Umberto Eco on the lost art of handwriting
This would not have passed the inspection of my second grade teacher. There is a gap on top of the “a”. However I’m probably the only person in my second grade class who still in cursive.
In The Guardian: Umberto Eco regrets the passing of good handwriting.
Recently, two Italian journalists wrote a three-page newspaper article (in print, alas) about the decline of handwriting. By now it’s well-known: most kids – what with computers (when they use them) and text messages – can no longer write by hand, except in laboured capital letters.
In an interview, a teacher said that students also make lots of spelling mistakes, which strikes me as a separate problem: doctors know how to spell and yet they write poorly; and you can be an expert calligrapher and still write “guage” or “gage” instead of “gauge”.
I know children whose handwriting is fairly good. But the article talks of 50% of Italian kids – and so I suppose it is thanks to an indulgent destiny that I frequent the other 50% (something that happens to me in the political arena, too).
The tragedy began long before the computer and the cellphone. . .
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
September 24th, 2009 at 08:44
I remember Elementary in St. Paul, we had an official cursive called the Paulinian Hand writing. I wonder if they still teach that? I remember that was an actual hour long subject and you have to fill up a work book at the end of the year.
Don’t use it everyday but it can be useful when writing on gift tags, envelopes, etc… or when you’re impressing someone! Makes you look more intellectual than you actually are! Ha!
September 24th, 2009 at 13:10
There’s a bo0k called “Graphology” which said that those who write in perfect, almost calligraphical cursive are persons devoid of originality. But of course graphology is a false science. Hehe
September 29th, 2009 at 02:19
i never even learned to write in cursive…