Happy New Year everyone! It’s National Trivia Day – did you
know there are more stars in the sky than there are specks of sand on earth? It’s
also National Book Blitz Month – have fun, everybody! And it’s the first Wednesday of the (first!) month, when IWSG
members convene through blogging, Facebook and Twitter to talk about whatever
is on our writing minds and agendas. See what we’re all talking about here.
A couple of weeks ago, Arizona announced plans to reinstate
Cursive Writing into school curriculums statewide. Since I had no idea it had
ever been dropped in the first place, I was astonished and disconcerted by the
idea of printed signatures – autographs? How
could something as personal as a signature be deemed unimportant? Without
knowledge of cursive writing, how would anyone be able to read the Constitution
of the United States?
Not that I’m what you’d call a ‘practitioner’ of cursive
writing myself. Frankly, my handwriting closely resembles the baffling
shorthand gibberish found on prescription slips dispensed at medical offices
everywhere. Instead, I rely on a works-for-me mix of both cursive and printing
when composing my most prolific grocery lists. And isn’t there just something so
satisfying about the act of handwriting itself?
According to relatively new (2014) evidence provided by a
panel of neuroscientists and psychologists, there are links between handwriting
and broader educational development that run much deeper than ever before
thought. Stanislas Dehaene, a French psychologist, suggests that “There is a
core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by
mental stimulation in the brain.”
No wonder I’ve never written a poem without a pen. However,
evidently this stimulation is remarkably reduced when typing. Ack! I can’t live without my keyboard! I
cry. But then, I’m not in middle school any more. So, what or who changed the
rules for the education (and mental stimulation) of children? It seems the creators of Common Core didn’t deem it necessary in the digital age! Thankfully, some rules are truly meant to be
broken ;-)
Which brings me to the question of the month: “What writing
rule do you wish you’d never heard?”
Since I should pick only one (grin) it would be that all proper names
must be capitalized, as in author names on book covers. Could this explain why Prince changed his name to a symbol for a time?
;-) Actually, it relates to me never
having mastered the art of capital cursive (there it is again!) letter Ds. You
might say writing my name in lowercase letters is my trademark, since grade
school. But I was advised in no uncertain and rather unkind terms (by a
publisher!) that it was unprofessional. Horse
Feathers! I say. What ever happened to creative freedom? Besides, I see the
use of lowercase names and titles everywhere. Should that have been a
deal-breaker?
How do you write your grocery lists? Could you live without
cursive writing? How about typing?
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| National Train Your Dog Month! |
