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Opening Arguments

Write off

Is handwriting worth saving? Probably not, since is is simply "not the clearest way to communicate if expressing what you mean swiftly, and being understood, is your primary purpose." But we will be poorer for the loss:

Which means the only case for handwriting, at this point, is the nostalgic one—and it is not without merit. There remains something wonderful about receiving a letter that has been physically touched—actually crafted—by the hands of your correspondent. Perhaps the same people who sell handmade whatsits on Etsy as crocheted rebukes to the digital age will soon take up calligraphy en masse—and more power to them. I will certainly keep sending hand-written notes from time to time. But let’s face it: Cultivating fine handwriting is now an indulgence, a hobby for the aesthetically minded, like knitting, or decoupage. Our children must learn to write in school—but they probably don’t need to write that well.

We will be (and should be) judged mostly by what we have to say in our written language, not how we actually get the words down. But there's a lot to be said for caring about more than the utilitarian.

Posted in: Current events

Comments

Harl Delos
Mon, 12/03/2012 - 8:25pm

When I was liitedto cursive, my writing was clunky. A portable Smith-Corona, which was a terrible kludge, got me a little better.  A Remington electric, and I was almost able to produce sentences with subject and verb.  A Selectric and I started to make sense in my writing. Computers made my writing better still.

But the doctor says I oughtn't sit up very much, because ut gives me edema.  I already knew I shouldn't; a screwed-up right hip only allows me to sit comfortably for about 20 minutes, and it takes a lot of hydrocodone to stretch that out to an hour, which the kidney doctor vetoes' he doesn't want me taking even aspirin.

I'm trying to train Dragon Naturally Speaking and I've got the feeling it's back to Smith Corona speeds.  If I can't get the words down as fast as I compose them, they all pile up in my brain and dreck results.

I  think I need a fleet of stenographers to take dictation for me.  That's what Jubal Harshaw resorted to.  But every time I google for "help dictation", I end up on sites with young ladies who seem likely to get me off track...

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