Duane Gran’s log of thoughts

Punctuation is the new cursive

David Pogue recently wrote an excellent critique about the lack of civility in digital communications, but an ancillary thought has begun to percolate with me. The fifteen year-old’s uncivil response — the object of much hand wringing — is noted by Pogue and many readers for his scatter shot use of punctuation and poor grasp of grammar.

Before I throw stones in a glass house I’ll volunteer that I stumble in this area as well. My only defense is that I try to improve my writing.

Consider for the moment the last time you witnessed cursive print. Odds are that it was penned by someone in the elder generation. I don’t know how it is being lost, but you would be hard pressed to find many people under thirty who can write in cursive.

My disturbing hypothesis is that punctuation — those extra characters which slow down the IM and BlackBerry user — may well go to the same dustbin as cursive. For a period of time we elders will wag fingers or tisk away, but gradually the written language will evolve.

i dont know how ill relate to them

This entry was posted on Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 5:54 pm and is filed under etiquette, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Punctuation is the new cursive”

Alan December 18th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
Duane-

I can write in cursive, I just choose not to do so. I always hated cursive even when we were learning it in third grade I rebelled up to the point that my teacher said that she wouldn’t grade any assignment NOT completed in cursive. I believe that it was late highschool or early college when I finally decided that my preferred writing method was printing. It’s just plain more legible. However I do try to write everything with proper punctuation and proper grammar. This puts me in the minority.
Schulte December 19th, 2006 at 11:42 am
I’m approaching 35 and writing cursive is a skill I just don’t have within me. I long for the day when I will snap out of this writing funk and be able to pen something that’s legible that’s not printing. I just don’t think I’ll be around when that day comes.

I’ll offer up my two reasons…err, excuses. One is that I’m the son of a physician and my dad didn’t have the greatest handwriting. At least for him, the saying that a doctor’s handwriting as being poor held true. I probably got those writing genes from him and somehow those trumped my mom’s great ability to write cursive. Oh well.

My other excuse is that I’ve been using an Apple IIe, Mac Plus, etc…since the mid-1980s and my primary means of communication continues to be of the typed variety. Writing cursive is a skill that was abandoned by me early in my writing career. No practice, no learned skill. I accept that.

I’ll be suitably impressed if those pesky characters we add to sentences go the way of the dodo. I have no plans to abandon them.

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Punctuation is the new cursive

2 Responses to “Punctuation is the new cursive”

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