more thrilling than reading old letters, and running my eyes over beautiful handwriting (or struggling to decipher it). There’s a warmth in a document that a hand actually touched and it’s not the same with something typed on a computer. ‘Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis’ and all that, but it’s a bit of a shame.

My grandson was so excited to be learning cursive in the 3rd grade. I remember the same thrill in 2nd grade. Unfortunately, it must have been a very brief chapter in his curriculum and he cannot even guess at a word. I forgot and started the first paragraph of a thank-you in cursive before switching. He opened the letter, saw he couldn’t read the first sentences and tossed it aside.

My 15-year-old daughter has mixed the old with the new. Every evening, before bed, she writes: long-hand, cursive. She writes journal entries, stories, favorite song lyrics, whatever strikes her. However, she has an app that helps her keep track of how much she’s writing: the time, how many words, when to take a break, etc. She does this for enjoyment. Side note: she’s also able to read my mother’s handwriting, which my husband can’t (yeah, it’s bad).

Why isn’t the comic strip written in cursive?

When the company I worked for first computerized, the auto appraisers used Fujitsu laptops which were really big, bulky tablets. I recall many customers being in awe, because the Fujitsu had touch screens which were rare at the time. There was an on-screen keyboard and a port to plug in a wired one. Another port allowed for connection to a printer, or you could connect via infrared which used to

One of my favorite features was an installed program which allowed us to write directly onto the screen to produce documents. The program could read input in either print or cursive. All that was necessary was to teach the program your personal writing style. Mine is a combination of cursive, printing and some self created lettering which always got me downgraded in school.

Another dying art is the formulation and use of complete sentences. Today, everything is abbreviated to 140-150 characters.

If we are true to ourselves, real communication is dying. As many do not use complete sentences and paragraphs (face it instant messaging does not allow for paragraphs) much is lost because of the lack of complete communication – or lack of patience of the receiver to wait for the complete picture. The receiver upon receipt shoots back a reply which can often be totally incorrect and/or inappropriate. Attempts to correct the misunderstanding will often go awry.

Today, we allow, promote, and often insist on instant gratification. But at what cost.

This run reminds me of a Buckets from a few years ago: http://www.gocomics.com/thebuckets/2014/4/27

To my surprise, I was able to read the written (cursive) note my mother left me in the hospital when I was 6 years old and had had my tonsils out. Wasn’t sure of myself, though, and asked the nurse to please read the note to me. I was so thrilled with myself that I’d gotten all of it right.

Even grandma and grandpa communicate by twitter and skype these days!

And yet, Michael grows up to be a print novelist! Books that you can actually manually turn the pages!

An ongoing mountain of Lynn’s is seen for the first time here, I think- her sadness at a world without letters and notes- Ellie and her dad would both go on and on about how much “less” e-mails counted.