[lbo-talk] The death of cursive....

[Chuck Grimes]

Even manual labor that is dismissed as "unskilled" actually takes a
great deal of coordination. "Unskilled" labor mostly is highly skilled
labor that is  dismissed as unskilled simply because it is done by
workers with little leverage. But when crackdowns on imigrants drove
out  farm workers or slaughterhouse employees, one of the reasons
owners could not easily find American replacements was not only the
low wages and horrible working conditions, but the fact that the
skills required for these jobs are not easy to learn. It takes about
five years to learn to be a skilled farm worker, the same amount of
time it takes most people to get their "four-year" degree these days.

Gar Lipow

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How cool is that? I've worked most of my working days as manual labor in 
some form or other and tried to make the above case for years and got mostly 
dubious looks.

Anyway, Gar's note on handwriting problems was fascinating too. A good 
teacher should have spotted your difficulties within a few weeks.

I never denied computer's were not a great advantage. I spend hours on them. 
But for slow thinking and working I use notes like I did in class. I always 
keep a notebook and pen around, even or especially with the computer

Another point to make is that cursive is a minor art form that was 
considered a high valued trade. Most of the early print fonts and bookmaking 
depended on these arts and they go back to antiquity and the codex. Here's 
painting from Pompii:

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak//courses/735/book/horiz-tablets-paintings.jpg

They are using a stylis and waxed tablets. So it might help early education 
to use that history as a way to motivate kids to learn it. Then maybe not. 
Who cares about history?

(BTW were did God and Moses learn to read and write?...nevermind.)

Here is an image of the Aleppo Codex in high resolution. Use the magnifier 
to see how good the old guys were:

http://aleppocodex.org/images/x4/1.jpg

AN, ``I wish I had kept up my italics, though.''

It's always there. It takes a couple of hours of practice to get it back. I 
had to practice architectural lettering last year so I could finish a shop 
floor plan. Then there were the fractional scales and inked lines for 
finished work. I still had my old Staedtler technical pen set. All dying 
arts thanks to CAD. Beyond writing and language is a domain of thinking and 
drawing in space.

CG