Disappearing handwriting
Resharing "Lost Art - Cursive writing and the tale of a returned letter"
First published December 12th, 2022, as a paid subscribers post.
My son's birthday was last month, and my mom - his "Gran" - sent him a birthday card well before the special day. But that card never made it to our home here in Southern California. Each day we looked for it and even went through old mail, hoping we had overlooked it. But the card was nowhere to be found.
About two weeks after his birthday, Gran and Pop sent a pic of the unopened card. It was marked, "return to sender, not deliverable as addressed, no such street."
The US Post Office had returned the letter to my parent's home.
Here's the rub - Gran had addressed the letter perfectly - and I mean perfectly. The address was absolutely correct and completely legible. And it was in the right spot, of course. The only issue (and I use the word “issue” with some reservation): it was written in cursive.
I've bragged about my mom's excellent handwriting before. She has perhaps the best cursive I've ever seen - each and every letter is textbook. Like seriously, textbook - her's could be used as a standard in classrooms across the English-speaking world. But that world is changing, and in one small but noticeable way, Gran's handwriting style of choice is becoming a thing of the past.
Young people today not only don't write in cursive, but they also can't read it.
We don't know why my son's birthday card wasn't delivered. It probably went through a USPS automated system that scans addresses, “reads” them and sorts the letters and parcels accordingly. So in this respect, I can see why the first automated pass rejected the card. But the notice on the envelope also stated, "sort in manual only no automation." Did they just skip this hands-on step and return it? Or did someone actually see the letter, couldn't read the cursive address and decided to send it back?
We can't know for sure what happened, but regardless, cursive doesn't seem to communicate as it once did.
I don't know how to feel about this. Sure, it's frustrating that Mom's perfectly addressed card was returned. My son was sure disappointed, and my parents were sad it didn’t make it in time. But change is inevitable, and there are tradeoffs in this increasingly digital world as we move into an ever-growing online existence. Kids today need to navigate the digital landscape, and keyboards and touch screens are the means to do so. Handwriting is secondary, at best. And cursive is all but unnecessary as a result.
Still, I can't help but feel saddened that cursive writing is disappearing. It's a thing of beauty when done well, a true art if there ever was one. And seeing an art form fade away - any art form - is disheartening.
And it’s not only the art that’s being lost. Think of all the history that will become inaccessible to so many. Old letters in family collections, for example. Who will read these in subsequent generations? Will missives stored in family attics - tales of bygone times - be inaccessible in the future? And will cursive and those who read it be limited to museums one day? Like Egyptian hieroglyphics, only trained specialists will be able to decipher cursive texts of old. And our past will grow darker as the light on this elegant communication form goes out.
Cursive - soon to be a lost art.
Until next time.
JRC
Excellent observation John. Cursive going the way of hieroglyphics is apparently inevitable though it never crossed my mind before. Perhaps because I’ve always been pathetic at it. My handwriting is illegible, even to me. That said, my printing is not much better, but readable, barely. Having been in the computer/mobile tech industry since the late 70’s I’m a proto-digital native who’s always been personally grateful for stuff that let me skip cursive communication though, as you point out, it’s sad to see an art form slip away. I’m also assuming this is a global situation. Perhaps there’s a bright side as technology makes global communication easier. We can only hope.