Cursive script on lined paper

Being left-handed back in the 1950s wasn't easy. I had to struggle through with dip type pens that scratched the paper and smudged as soon as I moved on to the next word. It was so bad my teacher even held my exercise book up for the class to laugh at.

It wasn't until I went to secondary school that I learned about using the 'hook' method of writing with a fountain pen, and then only because I happened to see a left-handed teacher doing it. No-one ever tried to teach me how to write correctly. Also, it was only in the last few years I discovered that you can buy left-handed fountain pens, with a specially designed nib that allows us lefties to push the pen without digging holes in the paper.

Nowadays I touch type everything on my computer, but when I'm trying to fill out my diary, I find that the scrawl I leave on the page is almost indecipherable, and it's getting worse as I get older. Having dyslexia doesn't help either.
 

BJintheUK said:
Being left-handed back in the 1950s wasn't easy. I had to struggle through with dip type pens that scratched the paper and smudged as soon as I moved on to the next word. It was so bad my teacher even held my exercise book up for the class to laugh at.

It wasn't until I went to secondary school that I learned about using the 'hook' method of writing with a fountain pen, and then only because I happened to see a left-handed teacher doing it. No-one ever tried to teach me how to write correctly. Also, it was only in the last few years I discovered that you can buy left-handed fountain pens, with a specially designed nib that allows us lefties to push the pen without digging holes in the paper.

Nowadays I touch type everything on my computer, but when I'm trying to fill out my diary, I find that the scrawl I leave on the page is almost indecipherable, and it's getting worse as I get older. Having dyslexia doesn't help either.
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You mean like this:
lefty.jpg

When I was in parochial school we had to use fountain pens. :eek: Life was tough for a Lefty.
 
Yes, we had this in school and our teacher insisted we slant the paper to the right. Since I've always been-left handed it was a very awkward position, I overcompensated with the "left-handed hook" and usually smeared my writing. I still do today, which is why I rarely write anymore. Even if I'm just leaving a note for our lawn man, I'll type it and print it out. I don't even write checks anymore. Everything is done electronically.

It's a shame, because I took Architecture and Drafting in college and used to have excellent handwriting. But it was always block lettering, which I still use today. My handwriting is garbage these days.
 
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My left-handed daughter was taught cursive in school around 2005 & she was decent at it. She was lucky that her teacher was also left-handed & knew how to show her how to do it. She continued to use it in school until she found out some classmates couldn't read cursive when they had to swap papers for grading & went to printing. After graduation, she practiced cursive on her own & got into fountain pens. Now she has very nice writing.

Ohio stopped mandating cursive around 2010 even though some districts continued to teach it. In 2018, the Ohio legislature passed a law that reinstated it as a requirement along with personal finance classes starting in the 2019-2020 school year. This is the latest update made in 2023:
Section 3301.0726 - Ohio Revised Code | Ohio Laws
 
Sunny said:
We had that thing with the letters stretched out over the blackboard, but not exactly the same. We didn't have curliques (hey, this was New Jersey!) or numbers, just the letters. Every classroom had them.

We still had them years later when I taught school in NJ. Probably by now, regular writing, particularly cursive, is a thing of the past. Even typing is nearly obsolete. We talk to our phones now. And let the robots guess what we are trying to say.
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About a year ago I gave up trying to text with thumbs. Too slow. I now dictate almost all of my text/writing. I give it a proof-read when complete. Does this mean I am a dictator?
 
Spent my working years as a Civil Engineer ----mostly at projects building sections of our Interstate Highway System. Note taking, calculations, etc. in field notebooks. Printing - -upper and lower case. The same with plans when working indoors.
My skill with cursive has sadly disappeared and at 92 I'm lucky that I can still read my own scawls. ☹️
 
My Elementary school taught us Mrs Kittle's Penmanship Method which was a new form of cursive writing for that era. It lacked the grace, flow and form of our parents generation. It was more rounded and loopy, and frankly......ugly.
 
I still write cursive. Not to pat myself on my back, but good penmanship is something I've always prided myself on. I didn't always write cursive. When I was in first grade, my teacher made me stay in from recess because I wrote back handed and that was a no no back then. After missing so many recesses, I learned how to write cursive. I credit Mrs. Smith for that.
 
Llynn said:
My Elementary school taught us Mrs Kittle's Penmanship Method which was a new form of cursive writing for that era. It lacked the grace, flow and form of our parents generation. It was more rounded and loopy, and frankly......ugly.
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I never heard of that, I'll have to see if I can look that style of writing up.
 
Sunny said:
We had that thing with the letters stretched out over the blackboard, but not exactly the same. We didn't have curliques (hey, this was New Jersey!) or numbers, just the letters. Every classroom had them.

We still had them years later when I taught school in NJ. Probably by now, regular writing, particularly cursive, is a thing of the past. Even typing is nearly obsolete. We talk to our phones now. And let the robots guess what we are trying to say.
Click to expand...
May I ask what school district you taught in?
 
I learned cursive in school and used it thru high school and college. I remember fountain pens. Leaky things.
After I started working one of my first jobs was drafting and then I became an engineer.
Printing was a requirement for all our work prints. Did it for years. I can print faster than I can write.
 

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