Cursive: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:47, 22 June 2006

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:''For the musical band, see [[Cursive (band)]].''

'''Cursive''' is any style of [[penmanship|handwriting]] in which all the letters in a word are connected, making a word one single (complicated) stroke. In [[British English]], the phrase "'''joined-up writing'''" is far more commonly used, while the term "'''running writing'''" is sometimes used in Australia. Cursive is considered distinct from the so-called "[[block letters|printing]]" or "block letter" style of handwriting, in which the letters of a word are unconnected, and from "print-writing", which is a cross between cursive and printing, with some unconnected letters and some connected.

==History==

[[Image:Cursive.JPG|100px|right|thumb|250px|An example of a cursive [[alphabet]] - [[upper case]] and [[lower case]]]]

In the [[eighteenth century|eighteenth]] and [[nineteenth century|nineteenth]] centuries, before the development of the typewriter, professional correspondence was written in cursive. This was called a "fair hand", meaning it looked good, and all clerks in a firm were trained to write in the exact same script.

In the early days of the [[post office]], letters were written in cursive — and to fit more text on a single sheet, the text was continued in lines crossing at 90-degrees from the original text. [[Block letters]] could not do this. My cursive is better than my print.

Although women's handwriting had noticeably different particulars from men's, the general forms were not prone to rapid change. In the mid-[[nineteenth century]], comparatively few children were taught cursive, and as it was an important skill, more emphasis could be placed on learning it; there was no pervasive striving for efficiency in the classroom. Few simplifications appeared as the middle of the [[twentieth century]] was reached. An example of the timeframe in which cursive came to be taught is that in the [[United States]], it would be usually taught in second or third grade (around ages seven to nine).