1. A lot of young people can not read cursive. Some places have dropped the teaching of cursive. We need to keep it and use it. Email is good, but there is no comparison to a hand written letter from a dear friend. A hand written letter is much more personal and has more meaning.
   Now we know that this young lady did not write that letter. She said that she dictated it. I do not believe that as she does not have the language skills to do so.

   1. I learned it, but to be fair some people write it in a very sloppy manner where they don’t form all the letters properly, so it’s just looks like a bunch of squiggles. At least I know my handwriting is bad, so I avoid using it unless I have extra time to write neatly.

      1. Being dyslexic, I tend to have pretty bad handwriting anyway. Back when I was in HS, I was actually forbidden to write in cursive by several teachers. I can read it with no problems, and write with it (a bit rusty, so when I write in cursive, my penmanship looks like that of a 12-year-old), but in general I just print. But, still a skill that needs to be taught.

         1. My handwriting is so bad, I as allowed to typewrite my homework in elementary school. I still can’t type worth crap but with 4 fingers

            1. Proper handwriting, cursive, typing, tying basic knots, First Aid, and driving of standard transmissions are skills that everybody should have. Will you need it? Maybe. But they’re nice skills to have just in case.

            2. Need to get rid of cursive. Need to have a single standardized written alphabet going forward in the USA. Communication is key. The content doesn’t change because of the shape of the lettering. Not being able to read stylized lettering kills the purpose of having writing in the first place.

2. I wonder how Jeantel could have dictated the letter if she didn’t speak cursive. #deepthoughts

3. That’s raaaaaci*hurg blurg*
   Sorry I just vomited a bit in my mouth.

   Having very recently been a HS student allow me to be the ambassador of my generation: Cursive is just one of many things we were told in grade school and junior high that we would desperately need and even then it was already shaping up to be a hollow lie. From our perspective cursive has no practical application outside forced contrivance. I can understand that many place a sentimental value on the gesture of a hand-written note, but it’s something we never had a reason of our own to form. This is just my perspective, but it’s one I gather most of my generation share to some degree.

   Learning cursive used to be an exercise in learning effective communication. How to type (specifically wording formal correspondence) has supplanted cursive as the relevant skill, leaving cursive just one more outdated artifact of our school system. It is, as it stands, the shining example of wasted time and effort, yet another thing we learned instead of something useful. We had better things to do with our time then and we have better things to do with our time now.

   1. Agreed wholeheartedly, and I’m 32. Cursive is a useful skill to posses — and I do question the education of a person without it — but it is no longer the vital skill it once was.

   2. Cursive is not a language or a way to communicate but a font. You can express the same ideas on paper with either block or cursive.

      1. True, although it’s a font in which significant importance was (allegedly) placed. Cursive is to helvetica as print is to comic sans. We were told to learn cursive because formal correspondence in print would seem uneducated. Using the right font is still important, it just doesn’t have anything to do with handwriting anymore.

         1. “We were told to learn cursive because formal correspondence in print would seem uneducated.”

            Do note that you use the past tense throughout this sentence. Cursive is, at this point in time, an archaic skill… like horsemanship.

4. You’re a racist, Miguel?
   I didn’t even know you drove fast.

   1. I had a response, but it crossed about 3 different lines on the way to inappropriate and offensive.

5. Cursive is for the rubes. Real men learn calligraphy.

   I do agree that cursive is just a font. Learning to communicate clearly and use proper english is more important.

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